Oh it is still WIDELY used. Glad to hear at least one club walked away from it though, that’s great!
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Check out Luke Gingerich. He’s quite good, and very ethical. His latest palomino filly he trained with no saddle or bridle or anything at all on her just to see if he could, I still don’t think she’s ever had a bridle on (he can’t show her bc of that but they do a lot of exhibitions). Dan James is pretty good and isnt a lot of high pressure either. There are more but these are two that pop into my head first.
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I would like to say that a lot of the barrel racers I know can’t stand starfishing. It doesn’t make the horse go faster and it actually impedes the speed. I’m sure there are some at the top now that still get away with it, like some show jumpers get away with horrid positions, but it’s definitely not the “ideal”. People cheer for the horse and rider effort and to bring them home, they don’t cheer for the starfishing itself.
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I was just thinking of that filly while I was cleaning stalls. She was lovely, and definitely put on an amazing performance.
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Just went to our local rodeo held during fair week. I hadn’t been to the rodeo in like 10 years and I was surprised to see literally no one starfishing or hitting their barrel horses. Excellent run times too, btw. Seem many can chasers have finally figured out horses will run better if not being punished for it, lol
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Ok…could someone please explain what the term “starfishing” means? Before someone slams me, I looked and Google is no help. A barrel racing forum was no help.
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Look up “barrel racing starfishing” to get results. They’re trying to get the horse to run faster but just end up flopping around and getting in the way, also spamming into the horse’s back.
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It’s that riders legs wide open thing resembling a starfish but with less “legs”.
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I thought I had but obviously not.
Thank you both. Ok…I get it. Call it a synaptic void, but for some reason the image I had was of a sea horse.
So yes…I can now see how a starfish resembles a barrel racer.
But I can’t ever imagine why someone would think that flopping around on a horse’s back would make the horse run faster.
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Jaysus - is that ‘lovely’ lady top left also using a crop swung from above her head?
All of that looks like the least skilled riding I’ve ever seen - and I’ve seen video of The Maestro. 
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It’s could be a piece of lariat type rope though normally not as stiff as that, that a lot of them use instead of a crop, though it might be since the rope is usually wrapped around the horn.
ETA: It’s been too long since I’ve watched barrel racing. They come in lots of options now, known as an over and under.
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Maybe is a womp (sp?) It’s an over/under long ropey leather cropish leather flail thingee. It’s not fast and usually easier to just use on the run home.
From the videos I see more and more barrel racers seem to be staying from hand or horn held whippy things.
I suspect, like most trends, starfishing started because of someone who had a non-traditional style who for whatever reason was winning despite it. Then people start initiating it and before you know it you’ve got people imitating sea creatures on a horse. I’m always amazed that people want to be out of the tack that far (in show jumping too). I feel quite sure that I’d land somewhere not on top of the horse. But that is just me.
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Yep, that’s star fishing. I don’t know if there are regulations on spurs and many use over and under whips as well. Very harsh. It goes without saying that there are great riders who barrel race who don’t spur and whip the hell out of their horses but the double standard isn’t lost on me. Also, the CD story has now appeared on everyday, local news - according to Google news search, every major news network as covered her story. I cannot remember the last equestrian to do that, not even trainers who committed heinous crimes such as abuse of minors, etc. I’m not saying that CD is justified and should whip horses, that is clearly wrong. But much of this feels like less than genuine concern for horses (since we are turning a blind eye to other rampant abuse) and much more like a witch hunt.
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Witch hunt? Nope. You’re too close to the flame. You can’t see the bigger picture.
It just comes down to this: Right before the greatly anticipated Olympic Games a former gold medalist, top of their game, someone favored to win again, was exposed via a supremely timed released video.
That video showed the prolonged “whip attack” by the gold medalist on a horsey who had seemingly committed no crime.
Whipping to keep a lion from eating an infant would be understood. Whipping to a background of giggles upon a horsey who had done nothing wrong by a gold medalist is abhorrent.
If the gold medalist does this do they all? Was PETA right?
PETA the extremists who want horses never to be ridden again is the same PETA I found I relied upon just yesterday when I went to buy makeup and wanted to know which brands were not tested on animals. All my products were endorsed by PETA.
When that happens it leads to trusting PETA, an organization we all know sucks butt. But here I was trusting them for that certification.
So get ready for the public to further support PETA, those “only” people who protect the horsies from those mean, greedy, horsey exploiters who whip their way to medals while they giggle. Do not understate the additional impact of that giggling and note how many people mention it… even here on CoTH.
IMHO there just may be no coming back from this for horse sport. Now EVERYBODY knows and they are spreading the word in news media EVERYWHERE.
Given the universal abuse of horses in every industry, equestrians will NEVER be believed to be good guys again.
We did it to ourselves. If we don’t police ourselves, someone else will. And top sport just gave PETA the badge to do it.
Notice how PETA was able to persuade and speak to Olympic officials?
That one giggle whip video changed everything. And now, there’s no going back.
Ringling Bros, in the face of controversy eliminated elephants from their shows. Elephants had been part of their logo.
Circuses no long have lions & Tigers & bears (oh my) as their logos either.
SeaWorlds logo was always “Shamu the Orca”. Out comes the movie Blackfish and that’s gone too.
No way Olympics will keep horses if this is the trend.
We screwed.
Thanks, Charlotte.
The big guys know. They’ve talked to people. Just watch what Hester does. He knows, too. That’s why he felt he had to quasi toss Charlotte’s ass under the bus.
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I’m going to disagree with this. I think it all comes down to CD having the very bad luck of having her video released at the time it was released. She got outted days (a day?) before the Olympics and withdrew from the team, so that was prime time to pick up any Olympic-related news. Then there’s the fact that it happened in a country where horse-related stuff hits the news vastly more than in most other countries.
It was a perfect storm of bad behaviour + timing of exposure wrt the Olympics + coming from a nation that covers horse sports regularly (and has a history already of nationwide coverage of things like fox hunting controversy) = much more coverage.
I wish the Helgstrand and Parra whistleblowers had waited for the same timing TBH. They would have gotten much more exposure and they were far worse actors.
But a witch hunt is a campaign against a person holding unpopular or unorthodox views and that’s not what CD is. The sad thing is she seems to hold views very popular and common among people of her profession despite her claiming otherwise. The fact here is not that CD is being unfairly judged and punished; it’s that the others were not given the exact same scrutiny and consequences.
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I agree and have felt so all along.
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You make an excellent point.
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I think the accurate description here is that CD is being made a scapegoat, not that this is a witch hunt.
There are many others like her and worse than her who deserve at least the same level of exposure. Sadly, she got the bad luck of timing and the coverage rendered her a very convenient scapegoat for people who do the same and worse.
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I think you’re conflating two things. The reaction of those outside the horseworld and that inside the horseworld.
The general public is upset about CDJ because CDJ was a heroine to people outside of the equestrian disciplines in the UK. That’s why it made the news, as well as being right before the Olympics which is a very big deal ™.
The US doesn’t have any equestrian heroines that are name brand outside of the equestrian community, so it’s hard for us to picture. But it would kind of be the equivalent of a Tom Brady, Tiger Woods or a Peyton Manning…a household name in sports. Someone that everyone knows, even if they don’t know a thing about the sport.
The general public also gets this upset about racing, which they do not understand in the least, because PETA told them so. They get this upset about any sort of gaited horse because they can’t tell the difference between the gaited breeds, and PETA told them that soring is bad and they associated it with the wrong thing (the gait…instead of the actual abuse that takes place in padded walkers).
That is what caused the news etc - it wasn’t equestrians, it was the general public. They don’t know a thing about anything that we do, but they do know that what she did was bad, and they are calling it that. Because the news told them to.
Inside the horseworld is a little different.
Those of us who do dressage are upset about CDJ because CDJ was “one of the good ones” in our eyes. People guessed that Parra wasn’t nice, and weren’t at all surprised about Helgstrand but WERE suprised by CDJ. Myself included. She used to be the person I wanted to emulate when I needed to pick my hands up (not to have her hands, but remember to pick them up) because I have short upper arms and a long torso, so my mental picture was “ride like Charlotte” because otherwise I have a tendency to let my elbows get long and stiff. Now…not so much.
Those OUTSIDE the discipline but still horsepeople, were like, well dressage is finally getting it’s comeuppance after acting like jerks about our tools and riding for years.
I’ve got my tentacles in a lot of different disciplines and inside each of them are people who are trying to make progress to make things better for the horses. I see progress everywhere, from the bits that get recommended, to the training methodologies. It’s just slow, and not overnight.
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