Which would be in the 60’s and 70’s and pretty much irrelevant to what we’re discussing, unless you happen to know she was abusing or neglecting animals back then.
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You’re the one who said she appeared out of no where, not too long ago. And no one knows much about her. That is just not true.
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Has VHSA or anyone associated with them spoken out about her? Or is the good ole boys club silent on the matter.
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No, she showed as a Junior as Byrd Gunter. She dropped “Martha” way earlier. But it’s a VERY Virginia thing to use a family name rather than a Christian name.
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Ah I was going by legal docs. She was legally Martha for a while into her adulthood but no longer. And guilty as charged, my son has a first name no one uses and a middle name he goes by a version of.
Nope. She’s 58, graduated HS in ~82. Might have shown short stirrup in the 70s, but surely not in the 60s.
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I’m saying that she appeared out of nowhere, as in no apparent personal or professional involvement in horses, until the past several years, when she shows up with her horse retirement scheme, local horse show stuff, and involvement with local Hunts. Anything before that is unknown to anyone who doesn’t know her from the old days, like you seem to. The Facebook discussions are filled with people who don’t know of her and a small few who do and have known about what she’s been doing for what seems to be at least a decade or more.
She got her pink slip from VHSA. The few who are coming forward about what she’s apparently been doing for years, are saying that she’s had a support system of well-known professional and social endorsers in place to pull off what she was doing and that public discussion was always shut down.
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She was removed from the list but has anyone said anything? Is anyone speaking out? The silence is deafening and there are many big names quietly defending her.
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If anyone is defending her, they are likely doing it in private, as the knives are out in the past few days. The only person I saw named in the discussion I skimmed over is apparently a known lawyer and ardent supporter of hers.
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The others have since deleted their posts. I was hoping a board member from the associations would have the balls to put their foot down.
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Except you did say she appeared out of no where, right here in this post. A few people right on this post are telling you you’re wrong. Why don’t you believe them?
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At this point, the only thing that can happen is a criminal investigation and Safesport sanction, neither of which might impede her in the long-term, unless she faces serious criminal and financial punishment. From the look of things, she’s at the point where she can sell the farm and just move further into Hunt Country and be back to what she was doing in a few years or get a small farmette for herself and a horse or two, unless she gets taken down by the law. It seems that her setup only works on paper because her boys do much of the work and they are moving on to other things in life.
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VHSA removed her from the list. I don’t know why her name was taken off the list, but it was.
VHSA has not made a statement and I haven’t seen anything from the board members. Probably wise to play it safe until charges or convictions come about.
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Because she did appear out of nowhere. I’m reading the Facebook discussions. You should look there and see what’s being said. Most people - including locals who live near her - have no real idea who she is or what she was up to. Only a few people with firsthand knowledge of her have spoken there and said they have known about her and what’s been going on there for some years now and that it’s been kept quiet and covered up, by prominent names and friends, who have been sending her business for a long time. You and others keep saying she was front and center and involved in one thing or another as a Junior or young adult pro, but that was many many years ago and anything she’s done recently has pretty much gone unnoticed outside the social circles she’s in. Her “rescue” has been running quietly and under-the-radar for over a decade and possibly much longer, if the firsthand statements are accurate, yet nothing was in public record until mostly the past few years, which is apparently the same with her other activities, yet some people here are saying she’s been participating and involved for years and is “well-known”.
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It’s not a rescue at all. The foundation was founded in 2022 according to state documents.
I have shown with her and know her personally, though I never went to her farm. Her horses always arrived at shows groomed to the nines and well fed. She’s a huge advocate of George Morris and has ridden with him many times.
She did like to lecture people on her superior program but that is not uncommon in the horse world. She judged several series around the state was actively competing through 2019.
From the outside looking in, you would have never suspected this was happening at her farm.
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I know it’s not a “rescue”, but I was using the word in the sense that she promoted it as “rescuing horses” by giving them a comfortable place to spend their remaining years, instead of wallowing in who knows what, after their best years are gone. Now that people know and are talking about it, it will hopefully be shut down.
Did you know that she has one of George’s old saddles and got it autographed?
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Not surprised. She’s firmly in the “I Stand with George” camp.
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Yes. I saw that. She is definitely a fan of his…
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How can anyone be a decent human being and defend George?
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