Interesting! I’ve never looked things up on the US system. In the Equine Canada data base trainer is listed along with owner and rider. So you can search by trainer if you want to see how a whole group from one barn did.
I suppose even on EC it’s possible that the trainer on site isn’t the real trainer but at these local shows it invariably is.
Anyhow you could probably find her home barn easily enough with some sleuthing.
If that rider isn’t embarrassed about how she rides, she really, really should be.
I think she did a great job on the individual horses’ specific issues and broke them down well. I liked that she had a “less is more” approach and used other exercises to help fix problems, instead of just drilling the problem movement. I also really liked how she approached the young horse at the beginning when he was clearly (and understandably) anxious in that arena with the clapping, etc. and that she invited that rider to stay and use the outside of the ring to continue to school his horse in that environment.
My only critique would be if I were riding I would need her to explain more the “how” to do things, and not just keep reiterating things like “more round” or “more balance”, but then those riders were well beyond my level. It would have been nice for those of us attending, and aren’t riding at those levels to hear more detail, even if the demo riders didn’t need the explanation.
Same here!
It was such a short time, felt that she wanted to go into more detail! Really enjoyed the masterclass!
OK. It just seemed as if you weren’t aware of Mary’s position when you referred to her as “president” and didn’t qualify it. Of course she is a USEF official.:yes:
I agree with you, they were unfortunate rides. I hadn’t seen the worst of the two rides under discussion here until now.
I’m not qualified to judge why this happened nor do I attend or watch enough amateur dressage to know if it is a common occurrence at the level. I’ve never seen anything like it, but as I mentioned I don’t see that much to compare it to. I take it by the reactions here that it is not common.
I don’t know what to think. The rider is an amateur. It’s hard to imagine any trainer allowing this sort of ride to happen if they could in any way foresee it… I get that trainers need to make a living but that sort of thing can really ruin your reputation and I believe most trainers are aware of that.
Axel Steiner said it best, she was “unprepared” and that lands squarely on the shoulders of the trainer. I do understand that rider is an adult… Perhaps it was a "one off " of extreme show nerves?
Lovely horse though. I hope that lucky owner is able to spend some more time learning to partner him well and that this will become just a “bad spot” for them to move on from and put in the past. 
Well how about that? Someone has clout. That whole session she was riding in on Friday is gone.
I just watched it. It must have disappeared very recently!
Most shows don’t leave the playback up indefinitely…
The other two sessions from that day (Friday) are still there, as well as the other days.
Disappearing videos aside, this entire event has left me with a legitimate question: why do people enter shows if they ride like this?
“This” of course, being up for debate (she could have been having a worse day than typical, for example, maybe it was a combination bad-day/bad-mood/things seriously misfiring/whatever) but if people are willing to indulge in some lack of specificity on that regard…
I had a horse that was perfectly capable of going second. I hated our canter to walk transition. It was, on a good day, perhaps a six. On the crummy days, it was a four. There was very little consistency with it. I never showed second with him because I never wanted to go ride a test where I couldn’t stack the odds in my favor of us performing well. It wasn’t about “winning” for me, but I wanted to present the best test that I could ride on that given day, and I wanted that to be something that I could be proud of.
I (cheerfully) took a year off showing to work on improving things for that reason.
I assume with the scores someone listed earlier in the thread, the rider under discussion isn’t entering classes to win them. So if that’s not the case (“I WANT TO SHOW TO WIN!!!”) then I would be curious to hear people talk about the rationale behind entering classes/shows where poor rides occur.
Part of this is probably that I’m among the least competitive people I’ve ever known and my relationship to showing isn’t really a really passionate one, so it’s very likely that I’m overlooking something. What are people’s motivations for showing? Could they somehow be ascribed to explaining why this rider (and in the broader sense, riders with similar situations) continue to enter shows/classes that they seem underprepared for?
(And again, I disclaim: horses are horses. People are people. Consistency, as much as we’d like, is never going to be a guarantee and I understand that Bad Days Happen. But if someone’s poor performance at a show isn’t just a “bad day/bad luck” sort of thing…)
I follow a similar approach.
I like to show because it’s nice to have that score, validation, and/or feedback on my ride. It’s nice to show off all of the hard work and training. It feels good to get that good score. It also tests my horse in another environment. Right now I could enter a show and do fairly well, but our counter canter with this particular horse is not exactly where I want it to be, so I will school more before entering the show ring. I could present as is, and it’s not bad, but I know it’s not at our best. I want to show with confidence.
Others, well, maybe they want the “Prestige” aspect of high scores at higher levels. Just to show they can do it in whatever way possible.
When I use the link on this thread that I used to see the ride, I am now asked to log onto facebook (which I can’t do because I don’t use facebook) . It didn’t require that before.
The link still works for me, but I am a Facebook user.
ive seen this kind of behavior before, people who want to skip to the end, so to speak. And this lady has largely been able to do so, by buying really nice horses. But there is only so far that can carry you, and I think she is seeing the effects now. Whether she accepts them or not is a different story altogether. I’ve seen some people insist they were schooling third that I don’t think could ride an effective Intro level test. That particular individual rejected every trainer as being “inadequate” whenever they would point out that her Horse was just shuffling along, not on the bit at all.
I am disappointed that the judges scored it as highly as they did, although the Horse truly was lovely and maybe they were complimenting him.
to me the scores indicate systemic issues (going back to 2004 as I posted before), but this conversation is best suited to “in the moment” ideas like why scores were given for that ride.
Is this a failure to support horse welfare? Perhaps, if we don’t have tools to prevent that kind of riding maybe we can come up with something (new wording, more clear wording, etc) that would allow clear and quick action in the future when things are going south so quickly.
The removal of the video is further doing what I referred to in the article. Covering it up is worse than letting it happen, if you ask me- we take away good dialog and real change. Oh well.
I totally agree - I don’t think the removal of the video was a good idea for the sport. I found her ride from the day before and while it wasn’t as aggressive as the one that we are all horrified about, it was pretty bad. She has no business showing at that level or even riding those movements to be completely frank. And IMO, a 50% for that ride before she was eliminated is very high.
I saw the ride and also saw the previous (Thursday) ride. On Thursday, she looked overmounted and could not sit the trot, flailing hands, etc. But she was calmer and did not do the whipping and spurring seen in the Friday ride. It seemed that she was angry from the start on Friday and the ride was ugly in both an inept and a unreasonable punishment kind of way.
It would seem that she either needs, or needs to accept, better guidance with this talented horse. It looked like she was determined to “teach him a lesson” but her riding was causing far too many problems for her to take that approach.
I recall going to one of the first big dressage shows I attended at OxRidge maybe 40 years ago (yes, I’m old!) Warmbloods were still somewhat rare among local amateurs. I went and drooled over many gorgeous horses! There were a number of very rich amateurs, often thin young women mounted on huge (in all directions - old style heavy WBs) horses. A significant portion of these riders had great difficulty managing their mounts. Saw lots of bobbleheads and rough hands. Somehow they always seemed to be working with a male trainer with an accent! :winkgrin: Happily, over the years I saw less of this!
Only time I saw this much whipping and spurring was during the “Deep Years” when a regional trainer was roughly flexing and holding and spurring his horse in warmup.
She does one handed hit the horse once in the Thursday ride - at A and she does it with the outside hand. But the anger from the Friday ride wasn’t there.
Yep, it’s gone. I watched it last night a couple hours before it was removed so I still got to see it in all it’s horrible glory.
It just goes to show that money can’t buy class. She should be ashamed of her behavior and her treatment of that horse.
Having a number of people write / message the show organizers and ask why the video was removed might be a good place to start. I’m a bit torn on this because in general amateurs riding at a national show don’t deserve to be torn apart online for a poor performance, but I think we all agree this conversation is not about poor riding but poor horsemanship and poor judgement.
Oops, now it truly is missing. Wonder if I had a cached copy last time. That’s not cool. There were so many other lovely rides on that stream.
Being an amateur is ok. Having a little bit of a rough seat, ok. Whipping and spurring a horse who is doing his darnedest to keep you aboard is not cool. That may very well ruin that very nice horse. BigMama I agree that writing the show organizers is a good place to start.
So - what SHOULD our sport do when someone presents like this? How would you write that in the rules?
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