I hope that anyone who is at all unsure about how to act at any event in the US (or anywhere) has read this thread and the Fair Hill thread, and that you “get” the takeaway: please put your horse’s welfare, well-being, and treatment FIRST.
That is all you need to remember. If you do that you will not have 68 pages of comments written about you. And gee whiz you might learn how to be a passable horseman in the process.
At least ONE of the “continuing after 3 refusals” is an error - there were NO refusals, so do not necessarily take the information as accurate.
Actually the take-aways are:
pretty much anything goes if you are winning
align yourself with powerful movers-and-shakers if you are going to be abusive
have grooms with black towels and golf carts ready to mask any evidence of abuse
come up with inventive ways of masking the abuse, such as novel equipment choices and long explanations with the right key words. This would preferably be coupled with #2 above if you plan to get away with it.
I’m sure there are others, but that’s a start.
Oh, I forgot the Canadian version of the horse welfare question:
don’t use horse welfare as an excuse to sit out selection trials, if you plan to be selected without having to first go through the Court for Arbitration in Sport
if however you sit on the selection committee, it is perfectly ok to claim horse welfare as a reason to remove someone from the team, even in the absence of any proof of a horse welfare concern
never let horse welfare concerns get in the way of everyone having a great time and showing off the sport of eventing at the Royal while competing for prize money
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