The hashtag doesn’t bother me as much as the “post your Instagram glamour shot!”. Feels like Make It About Me attention grabbing. I thought Boyd’s post of just the tag (it may have been PD but I’m 99% sure it was BM) was classy. I also think there’s a difference between a nice, thoughtful tribute post and a random pic with just the hashtag. The latter seems disingenuous and a bit disrespectful.
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I saw McClain post just the hashtag and I agree about the riding photos it just seems weird.
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You’re right it was McLain. I went back and checked.
I think “should the show go on” is a hard question without a single yes or no answer.
In theory, no, a show shouldn’t go on after a fatality in the middle of a class.
But I don’t think that should be a blanket rule because there are shades of gray that complicate things. Like a bad injury— you don’t know in the moment if it’s fatal. No one should have to be playing diagnostician and guessing whether the show should be canceled or not.
I think you have to handle these decisions on a case by case basis. A life is more important than a show, but we also don’t want to set a standard that becomes too convoluted to uphold and creates confusion or anger.
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It’s not the recognition of the event on FB that I find tacky but the idea that what a grieving family would want mere days after losing a child is a bunch of strangers posting glamor shots of themselves. Not photos of her. Not some sort of fundraiser for charity. Not even just posting the tag with a comment to raise awareness about loss… but an excuse to post photos of themselves. How is the death of someone’s child honored by a stranger posting a photo of themselves and associating that with the tragedy? Taste is subjective, but I find that pretty tacky. She JUST DIED and I’ve seen no indication that her family supports this or finds any comfort in it.
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I find the glamour shots offensive. However, since my horse instagram is heavily populated by juniors and young adults who don’t know any better, it doesn’t surprise me at all. As a mother, I think the idea is idiotic, but Instagram is the last place I’d be if I found myself in this situation. I think it is impossible to comprehend how the death of a child would affect you without having experienced it. But when I imagine it, it is my worst nightmare in the most literal sense. For me, my life would be over. There would be no “peace” and f your prayers.
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I will admit that the original # campaign for Olivia Ingles was not a “glamour shot” hashtag, but a “ride for Olivia” one. I don’t think Instagram filters and influencer style were the rage back then, it was more just photos of people and their horses - a raise a glass style.
Definitely not “post your glamour shot”, if that is how this is being worded, yeah that’s tacky.
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IMO there’s a big difference between a random, tragic accident like this (horse simply tripped between fences) and a death potentially caused by some kind of issue with one of the fences. In the latter, then cancelling the rest of the class and removing the fence in question from further classes that day seems like a reasonable action.
But shutting down a whole show due to a really-bad-luck, unavoidable accident doesn’t seem necessary, and financially harms the rest of the competitors who paid for shipping, classes, stalls, drug-testing fees, etc. and then just had to go home. And I like the poster above that pointed out that continuing with the show allows each competitor to make their own decision about continuing.
But I am terribly, terribly sorry for the girl’s family. Nothing, including cancelling that show, would make them feel better at this point.
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Semi-related to this — I was a photographer at Jersey Fresh the year that Philippa Humphreys had a fatal accident. I was stationed at the fence before her accident, and (along with all the jump judges) heard everything happening over the radio. It was horrifying and I still think about it often all these years later.
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I think the personal photos/glamor shot combination with the hash tag started because those organizing the #rideforolivia campaign were asking people to do so, in order to create a massive photo collage of Olivia using people’s photos of them/their horses. A very creative and interesting idea to honor Olivia and her passion.
It’s happening now organically because people probably saw those posts and aren’t aware of the context or original request. Our opinion of it ultimately doesn’t matter. What matters is how it impacts the family and how they feel about it.
And as someone who has supported many grieving families after losses, I know that even discussion threads like this one can and will eventually find their way to family members. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions about safety or procedures, but in this case, it would be most appropriate to be done in a more hypothetical/general way.
Everyone, please be kind and respectful of the fact they just lost their loved one and leave the speculation of this specific incident to another time and place.
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I really don’t like an effort to try to make a blanket decision for every future tragedy. That will have very different circumstances from one to another.
Not everyone is required to feel the same way.
I really don’t like dumping every human into the same emotions basket. I don’t think it is right to issue these public judgments about decisions that were made at past tragic incidents. That a show should or should not have been cancelled. That people should have done otherwise than they did.
People handle things differently – can we let them?
As for this discussion, I wonder if we are not overly-influenced by the cancellation of the NFL game when a player died and was brought back to life, on the field of play. Everyone could see what was going on as it was happening.
Before that moment were we talking about cancelling?
The following weekend there was another very serious injury at an NFL game, a player was carted off on a stretcher with possible life-altering and potentially fatal injuries, and the game was not stopped. There was a little bit of internet opinion that it should have been. But not one player or participant wanted it to stop, including the injured player.
In a past incident of a youth death, that was a request BY THE FAMILY. The “glamour shot” is your words, not theirs.
Is their request ok with you? Or are you the emotional expressions monitor and judge for the world?
That is a personal take. Not everyone sees it that way, at all.
Why are we taking this opportunity to judge others emotional responses?
IMO this constant public judgment of how other people feel is the worst part of social media.
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It’s what we see all the time…very self centered on social media.
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So well said.
And let’s please not publicly judge others for their emotions, reactions, well-meaning efforts and how they responded to a past tragedy. They don’t need more on top of what they have already dealt with.
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Having competed both before and after fatalities (horse and rider), having been the safety coordinator for events where serious accidents occurred, I have come to understand that the idea to continue is very personal.
I don’t think there is any sort of winning for the competition management simply because the competitors have such a varied opinion.
When a horse died on course in my division a few minutes before I got on I cried in my stall and wished it would never happen again, but I still intended to ride. When a rider right after me was killed in a rotation at the last fence as I was walking off - I saw the whole thing, I spent the rest of the day consoling others, some who withdrew and some who continued.
In these cases, the management did what it could to accommodate each spectator.
Yes, riding horses is very dangerous regardless of what you do. We treat spine injuries from trail riders regularly. Top riders are killed or permanently disabled. And any effort to downplay or dismiss those risks is wrong. This is not a “Funtime” sport to be taken lightly as many who come in seem to want it to be. This is a blood sport with a long history of blood.
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For whatever it’s worth, I just scrolled through the hashtag on ig. The only rider I saw on horseback without a helmet was a western rider, and it wasn’t a glamour shot. Beacon Hill had a lovely shot of a rainbow over their arena. I didn’t see who started it, but I don’t think anyone specifically requested glamour shots only. It’s likely your feed is different, or maybe fb is different. It all depends who you follow and what the social media gnomes think you want to see.
Terrible, horrible tragedy.
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The family requested it so perhaps best we stop going on about how tacky it is? Not everyone grieves the same. If the family asked for it and to them it’s a nice way of seeing how many people are thinking about Hannah and a sign of solidarity, that’s all that matters here.
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What a horrible tragedy for that girl, and her family, and her close friends. While we all know in the back of our minds that riding horses has inherent risks, it is still a shock when someone dies in a riding accident.
I spent some time in the event world before switching to dressage some years back, and we certainly saw our share of bad accidents - and yes, even a few deaths, including one where a young (not novice) teen was killed in a lunging accident, and on a normally very safe, very seasoned, very reliable school horse. It’s bad enough when the accident takes place over a jump, but it is especially hard to comprehend when it happens in what is usually considered a much safer aspect of the sport. I am also reminded of how Olympic dressage rider Courtney King Dye suffered a serious, life-altering traumatic brain injury when a horse she was schooling AT THE WALK tripped and fell. And how another GP dressage rider, Silva Martin - wife of top international eventer Boyd Martin - suffered a brain bleed and seizure when a horse she was schooling tripped and fell. And there are many other incidents…
Riding horses is a high risk hobby and sport. That risk is something we all must face every time we climb in the saddle, and it is risk that families take when a loved one goes riding. That is the paradox of our passion for it. We know it is an endeavor fraught with high risk, danger, jeopardy - yet we love it so, we live it and breathe it, we cherish our closeness with the horses as much as life itself. So we take the risk.
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Someone on FB said it was a flat class? Any confirmation if it was or a jumping class?
I believe it was in the WIHS Equitation Jumper phase.
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This may start a firestorm of controversy but I wonder if financial considerations come into play when deciding whether to cancel or continue after a death or serious accident at a venue. Organizers and hosts spend a ton of money putting on these competitions. If they cancel a show after a bad accident, do they have to refund monies to competitors? What about vendors who may have paid for space for XXX amount of time? Will they want refunds? Or sponsors who put up thousands of $$$ to have their brand name displayed and promoted for the course of the show? Will they want a partial or full refund? What about judges the organizers have hired for XXX days? Will they want their full pay even if they don’t work the full gig? What about food vendors who have been contracted with to supply meals, snacks, beverages during the course of the show?
Everyone risks taking a hefty financial hit and if organizers take enough of a hit, they may end up in such dire financial straits that they decline to hold future competitions. I don’t know how much this kind of stuff impacts the H/J world, but in the eventing world, competition sites are being lost on a regular basis as facility owners and organizers realize they just can’t keep taking the financial hits anymore - and that is happening even for long-standing, well-run and well-attended competitions, and even when they DON’T have to cancel competitions due to accidents. No doubt about it - financial considerations are another sad aspect of this endeavor we love so much.
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