7 and 8 years ago? And we know that Epona is generally “out to get” modern dressage. I AM NOT CONDONING THIS>
1 Like
Epona is right.
6 Likes
The comments about one of Helgstrands trainers came up on the Michael Barisone thread where the infamous Lauren Kanarek of 48 Hours fame was shown in a video riding a horse in a dressage lesson with the trainer using a bizarre homemade tie down.
The video was discussed in light of LK’s current lawsuit stating she has suffered major loss of riding ability since being shot at MBs farm three years ago, and her rather contradictory social media claim that she is fully recovered and riding at a very high level.
The consensus was that she was exaggerating both her riding level and her long term disabilities. The comment on the peculiar tiedown led to discussion of German training gadgets.
It seems that trainer has returned to Germany and is no longer coaching LK.
8 Likes
Investment and revenue? I have no doubt its a money maker, and could be marketed world wide-er.
Wow, xenophobic much? Why would we have to learn “some european language” to post? Where does that kind of bigotry come from?
35 Likes
I’m decent on 3 European languages so I’m 
16 Likes
This is the same woman who was apoplectic that the instructions for her new watch included languages and even alphabets she didn’t know. She was rather eleventy over the whole thing.
31 Likes
wow, not surprised with that attitude! Very Trumpian.
8 Likes
Please leave his name out of it.
10 Likes
Well, in the American South you hear the expression “out of” a place meaning “situated in.”
Telephone call: “I’m Joe Smith out of Memphis, Tennessee.”
I liked it as a regionalism.
19 Likes
Interestingly, Helgstrand and Bellissimo do not appear to be strangers in business. This must be part of a long-range plan together.
this article is from 2021
2 Likes
I agree about Epona but it’s not just them. It was widely captured and widely reported at the time. These are just two instances but there are more. How many would be acceptable to you?
10 Likes
I agree. I’m just not understanding the initial reaction that the new buyers will shut the boards down and change the print magazine to be totally euro centric. That would be a very strange thing to do. It makes a lot more sense to buy something because you think it’s a viable money maker as it is and because you want to access the market it already has.
19 Likes
Well, it makes the “what do the boards mean to you!” Queries make sense. Polling to see if it’s worth keeping them - or if they can be monetized perhaps?
31 Likes
But he will no doubt be back in Wellington for the winter. It remains to be seen if he will resume teaching LK, and if so, will they still resort to that particular tie-down to keep the horse’s face on the vertical. And for the record, I don’t care who she trains with, but I hope she has made enough progress with her riding that she won’t need to rely on such mechanical aids.
That said, it also remains to be seen if the new owners keep the COTH business model, and in particular, the forums. If they are making money via ads, then they will probably keep them but I expect they may tweak things to have more of an international slant. And they may make other changes such as requiring a paid membership, using machine scanning to vet posts before publishing them to the forums, maybe getting rid of the CE forum, splitting H/J since the Europeans don’t do hunters, etc. I also would not be surprised if they start cracking down on provocative or controversial posters and threads by banning posters and scrubbing threads that result in floods of flags to moderators or subpoenas related to litigation or criminal acts.
I do hope though that they don’t jump in and IMMEDIATELY start making drastic changes so our brains have time to adjust to the idea that a new owner usually means new rules.
12 Likes
Well stated.
Whoever is in charge will as always need to curb the more unfortunate ways some discussions take, just as they did before, as they do now.
The main constant in our realities is change, this one more.
well once the new owners find out that about 50% of the traffic on this board has been regarding Michael Barisone there might be buyer reject
One of the reasons they made the purchase was "CoTH has an extensive social media footprint as well as one of the largest online audiences in the industry "
But really is just a shadow of its former self when there were 6,000 active posters
12 Likes
Once upon a time, there was this thing called… “facebook.” and/or twitter.
(They aren’t talking about the forums when referencing social media or online audiences.)
5 Likes
I was involved with at least six companies that were purchased by Europeans …no changes were made. From what I have seen the business markets in Europe are pretty restrained by the governments while here business is almost a wild west venture…also the US companies purchased make up the majority of the European parent company’s profits
8 Likes
Well you can all come on over to Definitely Dressage. Still based in the US.
16 Likes
