Over the years, there have been more than a few people who stabled next to her, or were officials at FEI events that have posted about questionable behavior and empty tubes of calming products and her vet being barred from the FEI barns in Kentucky during an event. Even without the bloody mouths on multiple horses, her reputation is not squeaky clean.
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This is so true.
Straightness is everything with a keen, fast horse. If you have one who is a good eventing jumper (not the same as a good showjumping jumper), they will almost always have good balance in the gallop.
What the rider needs to understand - and I have had two horses like this who were very, very good eventers but quite frankly scared the crap out of some well-known riders - is that this type of horse is ‘rateable’ only in terms of a horse-favorable negotiation. If the horse is straight and honest, you should be fine. If the horse is not straight, either get it straight or get rid of it. If the horse isn’t honest, it’s your choice to deal with that.
But you need to let a forward-thinking horse go forward and you need to understand that you have to trust the horse at times, even when you might not be so comfortable with it.
And again, a horse like this is not for everyone and really, many riders will just say it’s not in their comfort zone.
I’m not sure what ML’s horse is. No horse will thrive under a strung-out gallop followed by a series of almighty yanks three strides out from a jump. Has anyone see the way this one went in Europe, pre-ML?
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If they are officials by the FEI they are not full fulling their obligation as officials not doing anything but spreading gossip…
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FEI officials should lose their jobs if they are spreading gossip. Which is all this is until she’s tested and found guilty. She must be a special person to be paying off judges to buy dressage points, drugging her horses, and getting away from all those yellow cards she appears to deserve. I don’t agree with some of her choices but this is quite a stretch that she’s getting away with all of this.
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These events have been witnessed and documented. You can do a search on this board and you’ll learn a lot, especially if you have a mind that’s open to facts that don’t fit with your agenda. Her vet (or ex-vet’s, he was struck off) shenanigans are well-documented in court and other public records.
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Yet despite all the witnesses and documentation she hasn’t been caught doing anything by officials. I doubt there’s a giant conspiracy at work here. And why is she the only eventer who’s getting caught by the public doing all these illegal things to give her an advantage? Everyone else good as gold huh?
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Not sure what you’re saying here.
The bloody mouth incidents were seen by officials. In fact, they were seen by everyone with working eyes. Are you saying the bloody mouth incidents didn’t happen?
ML has acquired a few yellow cards for rules infractions. You can look those up with the FEI. Again, this just cuts against your statement that she ‘hasn’t been caught doing things by officials’.
As for your desire to bring ‘everyone else’ in to the conversation, this thread is about ML. We’ve had other threads about various rider infractions and even a series of posts (by yours truly) just going through the yellow card list and highlighting the odd/bad/hilarious ones.
It’s fine that you want to stand up and support ML. You’ve said before that you’re concerned that her feelings might be hurt. Compassion is always a good thing. But please temper your desire to offer support with a dose of reality.
Also, you seem to be saying that illegal activity must be ‘caught’ by ‘officials’ to be considered illegal activity. In other words, it’s legal unless you get caught by officials. Really? Do you really feel that way when it comes to horses?
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Nope, Stuart Black is another bad boy :lol:
Do people really think powerful people cant get away with stuff? Hello Epstein?? You don’t think money, big money, and connections can get an infraction or a bad behavior ignored like it never happened, and a “hide it better next time?”
Seriously, look at the powerful men being taken down who got away with a hell of a lot worse for a long time. Cosby, GM, RG. To think officials can not be swayed is ridiculous! Hell look at the FEI Showjumping Olympic point fiasco! Equestrian sport is not free from corruption, not even close.
I’m not saying this is the case for ML because I don’t know all the details of these things, but I do know ML is very close to a few in very high positions in the High Performance eventing world. Close enough that these things if they happened could be brushed aside. Again I do not know if it happened, but it certainly wouldn’t be that shocking if it did. My opinion only.
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I’m pretty sure I said nothing like that and you know it.
I think suggesting that the officials are being swayed to ignore things that the general public finds easily is ridiculous. Horse welfare in eventing is a big deal, and to ignore one particular rider because that rider has some sort of special in is a giant conspiracy theory that doesn’t help the sport.
To slide in and say “I’m just saying” that “people have said” does us no favors.
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So then, what’s your take on the Amy Tryon/LeSamurai incident?
In sport - not just equestrian sport - there are loads of cases of officials not enforcing their own rules even when the infraction is clear to any sentient being. In every international sport organization, officials are under pressure to enable the various powers in the sport. For example, it’s blatantly obvious and there’s considerable evidence that a superstar is doping but the omertà in the sport prevails over the rules. As with Lance Armstrong in cycling but you can find versions of this - officials knowing they have to look the other way - in just about every organized sport.
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In all I can only find one Yellow Card pinned on her which dates from 2013.
Incorrect behaviour / leaving the venue after a fall without submitting to the examination by Official Medical Officer
On top of that there is a verbal warning, also from 2013.
Abuse of horse / excessive use of bit after jumping
That being said.
There are a lot of Ground Jurors out there that are not suitable to have any official assignments what so ever. I’ve for one seen three horses with nosebleed during junior Euros not being stopped in xc and moving in to the medal spots. And I was also at Boekelo when the bleeding mouth of MLs horse wen’t public and nothing happened.
So for sure there are issues in the sport that needs to be dealt with but I also don’t believe the one rider can be so diabolical she would get away with just anything.
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And yet this one rider is the only rider whose horses routinely have bloody mouths.
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If you believe Horse Twitter, saying ML is “in bed” with high ranking officials and figures in eventing isn’t a metaphor. Also, she tends to favor events where Christian Landolt is the POGJ, and he’s looked the other way for many years when it comes to her. Plus, riding horses owned by one of the main benefactors of high performance eventing could make officials reluctant to censor her.
It doesn’t have to be a grand conspiracy involving many under the table payments or blackmail. Just a few people deciding to look the other way.
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Another example:
At the Hong Kong/Beijing Olympics in 2008, an emergency meeting was convened between the FEI dressage judges and IOC officials.
The reason for this was because the results on the scoreboard did not reflect what the spectators were seeing.
The FEI dressage judges made some statements about how things were supposed to be a certain way. Even the IOC - among the most corrupt organizations ever - was dubious.
There are many other examples of this in Olympic and elite sport. Think figure skating and the notorious French judge. Or the entire taekwondo competition at Beijing, which resulted in sweeping scoring changes in the sport.
If an official wants to keep their position and get invited back to the prestige events, they will be cognizant of what the powers want and they won’t stray too far from that.
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Just know a rider has bloody mouthed horses again and again. I also see a defensive rider on x-country. Yet she skirts the blood rules. No one would have a problem with ML if she didn’t have bloody mouthed horses. I think that’s what y’all are forgetting in your support of her.
I also have been grooming for horses stabled next to hers and I think she’s not a good human.
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On a different note…you can temporarily and/or periodically bit up just a bit. Two options are - bit up only when in the environment where needed. For example, my previous mare started to pull down out on cross country, especially in competitions. This would cause her to end up on her forehand then refuse jumps because she wasn’t set up for it, despite my attempts to readjust. She regularly went in a snaffle. I switched to using a boucher (just a bit more leverage, especially in competition. I used it for a few schoolings but then started just using it in competitions and the result was that I never had to bit up any more than that and she started to pay attention.
If it is outside in general, you can bit up for a week, then start switching the snaffle back in. This sometimes works to get the horse to understand to not run through the aids. Some horses will figure it out and go well in a snaffle, others won’t.
Another option, that I use with my current mare, is to keep her focused on me so we do dressage or dressage-like movements out in the open - especially flexing left or right. It helps keep her focus on me and not the horrid monsters out there (like Amish buggies). She has gotten much better over the years but our availability to go hacking is being cut back due to land use.
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To my knowledge she has no USEF or FEI drug violations recently or related to this horse, so unless someone has actual factual evidence that she IS drugging her horse, there’s far more evidence to support “she isn’t” than “she is”. That kind of allegation is pretty serious against ANY rider when there’s no clear and substantiated evidence to back it up. The whole “you don’t know that” argument goes both ways.
Over the years, there have been more than a few people who stabled next to her, or were officials at FEI events that have posted about questionable behavior and empty tubes of calming products
For as much as I dislike crap like Perfect Prep, to be fair 1) nothing in it is in the prohibited substance list 2) SO MANY PEOPLE are using that stuff, at every level of the sport. She certainly wouldn’t be anywhere near the only one worthy of that criticism. 3) those pastes don’t really do much of anything. Of all the things that are damaging to ML’s reputation (and there are many), that one doesn’t really rank for me, nor does it lend credence to speculation that she was using illegal drugs at the Showcase.
I’d love to have a larger conversation about this issue of calming pastes, actually, because IMO those calming pastes DO violate the spirit of the rule, which says “Any product is prohibited if it contains an ingredient that is a prohibited substance, OR is a drug which might affect the performance of a horse and/or pony as a stimulant, depressant, tranquilizer, analgesic, local anesthetic, psychotropic (mood and/or behavior altering) substance, or might interfere with drug testing procedures.”
I had the same opinion about depo before it was banned. Yet people use those calming pastes (in every discipline, including eventing) like they’re going out style, and no one says a word. People are even sponsored by Perfect Prep and Nupafeed and the like, it’s not exactly behind closed doors. I don’t quite understand how using those isn’t a blatant violation as well. But that’s a much larger discussion than ML, since she would only be one of a great many in that scenario.
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’"Im not sure what ML’s horse is. No horse will thrive under a strung-out gallop followed by a series of almighty yanks three strides out from a jump. Has anyone see the way this one went in Europe, pre-ML?"
If you look up her record I think she had been eliminated three times in a row-pre-ML and had been off a year. That is why I suggested RL Farm is picking up horses that maybe should not be event horses.
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Don’t forget her yellow card from WEF in 2017 for having a groom try to bypass secure stabling procedures.
I don’t buy her explanations for any of the stuff she’s been caught and sanctioned for. Actions speak louder than words and I do believe there’s fire behind all the smokescreens.
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Have you looked up the horse’s record on USEF website? Horse is an Oldenburg BTW. Horse seems to have a pretty darn good record. Marilyn and the Manders imported the horse in 2014, and “Kitty” had not completed an FEI event. Not so great at SJ but I’m speculating that the SJ was for schooling and would be competing against SJ not to mention those flatter cups used in jumper classes . My search went from 2015 - present and showed plenty of top finishes.
I’m cannot comment on her personal life as don’t know the woman, but since she and I are both from Maryland, I’ve been familiar with her since she was a Jr. rider. FWIW she pretty much was riding en utero with her mother being a GP rider (and representing USET some 7+ times) she grew up fox hunting, was in pony club, a top pony hunter rider, went on to Jumpers and started competing in GP by age 17. She was youngest rider (18) to ever represent the U.S. Equestrian Team on a Nations Cup Team Tour in Europe When I went to then Rolex, she had 2 horses finish in the top 10 (5th & 6th) which is no easy feat - and that was when she was still fairly new at the game. So given her experience and her horse’s natural talent for dressage I don’t think it’s too far fetched to see a good score from her. It’s not like the pair are inexperienced and I seem to recall them usually scoring high in dressage but chalking up time faults XC? (which may be why they’re look more erratic recently) Though having a horse with a knack for dressage doesn’t lend itself to salacious chatter and gossip.
(Note: information about her background is from the Equiery and USEF horse search).
I think some of the criticism of her is fair, some however, is not.
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