Has anyone read this before? It is a book / ebook available, published in 2022, but recently being talked about by some local facebook friends.
I bought the ebook version but am only at the first chapter.
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Is silly. Not going to read this.
Thereās lots of room for improvement in every horse sport discipline. Focusing on the Olympics is silly. Does author want to ban all horse competition across the board? Thatās not something I could support.
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I disagree. I think equestrian events should leave the OG; in fact, as our state is hosting the OG in ā32 much to horror of plenty of people (they are already trying to resume low-income housing for space) at a cost we cannot afford, I believe the OG should be disbanded in favour of sport-centric world championships. This was my view before I read the book (am halfway through)
I donāt believe in disbanding equestrian sports; however the author makes some good points: it is elitist, it doesnāt look good to UnHorsey Joe when a horse is belled for a bloody mouth or dies on XC regardless of the circumstances behind it, it is a playing field that is inherently unfair, and it is shining a spotlight on a sport that is struggling with a social license to operate.
Dr David Marlin does a great podcast about social license to operate; I believe he is on several FEI committees / boards, and I first saw the book referenced by a commenter on his FB thread.
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Ah the question of the OG is another total thing. I donāt really defend them. But everything you could say about horse competition generally is part of the same argument.
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The authorās theoretical beef is with the FEI kowtowing to the IOC, and relaxing standards in order to improve its image (i.e. reducing swabbable substances means less positive drug tests).
Why we want to eat our young over Olympic disciplines and āabuseā is a mystery to me, when there are actual, legitimate instances of abuse and cruelty happening in other horse sport (soring and chains on gaited horses, TB and STB racing anyone?). Not that Iāll pay any amount of money to read whatever this drivel is. Selling an āopen letterā on Amazon?
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I am reading it. It is written by an established and knowledgeable equestrian journalist, and it is an eye opener. you can deride it as āsillyā or insist that you arenāt going to read it, but unless you have read it, you are just making noise-you donāt know what you are talking about. There is plenty in this book that you might disagree with in regard to horse abuse, but that is not all itās about. There are plenty of other reasons to remove equestrian sports from the olympics-one reason being that it is an elite sport practiced almost exclusively in north america and europe, and is hardly āinternationalā (but I readily admit that you can take my opinion with a grain of salt becasue I donāt like the Olympics in general.) What is most disturbing are the attempts by riders and show organizers to silence those who object to some methods of riding and triaining, whether you think those methods are abusive or not. If they are not, though, the attempts to suppress depictions of them and publish photos and videos of them are somewhat puzzling.
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