Just tell the kids to use "Perfect Prep"

[ToTheNines]

I want to add also that a lot of this is the new age that I call “knowing too much” as a result of comments on the Internet. Every day I read something about someone, usually on Facebook, that I wish I hadn’t heard. Usually it’s their politics, but it can be anything: animal rights, conservation, it goes on. You simply cannot expect to like everything you hear from people. It is like living with someone, you get to know them warts and all. I just ignore a lot of what I hear because I basically like the person.

For similar reasons, I think Mr. Gage should be given the benefit of doubt. And even more so because in his case, it may not even really any kind of policy or practice to use PP, just a casual comment. In other words, he may not have even really thought about what he was saying. Ya ya, I know he is a judge, the subject is a child, the rules are the rules, but pla-leeze! chill down a little.

[Ponytoes]

But what Mr. Gage did/said is exactly why the H/J world has such a bad rep. Do you think a top dressage or event trainer would of given this same advice? I don’t - cause to do well in those disciplines - you have to have hours in the saddle. But here is someone - that is talented, with a nice horse at a rated show and this is the advice they get. If he had said 10 other things that have been mentioned and then maybe the pp too - it wouldn’t look as bad - but THIS LOOKS BAD - that this is how he wants to fix this.

[dags]

[QUOTE=ToTheNines;7647709]
I want to add also that a lot of this is the new age that I call “knowing too much” as a result of comments on the Internet. Every day I read something about someone, usually on Facebook, that I wish I hadn’t heard. Usually it’s their politics, but it can be anything: animal rights, conservation, it goes on. You simply cannot expect to like everything you hear from people. It is like living with someone, you get to know them warts and all. I just ignore a lot of what I hear because I basically like the person.

For similar reasons, I think Mr. Gage should be given the benefit of doubt. And even more so because in his case, it may not even really any kind of policy or practice to use PP, just a casual comment. In other words, he may not have even really thought about what he was saying. Ya ya, I know he is a judge, the subject is a child, the rules are the rules, but pla-leeze! chill down a little.[/QUOTE]

But do you think perfect prep will help the situation, as per the video he was given to critique?

That’s my only pause here. Remove all PP legality/morality arguments from the question, was it even a worthwhile suggestion given the troubles said young rider inquired about?

[meupatdoes]

[QUOTE=Mimelny;7647622]
He did tell the rider to talk it over with her trainer.[/QUOTE]

OK, firstly, the exact words he used regarding the trainer were, “& you can tell him I said so,” which is not so much an encouragement to talk it over as it is to tell the trainer Rob said so.

Additionally, disagreeing with the advice somebody gave is not the same thing as attacking them as a person. In his response to the student, he misidentified a full cheek snaffle for a pelham and offered “natural supplement” advice rather than any riding suggestions whatsoever. Nobody has railed against the judge, nobody has attacked HIM, they have simply criticized THIS ADVICE. However, if you really think this advice is great, I will gladly make you a tape where I misidentify pieces of your tack and tell you to use perfect prep, and you can pay me $100 every time you play the tape. Rob Gage may be great most of the time, who knows, but Santa Claus and the Mother Mary could have given this advice and it still would be pretty bad advice, considering the number of better options that were available.

Thirdly, there are plenty of opportunities for him to make himself heard. There is a comment section on his own website, and the last time I checked COTH is free and open to all.

[AllisonWunderlund]

[QUOTE=CarolDPorter;7647645]
Everyone knows that better riding is always the answer. [/QUOTE]

But I believe the point of this thread is that this is not the advice the rider was given. And to assume that “everyone knows this” kind of goes against the purpose of a forum that was intended to provide tips to improve riding.

[vxf111]

I guess once you’re famous enough you don’t have to be right or responsible?

It’s one thing to say “mea culpa, that WAS bad advice and I posted too hastily” and another to say “I am too big, too important, and too much of a hero to be questioned or wrong.”

That’s not a pelham. That horse doesn’t need to be quieter. Perfect Prep, if given to calm, is not USEF legal. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s be wrong if the Queen of England said it.

[Ghazzu]

@CarolDPorter;7647645

Regarding the supplement “Perfect Prep”: this is sold over the counter at most tack stores. The active ingredient is Magnesium, which is a “SLIGHT” muscle relaxer when used orally at the dose in this supplement. There have been many many different supplements used for years. Some like Valerian Root become illegal. This stuff is completely legal and comparable to chamomile tea.

“for quick-acting, targeted calming effect” says the product’s own web page.

Actually, there’s more to PP than just magnesium.
Inositol, thiamine, tryptophan, and an unspecified mixture of B vitamins, depending on which version of the stuff you use.

You are fooling yourself if you think that simply because something is labelled as a “supplement”, that it cannot have pharmacologic effects.

BTW, in regards to chamomile, guess you hadn’t noticed that it is on the forbidden substances list…

[poltroon]

I love the idea of Judge My Ride and I appreciate that it is a volunteer gig. But, if it takes too much time and is too overwhelming to give quality responses, maybe the responsible thing is to do fewer critiques. George Morris’ Practical Horseman column was years behind, but he gave pretty serious, thoughtful advice that benefited not only the rider in the photo but everyone who read them. Maybe instead you should rethink Judge My Ride along those lines.

The advice given to this young rider was so IMHO terrible that I was wondering if maybe the column had been ghost-written. Rob Gage is a smart guy with a big toolbox; it shocks me that this was the best he had to tell her.

And then I thought, oh, the girl has previous videos, maybe I missed the earlier part of the conversation where he was more meaty with her.

Carol, you wrote comments to the girl that were clear and professional. Rob’s earlier comment to her was that she should try stickum to stay with her horse.

Now, I am not nearly as accomplished as Rob as either a rider or a trainer, but my trainers had me ride hundreds of hours without stirrups. They also put me through a lot of gymnastics to work on my position. And actually, they did both at the same time: no stirrups no reins through a gymnastic. I do not think that would have taken more time to write than stickum, and my trainers came from the same tradition as Rob did. I am curious as to why he made that recommendation, when from all appearances this young lady is very interested in learning true horsemanship rather than enough shortcuts to get her to a medal final.

A great approach to maybe provide higher quality responses to these videos while saving time might be to pre-create 20 or so responses with a suggested exercise to try at home. Let’s face it: as riders we’re not all that creative in our mistakes. So maybe you look at this girl and think, “If she were my student, I’d suggest working on shoulder-in” (or maybe it’s a specific gymnastic or cavaletti or a turning exercise, whatever) and you can prefill your response with that text, or with a link to that article.

Or, you could go another way and rather than give advice about what to work on, you could just give a numeric score of some kind with the kind of brief comments you might make on your judging sheet.

I think approaches like that would honor your time and expertise better and provide better guidance to the kids submitting video. JHMO.

[CarolDPorter]

[QUOTE=Mimelny;7647664]
they don’t usually block comments. did someone ask a follow up that did not appear? Carol will know, I will e-mail her. I hope Rob pops in here too.[/QUOTE]

Hey sorry for not including this in my earlier post. We have a super super heaviest duty caliber spam filter. We are under CONSTANT (not kidding) attack from spammers all over the world. I go in every day and manually “ok” the legit posts which ended up in the spam filter. Sunday and Monday I was swamped and didn’t get to it. I apologize for not okaying your post sooner. I once got annoyed at having to sort through the posts and turned off the filter. In 10 minutes we were under attack. Since January 1 there have been more than half a million spam attempts. So don’t get your feelings hurt if your post doesn’t show up right away. If I don’t find it, just email and I will fix! As soon as you mentioned, I went in and found the post & okayed your IP address.

[Coanteen]

[QUOTE=Ponytoes;7647752]
But what Mr. Gage did/said is exactly why the H/J world has such a bad rep. Do you think a top dressage or event trainer would of given this same advice? I don’t - cause to do well in those disciplines - you have to have hours in the saddle. But here is someone - that is talented, with a nice horse at a rated show and this is the advice they get. If he had said 10 other things that have been mentioned and then maybe the pp too - it wouldn’t look as bad - but THIS LOOKS BAD - that this is how he wants to fix this.[/QUOTE]

I agree, it’s the optics - and as someone who has never shown H/J but often reads this forum, there is already a lot of criticism of giving wins to horses of BNT’s, subjective judging, drugging, etc at the upper levels of the discipline.
Now you have what appears to be a well-known (or known enough) judge responding to a request for riding critique, a specific request for advice of how to pull the horse together, basically “Well you just relax him with this here juice, petite lady”.

In public.

That is just really, really bad optics.

[poltroon]

[QUOTE=CarolDPorter;7647844]
Hey sorry for not including this in my earlier post. We have a super super heaviest duty caliber spam filter. We are under CONSTANT (not kidding) attack from spammers all over the world. I go in every day and manually “ok” the legit posts which ended up in the spam filter. Sunday and Monday I was swamped and didn’t get to it. I apologize for not okaying your post sooner. I once got annoyed at having to sort through the posts and turned off the filter. In 10 minutes we were under attack. Since January 1 there have been more than half a million spam attempts. So don’t get your feelings hurt if your post doesn’t show up right away. If I don’t find it, just email and I will fix! As soon as you mentioned, I went in and found the post & okayed your IP address. :-)[/QUOTE]

No question, spammers just suck. They probably have the carbon footprint of a small nation, too.

[Mimelny]

[QUOTE=woodhillsmanhattan;7647674]
:lol: Definitely not a Foxtrotter! That could be amusing though.

Telling a kid that wants to work on herself and improve that the way to improving is to get a better/specialized horse is on par with telling someone to give a greenie Perfect Prep…basically after the video I was left with the same impression as I had before. Both suggestions may be useful. But both suggestions aren’t what I would expect to hear from a world class rider/clinician.

agreed on the Foxtrotter

Im glad you have a sarcastic sense of humor like I do. In that same vein am not sure what you think a big name trainer should tell a kid who wants to do the Eq’s? She’s not saying she wants to practice doing the Eqs in her mind. She wants to qualify for Maclay finals in her final year as a junior. Rob Gage gave her the chance to sit on dream horses and test and hone her skills to see if she had the intangibles to execute good riding on a capable horse. she passed that test. But as we know, she can’t do it on a broomstick horse. She 'll need a horse that can contend. That is reality. Not that you are suggesting this of course, but we all wish it could happen like the movies where an unknown kid can roll into Eq Finals on the wild mustang (they caught themselves and trained jumping over logs in a field of course) to upset the seasoned Eq kids. But that is a pipe dream.

I guess what I am referring to with all of this, is the fact that too many people think they have carte blanche to distort someone else’s comments. Some, not all are spinning a narrative that is of their own making. If we want to know what he meant lets let him respond.

[Mimelny]

I talked to a big name Dressage Rider today who says she uses Perfect Prep. She in certain circumstances, said she would rather have a safe ride/rider and a young horse who has an imprint of a calm experience rather than a distressed one. I know that is a different scenario but interesting to hear her reasons. Not that she said anything about this, but I can see why it can make some horses safer for less experienced riders. It can also make younger horses safer for professionals to bring along. They have a living to make and they are not immune to freak accidents happening. If they get hurt, no money comes in. It’s devastating. In some cases freak accidents on a young horse can ruin or end their careers. Things like natural calmatives are ok with me in those situations for sure.

[inca]

I don’t think anyone is saying Perfect Prep is evil in all situations. I think some/most people can see where it could be useful at times. The issue is publicly telling a rider you don’t personally know on a horse you have never seen in person to use it at a show. And for a horse that didn’t seem the least bit dangerous or out of control. The issues displayed in the video did not seem like anything that PP or any other calming agent would help.

And I totally agree that as a sport that has had an article in the NY Times about drugging and a pony dropping dead at one of the biggest shows, we don’t need BNT’s and judges publicly stating on the internet that the answer to a riding problem is Perfect Prep.

I rode and showed dressage thru 3rd level for 20 years. In that time I never ONCE heard of anyone giving any kind of calming supplement to their horse. Seriously. I am not up in arms about the fact that Perfect Prep is widely used in the hunter world. I just don’t think the sport is going to benefit from it being recommended by BNTs and judges in such a casual manner.

[inca]

And I will say, based on how many times I have seen/heard Perfect Prep being used this year, I would LOVE to own that company! They must be making a fortune! Then I could afford a horse that doesn’t NEED Perfect Prep or longeing or anything beside a quick hack before going into the ring - LOL

[woodhillsmanhattan]

Mimelny: Thanks for being humorous in this touchy discussion! I always appreciate a poster who differs in views from me but is tactful about it and has a good sense of humor. I perviously added a comment/ETA to my original post after you and another poster asked me about it.

I had chosen that quote from the video because it stuck out to me as another instance of suggesting a “shortcut”. Another poster mentioned a separate instance where Rob suggested using “sticky spray”. I have just seen a trend of “shortcut” suggestions as opposed to advice for exercises or things to work on at home.

And I also admit that I am currently watching the movie “Danny” on Netflix as we speak (I swear I am an adult…)…so get me a broomstick! I am going to Maclay finals! :lol:

[Mimelny]

[QUOTE=meupatdoes;7647812]
OK, firstly, the exact words he used regarding the trainer were, “& you can tell him I said so,” which is not so much an encouragement to talk it over as it is to tell the trainer Rob said so.

Additionally, disagreeing with the advice somebody gave is not the same thing as attacking them as a person. In his response to the student, he misidentified a full cheek snaffle for a pelham and offered “natural supplement” advice rather than any riding suggestions whatsoever. Nobody has railed against the judge, nobody has attacked HIM, they have simply criticized THIS ADVICE. However, if you really think this advice is great, I will gladly make you a tape where I misidentify pieces of your tack and tell you to use perfect prep, and you can pay me $100 every time you play the tape. Rob Gage may be great most of the time, who knows, but Santa Claus and the Mother Mary could have given this advice and it still would be pretty bad advice, considering the number of better options that were available.

Thirdly, there are plenty of opportunities for him to make himself heard. There is a comment section on his own website, and the last time I checked COTH is free and open to all.[/QUOTE]

again this is your interpretation of what he was Inferring. You read his comment “tell him I said so” in your book, means :’ Tell him I’m Rob Gage so he has to agree cause I’m THE Rob Gage" ??? That’s your narrative, not his and certainly not how everyone sees it.

I did not single you out as one who is besmirching him, There are plenty of comments in here that have stretched his comments to mean all manner of things in their eyes. We all know this is a free country with free speech. It still does not preclude a little levity in interpreting the possibilities of a very ethical man, trainer and rider. if he hasn’t commented yet, give him time. The man is busy and will respond in due course.
I don’t know him as well as friends of mine do, but I do know those who know him well, say he is not just one of the best trainers and judges, he is a truly caring and generous person. I hope you get to meet him one day. He’s just a good man.

[Mimelny]

[

And I also admit that I am currently watching the movie “Danny” on Netflix as we speak (I swear I am an adult…)…so get me a broomstick! I am going to Maclay finals! :lol:[/QUOTE]

You are my Hero and hilarious! I am rooting for you girl! Go kick some Maclay butt!

[french_fry]

I love the idea of Judge My Ride, but this is not the first time that Rob or Carol has had to come on the site to defend something they wrote with the explanation, “this is free service we offer in addition to our full time careers and we try to get out as many responses as we can so sometimes we’re too brief/inaccurate/whatever.”

I think most people would rather receive a few sentences of meaningful critique than a line or two that says nothing about the trip other than the horse is strong and that misidentifies a clearly visible piece of tack being used and recommends a calming supplement, even if the critique process would take longer.

Again, I think this access to the pros at the top of the sport is an amazing thing, especially for riders who are geographically or financially limited. I just worry that one of these days something that was written out in haste on an iPhone (and perhaps not fully explained) in between judging classes is going to cause a real PR problem. Perhaps this is that day.

[asterix]

It’s not a PR problem, and it’s not an optics problem. It’s just a problem. Other disciplines have their problems, but it’s pretty painful to read the efforts to word smith this one.
There is nothing ambiguous about the rule vis a vis intent to alter behavior. There is nothing ambiguous about the state of the trash and the sharps container after a show in this discipline.
Stop making excuses.