I was trying to copy/paste a link but apparently am too computer illiterate to do so.
Anywho, I saw an article that Kaley Cuoco has offered to buy Saint Boy, the Pentathlon horse who was punched by the German trainer. She basically said “Name your price.” I have to admit, if money had been no object, that was my initial gut reaction - to want to buy the horse. I don’t know Kaley but she seems to really care about horse welfare, which is nice to see.
I don’t understand why people think this horse isn’t cared for by its owners. Yes, he obviously had a horrible experience with the pentathlon riders, but why would that make anyone think that he needs to be rescued? The horse was clearly in good shape, well groomed and cared for, and capable of jumping 1.2m fences before he had two bad rides in a competition. There are a lot of horses in much worse situations out there.
I also read an article about this. I agree the horse is not likely in actual need of rescue. But most of the viewing public don’t know the horses in pentathlon are loaned for competition. And the spectacle on a world stage was bad PR for all equestrian sport. I think this could be a good way to reverse that and show that many (sadly not all) in equestrian sport care deeply for the animal.
I agree. But I think the idea is that if he’s bought by someone outside the pentathlon community he will never be loaned like that again.
Also, he’s just plain a nice horse. That’s a horse many people would love to have for themselves. Tons of tolerance and very athletic. So it’s a nice horse that could probably be a straight jumper.
hmm a “try not to dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back” or genuine but not realising the horse is fine at home?
Or alternatively, that looks like a nice and fairly tolerant horse who’s likely to be amateur-friendly, which makes him appealing.
I’m not sure everyone understands the trainer/rider didn’t own that horse. But either way, Saint Boy would have a wonderfully pampered life if she purchased him. Her barn is lovely.
This is kind of putting a bad taste in my mouth… There’s a lot of people to blame for what happened to this horse (the rider, the coach, modern pentathalon officials, etc) but Saint Boy’s owner isn’t one of them.
Well, the Pentathlon is where I’ve seen some truly horrible, borderline abusive riding by people who clearly have that at the bottom of their list of five things they train for, so it’s not a sport where I would ever loan one of my horses.
When I heard about what happened this Olympics I was not at all surprised, given what I’ve seen in the past. I read that they are going to have lower and fewer jumps, as a rule change, but it really needs to just not involve live animals if the riders aren’t able to ride at a certain level of competency.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure some internet sleuths determined that this was not the first time Saint Boy was used in a Pentathlon with spectacularly bad results for the horse and rider. I would say that makes Saint Boy’s owner at least partly responsible for letting him have a bad experience once and then failing to learn from it and sending him back into the lion’s den again.
Problem is the owners are (sometimes) paid.
I was approached about leasing one of my horses over a weekend for a pentathlon. They offered me 1k for that. I decided it wasn’t in my horses best interest, but that’s a lot of money to turn down for a weekend.
I’d expect that’s why Saint Boy keeps coming back to be used for it. The owner is getting $$
Thank you for the info. I saw in another threads that owners got paid, but I was wondering how much.
Well, I don’t think Kaley needs $1000 so there you go 
I was offered 1k for a championship (? I’m not 100% on the terms they use, but it was a high level event and IIRC it was at TIEC). That was about 4 years ago. I’m sure for the olympics it’s more.
Ironically the event I was approached at (one of the coordinators happened to be there) my horse jumped me out of the tack and I fell off, but on the other side of the end timers. So I won the round even though I ate sand. I’m not sure he would have been a great fit for an event where the main goal is to just not fall off and die 
Haha true. I wonder if the owner will contact her. She would probably pay over market value.
A poster on our community FB board indicated that a fairly hefty amount of $ was paid to the owners. At least what I consider a hefty amount. ( Granted, I’m sure my financial reality is quite different than that of your upper level Japanese sport horse owner!) And that an agent of some sort was potentially involved. Someone else pointed out that the horse seen in the immediate aftermath appeared to have different markings than described on Saint Boy’s FEI passport, which they screenshotted.
I’m forcing myself and my ADD not to dive down that rabbit hole of searching FEI records. Lol. Interesting observation, though. The horse’s name was shortened/simplified from Saint’a Boy when he was relocated to Japan.
@Gardenhorse, I saw two hair-raising clips from the men’s event: one a horse rearing up & flipping onto the rider; the other a horse taking off over an oxer at least one stride early & putting his landing gear down in the middle of the oxer, resulting in a major crash. Yeah, I’m aware that there are worse lives for a horse. I still think the owners have to be f–king insane to allow what are essentially 6-figure unicorns in the USA (the elusive 1+m packer) to be used like this. I know of more than a handful of horses with career-altering mental blocks that resulted from a crash. To say nothing of the risk of physical injury. My 2-cents.
And did she offer to buy those two horses? I agree with everyone that the MP needs some changes to significantly improve horse welfare, I just don’t think the focus on buying this particular horse is the answer.
I also agree with you that I don’t understand why people would loan their nice horses out for this event. But, on the other hand, people lease out horses in many ways all the time. While the majority of those leases go well, you just have to read a few threads on this board to see all the different ways they can go wrong even when people have done their due diligence to vet the rider, barn, trainer, etc.
Last I read and this was recent-MP is looking to either lower the jumps or have less jumps. I am all for lower jumps.
I actually had a friend loan her horse for a test event. Her horse is a packer and she said the majority of the pentathletes shouldn’t be riding at that level. She said the only decent riders were the British and the Irish.
It was mentioned in the very long pentathlon thread in the Olympic forum that some of the pentathletes don’t take the riding portion very seriously, and might only take one riding lesson a month, and then show up at a competition to get on a strange horse and jump around the course. Obviously, that seems like a terrible idea to most people who are actually familiar with horses.
It sounds to me like they need to change the rules so that the athletes have more incentive to learn to ride better if they want to remain competitive. As it is, the riding score must not carry enough emphasis. Otherwise they would take it more seriously if they really want to win.
Is it possible anywhere in the US to lease a reliable 1.2 m horse for a weekend of showing for $1k? If so, please tell me where I go to sign up.
This doesn’t seem like a lucrative proposition to me, especially given that the owner has to deliver the horse to the venue.
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