They’ll come for goat yoga too. Those goats didn’t ask to be present at goat yoga and shouldn’t be used for our entertainment.
I’ve already seen those kinds of statements on equine groundwork sessions.
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That is so disturbing. 
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This is my fear. And we’re not doing ourselves any favors when we side with the raras as an industry.
Outside of the sport, this video wouldn’t have been heard of at all if it weren’t for aghasted trainers sharing it. I’ve seen it 14 times in my feed over the last 3 days. All from trainers, one of whom quite offered free lessons to the participants in the clinic, which made me throw up in my mouth a little.
It IS outrage culture. And it’s gross.
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It certainly would have been better for this goat.
https://forum.chronofhorse.com/t/cedar-the-goat-whats-with-shasta-county-ca-fair-mgt/792509/20
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I have to agree. If anything, it was long overdue to remove the horses from that sport so that their treatment from the Pentathlon riders would not continue to reflect so badly on other horse sports.
I would be willing to bet that most members of the public did not differentiate between the Pentathlon riders crashing through the jumps left and right on those saintly horses and the riders who were winning medals over jumps that were two feet higher.
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Maybe Ms. Kursinski has changed and softened over the years. When I did a clinic with her years ago, this is what I heard, not only directed at me but to others in the group: “You’re WEAK.” And, “Oh, look, ANOTHER WEAK ONE. Maybe your BOYFRIEND likes it because you’re weak, but come ON, this IS the 90s.” We were long stirrup riders. Were we weak? Yes, weak – and nervous. We were PAYING her a lot of money FOR HELP. Someone at Ms. Kursinski’s level should have taken that into consideration when she agreed to a session for our level of riding.
I don’t want to derail this into Anne Kursinski-bashing, I just wanted to address comments made using my own personal experience. Also, I know someone who worked for her and that person has told me many stories of her unsavory “training/preparation” methods – at least back in the day. I would never, ever pay her another dime.
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The enemy is us, our own people. How did this happen?
If you scan the Facebook comments posted to USEF’s statement … a “board-certified vet” weighs in with outrage … an account that appears to be ReRun – the OTTB aftercare organization (they’ve always got some lovely, lovely looking horses, btw) commented “Very disappointing for an animal welfare organisation to see this and then to watch USEF defend it…”
Defend what?
That comment wasn’t the first about USEF not taking some kind of swift and decisive action over what someone called a “mashup video” - I thought that was pretty good, actually.
And yeah, I initially laughed at the comment comparing USEF’s statement to “a teen vague posting about barn drama.”
But in reality, it wasn’t funny. Like everything else, this could’ve been said better no doubt but, I wouldn’t fault an organization for not immediately heading to the woodshed over a video hot take.
I am going to guess a significant number of comments came from people with access to USEF Network but I don’t see anyone expressing curiosity about what else there was to this video.
It’s like reason has finally, fully imploded before our very eyes.
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Pardon this slight diversion, but I think it’s a story worth telling.
I worked for Penn State University when the Sandusky arrest happened.
Literally NONE of the media stories were correct about what was going on and who knew what. The University flat out panicked and tried to distance themselves from the football program. Rumors were RAMPANT. The outrage was huge.
And almost none of the “facts” were correct. With the exception of Sandusky being a pedophile. The court of law found him guilty - and I’ll take that - I’m not defending him in the least.
It hugely damaged the University. Responding head-on didn’t help. Not responding wouldn’t help. Defending the football program wouldn’t help. There’s literally NOTHING the USEF could do once this sh*t starts to fix the firestorm. PR firms, IMO, are wrong about it. Yes, you can make it worse, but you cannot make it better once it starts.
With this case, we had a chance to head off the firestorm before it started. Instead, a bunch of equestrians saw the Voorn video and without even watching the entire video, they amped up the volume for their own gain.
What good does this do the industry?
Even in the name of social license, this is NOT HELPING. It’s not.
I’m against abuse. And while yes, there have been some crappy things done in the industry in the past, what we’re doing now? This viral spread of hysteria? This…this isn’t the way.
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I have been thinking that every day since this started.
I come from a Penn State family. My dad took his PSU gnome off the porch when all of that happened.
And now that you say this… in recent years, I have felt like there has been a trend toward non-response. At times it’s disappointing because a reaction can feel a little bit like justice. I know I have been wildly annoyed that my own undergraduate alma mater seems to have sailed through unflattering publicity without a glance, backward, sideways, otherwise. Now I think I understand it.
Wow, there’s a whole level of zen PR there that I’m going to have to figure out.
ETA: something good has got to come from this “Zoorn thing,” (Voorn, I know, Zoorn was on purpose) though. There’s that point in movies, where the mob settles down and looks ashamed? I wish I knew what the real life trigger for that was.
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Two things.
Firstly, his name is Voorn. I know it’s easy to think it looks more like Vroom the other way, but his name is Voorn.
Secondly, while I appreciate the comparison to another PR disaster, I think that we as horse people make ourselves look even more out of touch with reality when we talk about a questionable turn of phrase used in a riding clinic for extremely fortunate kids in the same breath or the same sentence or even the same paragraph as things like sexual abuse against minors, or historic transgressions against people of color, or anything else that is much more serious than a group of kids jumping their horses in a ring in Wellington.
Do we want to use best practices for the welfare of both the horses and the kids jumping around the ring in Wellington? Yes, of course we do. But their extremely first world problems are very, very, very far apart from the problems many other people face.
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Ha! Oops - first it autocorrected and then I screwed up the fix!
My comparison was to the firestorm, not to the actual events, but point taken.
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I totally get that, and I appreciate the difference.
But some of the discussions here and elsewhere have made it sound like there is a more direct comparison to be made, which I think makes horse people look even more unhinged from reality.
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Going through a firestorm as close as I was did make me assess my own response to “breaking news”. Now I research the heck out of things and really let them sit with me before I make a statement. But to imagine that would happen en masse is a pipe dream.
I do think it has affected PR - non-PR or Zen-PR is what makes the most sense as public attention will shift quickly to the next outrage. I think we are learning that, and certain public figures are even using our short attention span to their own advantage by eventually claiming other people said the thing that they actually said because all that people can remember is that someone said it, facts be damned.
The angry mob is coming for us all, but the speed at which they move is SO fast. It’s wild.
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It is. It is wild and it is terrifying to me.
The circumstances may be one of stupid high privilege but the response that was provoked from people whom I would’ve expected something more measured from, is worth paying attention to. I don’t think people are going to be more thoughtful and analytical just because the topic is something more significant than a sport pet. Just look at election season.
FWIW, I understand MHM’s concerns and take their point, too, but I didn’t read your story as anything other than a case study about the nature of narratives taking on a life of their own and how an organization responds to it.
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Ditto.
But the same cannot be said for some other comments here and in other places online.
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Well I’d never argue that horsepeople are entirely connected to reality, but there is no direct comparison here OTHER than people jumping quickly to judgement without seeing the whole context.
I always wonder who among us is so perfect that we want our entire lives broadcast in front of the world. I’ve certainly misspoken or said things that taken out of context could look very very bad. I think about that a lot when I judge public characters based on media.
It’s hard, because we want to raise a fire in our bellies when we think we’ve seen an injustice. We want to be angry.
It’s unfortunate, but we’re all wrestling with this right now, as a society. We feel unheard. We feel little. We feel like we need to defend everyone else because we feel defenseless. So we manufacture outrage because it makes us feel like we’re getting back at .
It’s fine to have opinions about how one should teach or train horses. It’s fine to say “I don’t use sticks” or “I think it’s best if teens only have positive uplifting messages” or whatever…but the posturing and the “being against” says way more about us than it does about the subject being attacked.
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I do get what you’re saying.
Which is I guess also another example of “and this is where we’re at now.”
Cheers, 
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What did you do when you witnessed that?
I told the horse’s owner, of course. And forbid the trainer from sitting on my horse.
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Nothing in the below article alludes to KP being a serial abuser of horses. I’m very curious as to who everyone wildly offended rides with. You need to be tough with horses when necessary - there’s a time and a place to resort to using your crop and being stern in the saddle.
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