Agreed. It seems the gymnastics sessions are unavailable on clipmyhorse so I will concede I did not watch the entire sessions, however I just watched the session with Beezie and find it telling that all the horses/riders seemed to do quite well with her.
The world has not “gone soft”, people have realized they deserved to be treated respectfully. As Beezie did, you can critique while also being encouraging and not calling anyone a “bird brain”.
I am posting this with the permission of my friend, Andrea DiMarco. It speaks for itself.
In defense of Katie:
It’s cold. I am looking for any excuse to sit in the warmth for a minute and run my fat mouth.
I have known Katie Prudent all my life. I am mediocre on my best day…and was a punk ass junior rider.
At Gladstone in the 70’s…I was stabled in the Bull Barn with Katie. I was a whining, scared idiot. Katie (and Buddy) shored me up…shared their grooms, and supported me with grace and humour the entire time there. Bert DeNemethy was especially tough on Katie, if memory serves…she took her licks without complaint.
In later years, Katie was at Jimmy Piehler’s barn every day…later to purchase Plain Bay. She would hop up on the toughest sale horses, ream me for being hung over and help me immensely with every horse I sat on. She happily held horses while John Madden body clipped…and gave of herself just because it was the right thing to do.
I watched Katie get dressed down by Sallie Sexton at the hotel during Madison Square Garden…for including her bras in her dry cleaning…after being champion for Sallie on every horse she rode for Sallie and Betty. Again, nodded politely and took her licks <3
Katie would, in my a/o years in Virginia, show up at every crap show …catch ride my Ice Lock and every other beast she was asked to ride…spending long patient hours schooling them all and asking only for her pittance for each horse’s’ round in the ring.
She would fox hunt any horse of the Harrimans she was asked to, whenever she had the time.
If there was ever a frightened amateur, it was our dear Steve Timko (a great horseman, though) <3 Katie was patient, tough but cared with Steve…and made his dreams come true with his “Movie Star”.
Katie is not attacking us frightened and untalented amateurs. She is our champion, our animals’ champion, and walks the walk. Always.
Her concerns are for the higher echelons of our sport and the horses, with good reason.
Thank you Katie, for making me a better horseman and rider. Thank you for being tough on us all. Our horses deserve the good ride and educated care on the ground as well… and many of you need to listen and walk it off. Xxxoo
https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/2024-horsemastership-clinic-katie-prudent-uses-gymnastics-to-build-thinking-riders/?fbclid=IwAR0yRIQGlgd4SVGM36bEsoUABC-rJWUE_vrO1kNRXS6QHYjc4PXnI_flFxI_aem_AYpv6GR79aQBLRoP0h4kzs2XN-RasCZ19Fp2nxchzD527WpekpHd-hM5SPx7Pdk2-iA&mibextid=Zxz2cZ
I think this was already posted, and just like people “cherry picked” video clips they didn’t like, this article also likely cherry picked to highlight the positives, but some of the comments are in both places. Personally, I agree with her comments that the riders don’t listen. Or if they listen, they don’t TRY to follow the instructions. Because how hard is it to remember to halt on a straight line? Or make it seem like you’re trying to pick your hands up on the backside? Or to just blatantly bury your hands in the neck when she’s just told you not to touch the neck?
Unfortunately, it seems like clipmyhorse or USEFNetwork made the decision to remove the videos of the gymnastics phases, so it’s impossible to see just how many times she said something before it coming out harshly (the halt on a straight line, for instance). I will say though, that I was able to watch only for about 5 minutes towards the beginning of her day, and in that 5 minutes she had to remind someone more than once not to touch the neck and more than once to halt after the exercise. It’s the constant need to repeat simple instructions that makes her come across as stern, I think.
Right but we need to remember that she was working with CHILDREN. Young people whose brains aren’t fully developed. Young people who might be getting nervous/ frustrated/ scared therefore not able to process things in “Katie” time. What about the rider who started to halt in a straight line who she us screaming at to turn left? Clearly that rider was TRYING to do what was being asked but couldn’t process that the directions changed. I just found the whole thing cringe worthy and unnecessary
This sparked a great conversation within my horse friend group chat about teaching styles and the importance of finding the balance between being strict/direct and expecting success while meeting students where they’re at with a bit of patience and empathy. Too much in either direction is not productive for horses or riders. I wish they hadn’t taken the videos down because being able to watch things like that and have discussions like these is a great way for everyone to learn to be better teachers and students. I know I learned something and improved my perspective on communication because of it.
The requirements for participating in this clinic include being proficient at 1.30m and “an athlete’s perceived potential to successfully contribute to future U.S. Team competitions”. Some of these riders aren’t just selected based on results, but apply for a Wild Card spot. At least two of the participants currently ride as professionals. I just watched another one participate in the 3* GP at WEF. At this level, their reaction time should be quick enough to process that change of instructions pretty quickly. Sure, the exercise had been to halt, but even in the clip you can hear Katie tell her for several strides keep going, turn left, continue.
I hope in the coming days USEF Network decides to share the gymnastic videos again. I imagine there is plenty of useful information in there.
I know you didn’t write this, and I don’t feel like I can opine on the tone of the whole training session because I didn’t watch it. But this quote - come on.
What about saying “[t]he sport has become for the fearful, talentless amateur” is being their champion? What part of saying “That’s what the sport has been dummied down to.”
I noticed Katie said in the same article, “I’m a mean teacher.” There are a lot of people who are treated badly or face difficulties and think “that sucked, I wouldn’t want anyone else to feel that way.” Then there are people who think “well, if I had to go through that others should have to as well.” So personally, I don’t really understand “nodding politely and taking your licks” just to turn that around and do it to others.
Wanting to be treated with basic courtesy and respect ≠ wanting to be “coddled.” It’s very possible to hold students to a high standard, even give some tough love without demeaning and belittling. And CERTAINLY without advocating abusive training methods.
Please, guys. Let’s not even try to defend this.
Amen.
I don’t think we have any hard evidence of the riders not being good listeners. It was windy AF at times and if you’ve ever ridden in a warm up area in Florida when you’re stressed, doing complicated stuff, and your trainer is yelling into the wind and you can’t hear a darn thing you sure wouldn’t assume they aren’t listening. I personally feel that these training sessions are unusually stressful for many of the riders. They know that they have a big audience, they are supposed to be top riders, they are on borrowed horses, they are doing very technical stuff, they are watching each other, the clinicians are performing for the camera. I am not sure how it is unclear that it is a supremely stressful situation. On the flipside, the riders know what they are getting into, having seen other cohorts raked over the coals by other top people.
I mean, there’s more to selecting a team than riding talent. If this environment is too stressful for you to handle, then imagine how you’ll be at the games? I think we all saw how that went with Karl at the Pan Ams. 🤷
If I had loaned a horse to a rider in a clinic and the clinician advocated running the horse into the wall and flipping him, I’d be marching right into the ring and taking my horse back to the barn. Right on the damn livestream for all to see.
I really thought we were well past this sort of “show the horse who is boss” kind of training.
Any idea who these kids are or how they came to be in this clinic?
These aren’t Olympic hopefuls that were hand selected to be there, right?
They seem pretty ill prepared from the short bit I watched. And some apparently didn’t do their own tack up?
Thanks for this.
I don’t recall the exact process off the top of my head for qualification, but it had something to do with placings at the equitation finals this past fall, plus I believe there were a couple of wild card slots open.
Carlee McCutcheon, for example, won both the Medal and Maclay finals a couple of months ago. Luke Jensen won the East Coast USET final in October.
Then I think there were a couple of last-minute substitutions as well. Someone said up thread that Taylor Cawley broke her collarbone the week before the clinic and she had to give up her slot. So there were probably some pinch hitters in there.
If it’s true that some of them did not know how to put a saddle on the horse, that’s pretty darn bad. And I believe it’s quite well known that this clinic setting involves hands-on care, so they certainly should have been better prepared if that was the case.
There’s been so much conversation recently about horse welfare and social license. My bigger problem with Katie Prudent is that she chose to reference heavy-handed, questionable methods (flip them/run them into the wall if they don’t stop). This is widely-viewed clinic on a large platform. We need to be doing better for the horses period, but we especially can’t afford these kinds of clips in the public eye.
I personally don’t care for her teaching style, either. I think the “well that was how she was taught/ we learned this way back in such in such time/ everyone’s getting soft” is nothing but a cheap excuse for lousy communication skills and a lack of respect. It’s not unreasonable to expect coaches to treat people with basic decency. You can demand better of riders/students without belittling them. If she has such a professed disdain for riders nowadays - maybe she doesn’t need to be teaching. 
I’ve seen the “they didn’t know how to tack up!!” going around Facebook. I have a hard time believing that, at the very least I would think they would have learned before this clinic since they know tacking up the horse is part of it…but even if that’s true it doesn’t mean she has free rein to call them names.
Selection process from usef is pretty vague, just says riders 16-21 invited based on various results, plus some wildcard spots that I think riders themselves can apply for
For sure this list published by the USEF on December 7th does not exactly match the final line up of clinic participants.
Taylor Cawley got hurt and could not do it. One of the kids in the clinic was named Nora something, I believe. So she was not on the initial list. I think there were a couple of other different riders as well.
Edited to add this screenshot of the Chronicle write up with the rider changes.
Right. One can say ‘use the wall to help you stop’ which is different from ‘run them into the wall if they don’t stop.’ The first is a lesson in how to use your surroundings to your advantage. The second is stupid, cruel, and dangerous. Some horses will just run into the wall, which can break their and the rider’s neck. So it gives people the impression that they don’t have to do anything other than point the horse to the wall and the wall will stop the horse. Which is not and never has been the correct thing to do.
It doesn’t have anything to do with equitation finals. It’s kids who are competing in the high junior jumpers and up, and several of them have aged out of the juniors already. That some of them did well in the eq finals is incidental.
They aren’t going to pluck kids out of the 3’6 equitation and point them at 1.30m jumps in both the gymnastics and nations cup sessions.
I would imagine if you have never had to tack up yourself and had no idea how to do it, it would be a pretty steep uphill climb to figure out how to do it to the expected standards for that occasion.
Especially given the time constraints, where the kids were out there assisting as jump crew and then expected to be out there in the ring on their horses 20 minutes later.
Throw in the possibility of some kids who were riding strange horses with unfamiliar tack, and maybe a couple of last-minute substitutes who did not have much advance notice, and I can imagine a bit of scrambling in the barn as they were getting ready.
I can believe there are kids who show at a pretty high level who have never had to tack up their own horse. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but I can believe it’s true in some cases with kids who have been in full service barns from day one.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
