Marilyn Little's horse bleeds yet again. Red rag to a groom.

[KingoftheRoad]

@pieradill

I think what I find most remarkable is how mean and personal people feel entitled to be in the name of "compassion’ without knowing any or all of the facts and generally dealing in gossip and innuendo. It is really shameful.

There really aren’t any facts missing - this is not on one horse, not even on two horses, but 3 horses with bloody mouths at 4 different events in the last 3 years. It is not mean-spirited to observe that this IS NOT NORMAL, and in a best case scenario, describes someone who is simply too rough on her horses. In the worst case, it is something far far more disturbing.

But there is photographic evidence of all 3 of these horses with bleeding mouths. Please explain to me how that is gossip or innuendo, or “mean.” If you are half the horseperson you claim to be, you should be equally concerned about what seems to be a pattern of behavior.

This is not a witch hunt. It is an effort to stop these repeated situations from ruining the sport of eventing, which is what will happen if the sport gets tagged with these photos enough times. This last occurrence was at the most highly publicized and televised event in our country, and people seem to just be OK with photos of a horse dripping blood from its mouth while jumping enormous fences as the enduring image of that event.

If Marilyn is half as smart as you claim she is, even she should be able to see the problem here.

[Groom_amp_Taxi]

@pieradill

I think what I find most remarkable is how mean and personal people feel entitled to be in the name of "compassion’ without knowing any or all of the facts and generally dealing in gossip and innuendo. It is really shameful.

qfp.

Obviously the focus of the outcry right now is the nosebands and the bitting and why do Bloody ML’s horses repeatedly have bleeding issues. But don’t forget the last time she went around the Kentucky 4* on Demeter. That was another shocking display of extremely bad horsemanship.

I am thinking of #eventingabovereproach as a hashtag but a little long and maybe not catchy enough?

[TMares]

@pieradill

I think what I find most remarkable is how mean and personal people feel entitled to be in the name of "compassion’ without knowing any or all of the facts and generally dealing in gossip and innuendo. It is really shameful.

Blood on multiple horses mouths in competition is shameful. Throwing Demeter at fences on course is shameful.

I have no personal feelings toward M. Little, as I don’t know her. I only know the results of her actions are shameful.

[KingoftheRoad]

To the rest of us - please please continue to send emails and messages, both to the governing bodies, and to ML’s sponsors. Just this discussion on this thread is not sufficient to get this to change. It is your words, your wallets, and your concern that will make them consider rule changes, and sponsors will be even more sensitive to how their products are perceived. Nobody wants to see their product placement in a photo with a bloody horse.

Supposedly, Marilyn is reaching out to her sponsors, claiming that she is a victim of bullying, that she is getting support from all the UL riders, and that the USEF is considering some kind of anti-bullying effort on her behalf. I have no idea whether that is true, but at least it means that the pressure is starting to have some kind of impact.

Please do not let up. If you’re like me, your first reaction is to think that one more email won’t make a difference, but it is the cumulative effect of this communication with sponsors that will have the desired result. Please make your voice heard, not just here, but where it counts!

[TMares]

@trubandloki

I am not sticking up for anyone here, but posts like this make the real point get lost when people make something out of nothing.

Do I think doing a jog in spiked heels is a smart idea? No. But then, I can barely walk in heels like that. I think a person should wear safe and practical shoes when jogging their horse.

I see two very fit horses in a stimulating environment acting like I would guess most horses at their fitness level in that environment would act. I think ML handled it like most would.

Handing the first horse off to the groom so she can run and get to the second horse (and not cause a delay) looked like nothing more than what it was. Not anything to be made into more drama.

Well said. There’s enough blood on her hands that there’s zero need to manufacture stuff out of the ether.

[vineyridge]

Re: Ms. Mars

@scrbear11

Ummm… The woman is a criminal. She bought her way (or hired her way) out of that mess. She KILLED a person.

In an automobile accident. She has lots of company in that.

[Denali6298]

@pieradill

I think what I find most remarkable is how mean and personal people feel entitled to be in the name of "compassion’ without knowing any or all of the facts and generally dealing in gossip and innuendo. It is really shameful.

Could you please explain what we are all apparently missing according to you. I mean with facts. Not flowery language about magic and what not. What are we missing? Or are you just okay with repeated bloody mouths? If that’s the case fine. Just please refrain from telling us that “we don’t get it.”

[Denali6298]

@KingoftheRoad

To the rest of us - please please continue to send emails and messages, both to the governing bodies, and to ML’s sponsors. Just this discussion on this thread is not sufficient to get this to change. It is your words, your wallets, and your concern that will make them consider rule changes, and sponsors will be even more sensitive to how their products are perceived. Nobody wants to see their product placement in a photo with a bloody horse.

Supposedly, Marilyn is reaching out to her sponsors, claiming that she is a victim of bullying, that she is getting support from all the UL riders, and that the USEF is considering some kind of anti-bullying effort on her behalf. I have no idea whether that is true, but at least it means that the pressure is starting to have some kind of impact.

Please do not let up. If you’re like me, your first reaction is to think that one more email won’t make a difference, but it is the cumulative effect of this communication with sponsors that will have the desired result. Please make your voice heard, not just here, but where it counts!

Anti-bullying??? Are you serious. @OneTwoMany I’d like to draw your attention to this. This is why it’s all lip service to me. Your buddy is considering an anti-bullying measure for ML because we do not like bloody mouths on a routine basis. Forget the blood and overly tight nosebands, according to the USE we are mean for calling out an abusive rider.

If said rumors are true.

[alittlegray]

@pieradill

I have posted this on Facebook and will post it here. The hate is terrible. Please no hate response here.

I know Marilyn Little very well. I have ridden her horses. She has ridden mine. I have kept horses of hers. She has kept horses of mine. We share a Dressage coach, Bo Jenå, and Marilyn and Kitty (Scandalous) often train with Bo at my farm. I have watched Marilyn develop Kitty from the mare’s first event in this country, through her Pan Am gold medals, to this weekend’s stellar performances, and I am appalled by the outpouring of vitriol against her, her ethics, or her horsemanship.

That Marilyn is a brilliant rider — one of the greatest of her generation — is an incontrovertible truth. She was raised with horses and did it all: falling off ponies, chasing horses in the paddock, agonizing over failures big and small, and experimenting as we all did to become truly competent, committed, and courageous. Marilyn finished college (a rigorous one) with honors, despite an ambitious show schedule on all kinds of horses, and she now applies her intelligence and critical thinking to her sport. How else could someone have taken the eventing world by storm in as short a time as she has?

Marilyn became the exemplary horseman we see today — an exemplary old school horseman — through insanely hard work, sacrifice, and heart breaking losses. She designs the program of each of her horses, whether eventer or show jumper, and knows every aspect of their soundness, every quirk of their personality. Her barn is meticulous. Detailed lists of care and feed and training are noted on the board. Marilyn is thoughtful, intelligent, deeply compassionate and unutterably connected to her animals. It is a stain on sportsmanship, and a profound misunderstanding of what it takes to be a competitive rider at this level, to subject Marilyn to this kind of public censure by those who cannot do what she does. I must add that Kitty is a complicated creature, not a machine and not an idealized illustration in some textbook. Her FEI record shows a horse unable to successfully complete cross country until Marilyn’s brilliance brought out hers. And Any of us who have had nervy and ambitious horses know what it means to have a top horse with a busy mouth. Who in my sport hasn’t had a horse bite a lip or a cheek in the midst of a flawless dressage test. It is agony. Any horseman knows that Marilyn’s commentary as to what happened Saturday before her brilliant run at Rolex is the truth. Shame on those who refuse to understand the art, the skill, the life changing dedication, the magic and, unfortunately, the luck it takes to produce a horse like Scandalous competing and consistently winning at the very top of her sport. Bravo Marilyn — or as Patrick Le Rolland my coach of many many years would have said — chapeau!

Bullspit. It’s possible she’s never exhinited her true nature in front of you. She can be extremely charming and come off as very kind. And yeah, she feeds the best, nicest tack, etc. But she isn’t some super woman. And many, many riders compete at the top while graduating with honors from top universities. Like Jessica Springsteen, etc. My own daughter carried 6 AP classes in 2016, her senior year, and graduated with great grades while working, doing JROTC, and a crazy schedule at the barn. Without millions of dollars and top support. It isn’t a mark of brilliance, it’s just what people do.

I am prepping food for a large group right now but hopefully will have time to share the rest of the story with you. It isn’t pretty.

[vxf111]

@Larksmom

I bet the trainer was saying, Jawold, or however that is spelled in German for good. If she/he/it can’t tell the difference in hat and good, doesn’t that say it all?

Not to derail, but the trainer was French? Why would he declare things after rounds in German?

I prefer to think of him declaring “chapeau” in the slang way British people say “pants.” It means “sh*t.”

[scrbear11]

@wanderlust

Really? That’s where you are going with this? It was an ACCIDENT. She took full responsibility, apologized, and personally took care of the family’s needs, including flying down to spend time with them after the hearing. How many other people would do that instead of lawyering up and trying to avoid any responsibility?

I know it’s fashionable to pick on wealthy people (and especially those who may be tied to ML in some way) but Jacquie is known to be kind, generous and gracious; and she devotes her much of her time and vast fortune to charities, conservation, the arts, and horses. She’s not the villain some of you would like to make her out to be.

So if Jacqueline Mars is such a kind, upstanding horsewoman, why hasn’t she pulled HER horse out from under ML?

[ladyj79]

@pieradill I think maybe your very close association with Marilyn and her training methods might have given you a skewed view about what is normal.

it is actually not normal or common to have cut and bleeding mouths while riding. At all.

maybe you could start another thread about finding a trainer (there will be many) who hasn’t instilled this idea that horses regularly get cut and bleeding mouths in work, and that there is no problem competing them with cut and bleeding mouths.

I will also say that the same “magic” that makes Marilyn a good show jumper is probably the reason she is having so many problems with bloody mouths on cross country. She is trying to use the same skill set in two quite different events.

[GraceLikeRain]

@pieradill

Who in my sport hasn’t had a horse bite a lip or a cheek in the midst of a flawless dressage test. It is agony.

raises hand

In two decades of riding I have never been on a horse who bit himself to the point of drawing blood. I’m not a Rolex rider but I boarded with a few over the years along with half a dozen grand prix dressage riders, and a few grand prix jumpers. Through this group I have seen some really atrocious actions that were beyond abusive. Despite that, I have never seen or heard about a bloody mouth.

If you are in a world where it is normal for a horse to draw blood in the midst of a “flawless dressage test” perhaps you should open yourself to the possibility that you are surrounding yourself with the wrong people.

[wanderlust]

@scrbear11

So if Jacqueline Mars is such a kind, upstanding horsewoman, why hasn’t she pulled HER horse out from under ML?

Well bless your kind little heart. I don’t know if you’ve bothered to look, but is isn’t HER horse. It belongs to Phoebe and Michael Manders as well. Can’t speak to the dynamics there, but she doesn’t own it outright.

[flyingchange]

Well, at least Mrs. Mars can be counted on to phone the barn if she catches a glimpse of a horse with shavings in its tail when turned out. #priorities

[fordtraktor]

@vxf111

Not to derail, but the trainer was French? Why would he declare things after rounds in German?

I prefer to think of him declaring “chapeau” in the slang way British people say “pants.” It means “sh*t.”

This is where urbandictionary can help us. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Chapeau

You guys can bash the poster’s perspective, sure, but latching on to that aspect of the post seems uninformed and petty. That’s like saying “Brilliant!” means “Terrible!” Fake news!

[alittlegray]

In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person’s choice to deny reality, as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth.[SUP][1][/SUP] Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event, when a person refuses to accept an empirically verifiable reality.[SUP][2][/SUP] In the sciences, denialism is the rejection of basic facts and concepts that are undisputed, well-supported parts of the scientific consensus on a subject, in favor of radical and controversial ideas.[SUP][3][/SUP]The terms Holocaust denialism and AIDS denialismdescribe the denial of the facts and the reality of the subject matters,[SUP][4][/SUP] and the term climate change denialdescribes denial of the scientific consensus that the global warming of planet Earth is a real and occurring event primarily caused by human activity.[SUP][5][/SUP] The forms of denialism present the common feature of the person rejecting overwhelming evidence and the generation of political controversy with attempts to deny the existence of consensus.[SUP][6][/SUP][SUP][7][/SUP] The motivations and causes of denialism include religion and self-interest (economic, political, financial) and defence mechanisms meant to protect the psyche of the denialist against mentally disturbing facts and ideas.[SUP][8][/SUP][SUP][9][/SUP]

[TMares]

yes, I was waiting for someone to post that link LOL. It’s just shorthand for ‘my hat’s off to you!’.

This is as silly as deciding that anyone who says gross is talking about tonnage. Come on, peeps, google it.

[KingoftheRoad]

From USEA, contact information for those that wish to discuss further, including the CEO office.

"We recommend that you contact both the USEF and FEI as they are responsible for all rules, licensed officials, and rider penalties.
USEF: https://www.usef.org/support
FEI: https://inside.fei.org/contact

If you’d like to discuss any of this further with the USEA, please call us directly. You may call our office line: 703-779-0440 or if you’d like to speak to the CEO Rob Burk, please call 703-779-9895."

[Denali6298]

@alittlegray I saw that. The responses are insane. And the mention of anti-bullying is vomit inducing at best.