In 2017 Boyd Martin’s horse Steady Eddie lost two front shoes and had a cut on his leg requiring 10 stitches at Burghley but nobody railed against the sport of Eventing or Boyd.
In 2012 Becky Holder was pulled up two fences from home at Rolex when a tiny amount of blood was spotted on her horse’s knee yet we were all on her side.
I think picking and choosing which riders we are fine with coming home on injured horses is disingenuous.
Bad Eventer did an excellent blog on the subject.
I think one difference in the case we are talking about is that it is a pattern of occurrences of blood with one competitor, over the course of several horses, yes? It seems to me the rules for a single competition don’t take that into consideration and don’t really define a specific course of action (which we may not want anyway). Each instance is “explained away” as a fluke, but a horse that consistently bites its own lip to the point it bleeds is under unusual duress/stress.
We hope for good judgement in our officials and those at the top of the sport that we look to as role models. If that doesn’t seem to be happening, speaking out is one way to have an influence.
It’s an emotional subject but if we can’t step back and de-personalize how we express our views, this will be seen as a vendetta or a witch hunt. From what I have read this is not about the person, but the pattern of incidents and lack of response.
What frustrates me is that based on my experience in other arenas of life, you only have to pull out the Big Guns once. It is amazing what is possible to change when there are undesirable consequences.
I don’t know,enjoytheride, as I am not sure but what about… is a convincing argument.
I read the blog. However, you can not talk about this incident and ignore the previous history of this rider. Yes, a minor cut. But…
for the record, I originally defended ML. A lot of information changed my mind.
I’ve been eventing for 40 years. I’ve been around. This woman needs to get out of our sport.
I really have an issue with the idea that only someone who has competed, judged, or groomed at a certain level has the right to an opinion. I’m in the military. It would be way easier to tell the world, “okay, unless you’ve deployed to a certain country or fought in a war, you don’t get to say anything about how we fight.” It would be easier, because the people who have been there and done that have experience and perspective. But guess what? My ultimate boss has no military experience. A great deal of the people who get to decide if we go to war have no military experience. So do military people just tell them to sit down and shut up? Maybe behind closed doors. But in public, we try to educate them.
So if certain people feel that there are certain risks inherent to competition, why not tell those with less experience? Why not take the time to educate the masses? If a small cut in the mouth is no big deal, and has been reported and checked out by a vet, why not say so? There’s usually a loudspeaker at an event. We report what color a rider’s gloves are in dressage. Why not let the public know? It doesn’t have to be secretive if it’s no big deal, does it?
If you go to eventing UK on Facebook there is a discussion going on about ML, blood, her bitting choices as well. The reaction and comments are the same as the discussions going on here in the US. So for those who feel a particular rider is being picked on and people are overreacting about the bitting choices and blood, you need to get your heads out of the sand. The world is watching and reacting as well. And it is not good.
One significant difference between those two incidents and ML’s repeat offenses is that, unlike the BM/BH episodes, ML’s blood issues appear to be related to the harsh and harshly-fitted equipment she habitually uses on her horses.
The only way this would be equivalent would be if Boyd had a history of using unusual shoeing combinations that allowed his horses to run faster and everyone could easily tell that from photos from the events and multiple horses of his came home on xc missing shoes and dripping blood and he tried regular shoes once and couldn’t make time and said essentially screw that and went back to the weird shoes and the horses continued to lose shoes and require stitches and the officials said “oh well, no biggie you smurfs can’t possible understand the shoeing requirements of upper level eventing, STFU or people will take away our sport”.
Thank you! I have a picture of ML at a jump on course (haven’t checked yet which number) with a clearly bloody mouth. I haven’t seen pictures of her at that specific jump circulated yet.
Seeing Max Cocoran agree with John Holling is extremely disheartening. I know she’s very close with the O’Connors, but I thought she was truly about horse welfare. Clearly she sips the kool aid as well. So disappointing.
AHEM, it was FLAVOR AID
Also… Packy had deleted all of my comments… I’m not nasty in my comments, I try to be factual and not emotional. Interesting that he deleted mine.
That was 2012 and 2017. Time is marching forward and so is the Animal Rights faction. Add onto that that both of those blood incidents could have happened in a field on turnout.
As far as brush injuries being a reason for not having a no blood rule, poppycock. I’m sure there are people smart enough to come up with fake brush alternatives or brush made of non-damaging organic materials. Brush injuries are no excuse to allow rider inflicted blood events to continue pretty much unabated.
The sport as a whole needs to get its head out of the sand, take a look around, and realize that the general public is sick to death of the cries of tradition and it was only minor and horses can die at any time. I know things are changing, but y’all need to light the afterburner if you don’t want to be run over by the AR machine.
Hey, I think US football is a great analogy. You can go read your pick of coverage over the last few years about its decline in the face of concern about the inherent brutality of the sport. Spot on.
Um, maybe if she wasn’t jogging her horse in little tiny pencil heels, she could have kept up with it & wouldn’t have needed to yank on it’s face to slow it down. Eventings not my thing but do people really wear cocktail dresses & heels for a jog up? If I showed up at a lameness check dressed like that, my trainer would have my head.
Agree. Eh. From doing lots of inhand showing (but mostly babies) I didn’t see anything terrible excluding her choice of shoes. I can’t walk in stiletto type shoes on flat, indoor terrain, let alone jogging a horse (but that’s me). She yanked on the face, but I have probably done corrections similar. These being high performance horses and not conformation hunters, I “assume” the same training for jogging, overall fitness, heading “home” or back “to the gate” and friends, and the overall excitement of clicking cameras etc contribute to the horse being a tad up and needing a correction. But if she had on normal shoes she’d be able to keep up with the horse. If it was someone other than ML, I’d roll my eyes and silently judge her choice of shoewear 
(wait- that’s kind of what I did).
I am in no way defending her, but I think we are all projecting a bit in light of recent events.
I think since there is now an award for the best turned out at the jog, many buy dresses especially for the jog. What I could see of the garbled, in my feed, jog at Badminton, it looked like most of the women were quite sensible about wearing pants, or britches, with riding style boots. And they looked great! Maybe they do it to feel feminine. I know I am not a fashion plate, but I do get my nails done asd that is the only feminine thing I do really. Occasionally this time of year, shae my legs…:o
I remember this type of response when this happened won ML at an event in Britain, they seemed to think we allowed this sort of thing
Maybe we need to start a new thread focusing on the blood rules and about the facts instead of a thread that is titled towards one specific rider. This way it no longer looks like a witch hunt. It’s truly about the horses welfare. Although I feel this thread is mostly about the blood rule and how we can improve it and make changes, there are still the odd poster who is attacking the rider over little things… like her jog style. It’s not the focus point, the blood and the rules are our focus.
Something needs to change. Either GJ needs to be accountable for not enforcing the rules across the board, or the rule needs to be more clear and less grey.
It’s really disheartening for me to see Jonathan Holling take the stance he did. He has long since been someone I really respected, because he is one of the few BNRs spearheading eventing safety studies.
I’ve read what he said a few times, and I am wondering if he is not defending ML, but is defending the system in place.
Either way, the system in place is not working if a rider with repeat horse-welfare incidents is not being “caught” by the rules. That suggests there’s a failure in the rules, from a horse-welfare standpoint.
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