Surprised there hasn’t already been a thread started, curious as to why there’s less interest in his case than some of the others recently.
Do even the usual predator apologists think that a 13 year old is beyond the pale?
Does the fact that there was a criminal investigation and an arrest preclude the apologists from whining about lack of due process in Safe Sport?
Are we all suffering from outrage fatigue?
All of the above?
That’s because everyone is discussing it in the Safesport thread.
Silly me. Thanks for the heads up.
might as well support this thread. The other thread is trying to be for discussion of SS in general, not about particular cases.
Mmmmm, if he’s been arrested on the charges I would hope both USEF and SafeSport ban him permanently
I think there’s less outrage/discussion/etc because many people knew about it beforehand, so it’s hard to argue against it. Unlike some of the first cases, which seemingly came out of the blue.
Probably true about some of the recent cases, but certainly not about George. However, Michael Traurig isn’t the same kind of icon in the sport.
I don’t know, George Morris caught a lot of people off guard. There were a ton of people who took lessons and clinics with him, felt like they knew him, and never saw anything. So they thought that since they never saw anything, obviously nothing ever happened.
So sad but true.
Kind of repeating myself from the Safe Sport general thread, but this idea, that it didn’t happen because “they” never saw any untoward behavior, just makes me furious. That’s the whole modus operandi of these abusers: They’re good at it and they’ve perfected the art of keeping their public reputations intact. They know how to manipulate their victims into being silent, and ultimately depend on their blind supporters to come forward and espouse their virtues.
As for the Traurigs: Barely interacted with Bernie many years ago; unfamiliar with Michael.
Yes, you don’t get to be older with no record if you are bad at hiding your illegal habits.
I do feel bad for those around them; they must feel as though the whole world got turned upside down. Their friend/family member, who they thought was a great person, turns out to be a sleaze ball. I understand why for many their first reaction is ‘this must be false! There’s no way ___ did this, I’ve known them ___ years, they babysat my kids, they went to my wedding, etc’.
Just like most crimes, the amount of people hurt goes far beyond the original victim.
This is a situation where people have different experiences. I guess if you only knew George from his books or his column in Practical Horseman, you wouldn’t have been aware. But it was certainly common knowledge on the show circuit, even back in the 70s when I was a low level smurf at a lesson barn not far from Hunterdon.
Also, George pretty much admits to it in his autobiography, Unrelenting. It was published in 2016, some speculate to get George’s version of events out in front of the lawsuits and accusations.
So I’m truly not sure how people can say they were caught off guard.
I haven’t read Unrelenting; what was the version of events he put out? Just curious given a few have mentioned that he pretty much admits to it, yet presumably tried to present it better somehow.
Well, a lot of people were caught off guard though. Just look at the thread about it from when the news was released.
While it may have been common knowledge then, it certainly wasn’t in the past 20ish years. I personally never clinicked with him, but I have friends and acquaintances who did, and some of them felt they knew him very well, who were shocked. Some of them felt extremely betrayed. And some blamed safesport and attacked it.
Heck, some people still don’t believe it. There are still secret clinics and lessons going on that are taught by him. While some of those people probably know but don’t care, I know at least a few who pay for him to come visit a few times a year who vehemently assert that he is completely innocent, and knowing them, they believe it.
He admits to having sex with minors in the book. Also drugging horses and poling.
I don’t think he consciously tried to present it in a better light because he didn’t, and probably still doesn’t, see anything wrong with what he did. Thus, no need to do anything but tell his story.
Quoting myself just for clarification.
In what I wrote above, I’m not referring to GM nor necessarily M. Traurig, but more in reference to other recent Safe Sport cases.
(Apologies for wandering off the thread’s topic).
I’d assume more people knew him from just his writing/legacy than from the more personal show-circuit drama. I’m on the younger side and my first exposure to Morris was in college under a decade ago. We had to read a book he’d written a forward in (we also had to watch videos from Bernie Traurig’s website). This was the first I’d heard of either man. I wasn’t interested in the hunter/jumper scene so the only other information I picked up about Morris was through lots of (common) equestrian memes. I wasn’t “blown away” by the accusations but I was very surprised by all the people who said it was common knowledge considering some of his material was being taught in schools!
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