Her name was Chanter, wasn’t it?
I’m reading the beginning of that one now and I have some mixed feelings as well. On one hand that kid sounded delusional, naive, and entitled. If I was a CotHer back then I probably would have reacted the same way everyone else did.
But reading the whole thing now has me a bit uneasy. I think the reality that you will never be competitive at that level (as a junior at least) unless you have money is a big pill to swallow when you’re 15. In most other sports if you’re talented and you really work hard the sky is the limit. With horses, you can be insanely talented and insanely hard working and 2’6 might be the limit, if that. When you’re a kid your view of the world is just different and you kind of expect things to be “fair” but it just isn’t fair that some riders will never have the same opportunity as those with financial privilege.
And for the record, I’m not at all saying those Maclay kids aren’t talented or hardworking. There are 11 year olds competing at that level that have more talent in their pinky than I will ever have in my entire life.
I just know I also struggled with this reality as a kid and I wish someone would’ve help me cope with this frustration better. I wish more people had explained not to compare myself to kids with completely different circumstances. I wish people didn’t scoff at how high I was jumping. I wish more people recognized how to measure my ability as a rider in ways other than competing. I also wish someone told me about programs like IEA. I wish someone told me that it’s ok to not own your own horse or even lease your own horse and it doesn’t make you any less of a rider.
But anyway, I too feel a little bad for the OP of that one. I wish we could get a “where are they now”. I really hope she’s still riding and that whenever it was that she eventually got a reality check, she didn’t get too jaded to give up riding.
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There was a thread about Melanie Talent (?) who died at a cross country jump . She was much beloved, both here and IRL. Then her nephew started posting here saying we were all going to die riding horses. Then a poster revealed in a PM that he had mental issues and I think many of us tried to shut people down from answering him. Many posters were very kind and tried giving him words of comfort but his disability kept him coming back and lashing out at anyone who suggested maybe COTH was not where he should be posting. I think someone contacted his family and I haven’t seen him in awhile.
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Oof that one was hard. I have a lot of respect for the ones who nicely let everyone know the back story and didn’t engage.
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yeah…that’s an example of a gone wrong thread I really didn’t mean (as that is unique in so many ways, and a mental concern of a family member responding) 
When I began this, what I meant was: What have you seen begin as a normal inquiry/sharing that others dissolved into such a whacky tangent it became pure entertainment! The original one that made me muse on this was someone asking about a mode of hanging/displaying a nice bridle in her office. It collapsed into people telling her WAY offtrack opinions on why she should never utilize the treasured piece of tack in her office — literally in regards to her career and how horribly it would be impacted to reviews of her financial status if she did…to me, it was so laughable! BY FAR not one of our worst! just made me realize SO many more go wrong than continue in same true vein of original inquiry.
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Ooo, I have another general one to throw into the pile. It isn’t as zanny as some of the other ones posted here but there are a few threads on the horse feed Crypto Aero (Crypto Aero Horse Feed) that just go completely off-rails. This was the first thing that popped up when I googled reviews of the feed (saw it on Chewy and was curious). The OP just wanted some general feedback, and wound up with a lot of pseudoscience claims and Houseguests appearing.
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Lol you know it’s going to be good when you click on a benign, simple topic and your like “i wonder how this got to over 60 comments…?”
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Just got finished reading the “Would Anyone” train wreck. I tried to look away and do something else, but it’s tractor beam kept drawing me back in. Two “posters” who tried to conflict with each other but kept running into themselves. WTF?
OMG Mod 1’s closing post “It’s coming from inside the house…” made me lol!
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OK, I admit to not reading all 226 posts but…
Did anyone mention the young gal whose Uncle was giving her an aged, unbroke Arab stallion she was going to tame with LOOOOVVVVEEEE?
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Oh, I forgot about that one! How long ago was that? That was an interesting thread.
Has Crazy Crayola Trainer been mentioned yet?
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Lol we probably have every horse related Disney movie to thank for that one!
Damn you! I am at post 105 and now emotionally invested in this thing! I still say this is a 14 year old but will read the whole thing as I can’t look away!
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Any idea what the “blue saddle” thread the referenced in this thread? That thread was great! Not what I expected but I am still scratching my head. The uncle (?) existed but it is unclear if he was actually related to the OP and many felt the website was fake.
Because that always works, right? 
I found it. The snowstorm pony thread.
I summarized it the way I remembered it (accuracy not promised) back in post #23. The pony was sold and the buyer was having weather delays to pick it up – or maybe that pony wasn’t really sold, had the buyer actually paid? but anyway there was a monster of a snowstorm in there somewhere. For 4 weeks. And it seemed no one in the thread could agree on who actually owned and had rights to have the pony, in case it ever stopped snowing long enough to pick up the pony … if the sellers would let it go (or was that just the boarding stable). 
691 posts. 96,000+ views. Started in Feb. 2016 when it was snowing, carried on until Nov. 2016 … I rather remember that it had completely departed from the subject of the snowstorm pony by that time. And after all that, I can’t remember what the outcome was re the pony – or maybe they never said.
(The thread starts off discussing ‘horse’, but it was actually a doll of a child’s show pony.)
[Gigantic spoiler post at #310 & #312 (read the first 10 or so posts first to get the original context and #310 will be more fun), don’t read #310-312 if you don’t want to spoil the journey, but not everyone agreed with that interpretation anyway. And it gets even crazier from there.]
The Op in this case got some really good feedback about coping with those issues. The real problem was the dishonesty by the OP taken to such a great extent. That is an issue for parents to address, not something to be learned on a BB, and it is a great example for parents to keep communication open with their teenagers and not to let them play on the internet unsupervised.
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@BatCoach 
Thanks.
A good hour of my Life I will never see again.
Worth every minute 
And now, The Blue Saddle!
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I’m only 76 posts into this one, but now I want to know if the winner of Maclay from 2013 is a rags to riches fairytale story!!! lol
ETA: I’m reading the Would Anyone post…which is comical…
