I have seen Jimmy Wofford do exactly this. 
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I’ve read this entire thread and see that a few people have discussed no one speaking up. But what struck me most about the video isn’t that no one spoke up, but that the majority of those watching this incident laughed. Each time she tried and he whipped her horse, they all laughed as though delighted with MT’s whipping. I found that more disturbing than the actual act. SMH
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I didn’t love that aspect either. Humans are ghoulish at times.
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I’ve been staying out of this one, because I have a lot of thoughts that are pretty mixed and I don’t think anyone was particularly “right” in the situation being discussed. @McGurk and @subk have summed up everything I’ve been thinking better than I ever could, so you haven’t needed to hear from me. But I wanted to highlight this contribution from OverandOnward.
Outside of this situation, even outside of horses, this is such a critical thing to be aware of. I remember one time when I was very young, I was driving my first car and the brakes failed. My foot went all the way to the floor and there was no response from the car as I headed onto the off ramp of a highway. My first response was obviously panic, but in that moment my brain remembered a story my mother had told me about a similar situation and I heard her voice say “thank god I could pull the handbrake”. I reached down, yanked the handbrake as hard as I could, and stopped a hair’s breadth from the car in front of me.
Without having that conversation with her in which I mentally rehearsed what I would do in the unlikely but extremely high pressure situation of my car brakes failing, I would have been paralyzed by the pressure of the moment. To paraphrase OaO, I would not have been able to realize and decide on sudden action under that pressure in the moment had I not earlier, consciously, prepared myself for that eventuality.
I have taken that lesson forward and use it all the time. What would I say if I saw a coworker make a sexist/racist/homophobic/xenophobic remark? What would I do if I witnessed a terrible car accident? How would I act if I came upon a loved one experiencing a medical emergency? I think, regardless of your thoughts on the circumstances of this particular instance, we have all learned that we need to rehearse “what would I do if someone put me or my horse in a position which made me uncomfortable?” It is too important a question to leave unanswered.
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Just on the issue of cancel culture, etc.:
Just because this isn’t the most horrific act of horse abuse you can imagine, doesn’t mean that we should just accept it and move on. And calling anyone who’s critical (I’m paraphrasing) a naive no-nothing who has never really seen horse trainers in action I think misses the point.
Mark Todd has not taken a leaf out of Bob Baffert’s handbook to suggest that he’s the victim here, so I give him credit for that. He (at least in his public statements) expresses regret over his actions and that suggests that he too sees the actions he took as excessive.
In terms of complicity, I agree that the rider herself and the others attending the clinic might have said something. At the very least they might not have laughed. But the rider was a minor, and she (and others at the clinic) probably did have the “tunnel vision” that other posters have mentioned that made them unprepared for a situation where they might have to take an unpopular decision to refuse to comply with the suggestions/orders given by a Big Name.
Most riders in clinics sign releases. It’s hard to imagine the release that might cover this incident: “Rider agrees that MT has the right to strip a branch off a tree and hit the horse from the ground as necessary to panic the horse into leaping off the bank, possibly taking the rider with it.” Did the rider really need to pay MT to accomplish this?
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She is not. Nobody said she was.
In this day and age? Yes.
Perhaps enough trainers losing licenses will help people make wiser decisions about why they want to attend clinics, and whose clinics they want to attend based on consistent humane training methods instead of getting excited about teaching their horse to do X at a clinic because the clinician has a big name and is known to get ‘results’ at clinics.
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Is there a sufficient appetite in the US to build such a governing structure? Anyone can hang out a trainer’s shingle.
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I don’t know, but I can be hopeful that we get our act together before the rabid animal rights people shut down horse sports altogether. That said, we have such a “makeover” mindset, that I worry quite a lot that it won’t happen. By makeover, I mean the instant gratification of makeup, hair, and wardrobe, which equates to giant results in a weekend clinic, and nothing to do with the TB Makeover project thingy!
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This is exactly what I think. All these pros sticking up for him saying things like “everyone makes mistakes”… at that level, that is not a mistake, it’s just a peak behind the curtain. This was not a dangerous horse that needed a firm hand immediately, it was just lack of patience on the human’s part.
No, I’m not a equine professional or a top rider, but I have owned and ridden horses for ~25 years, and I know enough to know that if a clinician starting acting that way in a clinic I was participating in, I would immediately leave.
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I haven’t seen her beat up here but she was quoted in an article about Todd’s suspension from the Racing Association:
Terrell said on Instagram that she has received backlash after posting the video: “Since posting the initial edited clip on TikTok I personally have received a lot of negativity and insults and abuse. That is something that comes with being active on social media. Since receiving backlash for the length of time since this clip was taken, for the sake of transparency, this was a clip from a training clinic in 2020.
“Whether I have rightly or wrongly addressed a situation on social media is not relevant to the fact that a top level athlete excessively and repeatedly hit my horse with a tree branch. I personally am not comfortable with how my horse was treated and at the time I was a 21-year-old girl who was not brave enough to speak up about my concerns,” she continued.
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This is actually pretty mild to some of the things I have witnessed riders/ trainers doing to their mounts over the decades I have been involved with horses. Wish I was sheltered.
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Ignore 
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Are people even bothering to read before posting anymore? Or are their fingers just so itchy they can’t be knackered to comprehend who is being spoken to, and about what?
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I think they were referring to him telling a rider they weren’t ready to tackle an obstacle and needed to revisit their goals and make them more realistic.
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That makes more sense! The new format can be hard to follow replies and what not if they aren’t quoted.
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I have not watched the video but have read the descriptions here of what happened.
When I did, I didn’t think “how COULD he” but instantly remembered all the times I have/had messed up with my horses. I did not grow up around horses, my parents didn’t pay for lessons, everything horsey was paid for by me. I was lucky enough to find three great instructors but the first sold her farm and moved away; the second sold her school horses (and I didn’t have a truck/trailer to take my horse there), could not afford to board with her, and her stable was 40 miles away; and I had to quit taking lessons with the third because I HAD to get my first apartment and couldn’t affords lessons after that. I would say that the longest I was able to stay with any of these instructors was two years.
I remember a few instances with the first Morgan (mare–in my avatar). Very early on in owning her (and I don’t remember what SHE did to trigger my response), I will admit to beating her with a lunge whip. After the third time (I think), I took a mental step back to see why, and I discovered that EACH instance was two days before my menstrual period. From that day on to the last time I had one, I NEVER did anything with any of my horses at the time. (Obviously, Mark Todd can’t claim that excuse.)
Another thing that that mare did was rush jumps when we first starting showing. (Post first instructor, pre second instructor) Not moving a ‘trifle fast’ but actually bolting towards the jumps. So, I decided to teach her (when back at the home barn) NOT to by jumping her over a course of jumps until she was (NOT dangerously) exhausted. After that, she didn’t rush jumps, and it did not affect her love of jumping. (She is the horse in my avatar.) Later, we had a “secret” signal that we were going to jump—I would softly say, “Hup”, and you could feel her looking for the first jump. She LOVED to jump and was very brave (or maybe I just TRUSTED her that much). I, also, remember teaching her to load onto a homemade, single-horse trailer (the only thing I could afford at the time). There was no one at the barn who offered to help nor could actually TEACH me to load her in that tiny trailer. I ended up using “force”, basically let her use her own strength and weight against herself. It wasn’t pretty, professional, or educated, but it worked, and I never had problems loading her again.
I’m not justifying anything I did wrong or my actions. A LOT of my mistakes have been ‘because I didn’t know better.’ But I know that I STILL make mistakes, because I am running into situations that I have never experienced before. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
I have thought of a couple of other not-great-response or would-probably-be-condemned things I have done but will forgo their telling. I can just say that I am as equally guilty (or maybe more so) of doing things “wrong”, and therefore, I am not fit to comment on Mark Todd’s actions.
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The Difference is that you are not being touted as an advocate for humane treatment of Horses. He was a spokesperson for such an organization, and being a high profile instructor he is held (appropriately) to a higher standard than your average amateur just flailing around trying to figure out how to get things done.
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Well said Matt Brown.
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“bringing these things out of the shadows and into the harsh light will hopefully help us all seek a better way to train and evolve as horsepeople”
Hard to argue with that.
Evolutions can be painful. But women, i.e., would still be unable to vote if it hadn’t been for that ‘radical’ evolution, too. Matt is brave for putting it in plain language. Let’s evolve.
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