EXACTLY! Ask any of the younger professionals how they manage the pressure of owners and their expectations with the fear the horse will get moved to another rider. Some of our the US team’s best owners have no problem making these abrupt shifts.
It’s I think the real advantage self-funded riders like Karl Cook have, when he finds great horses, he is on his own timeline.
Having early exposure to that pressure and heartbreak likely makes these young professionals more resilient and recognize they need to diversify whenever possible. Very few of the truly top riders depend on a single owner if they aren’t self-funded.
This might be slightly off topic, but the fact that this pressure exists is the reason we have the videos of Charlotte DJ and Andrew McConnon. Kids don’t need to learn how to deal with the pressure of jumping around 1.30m flawlessly to keep their sponsors, they need to learn how to train horses properly without beating them. I don’t think this program, as stated, is going to teach them that.
I don’t know if it was actually fact-based, but the old joke I remember hearing about Michael Matz was that he was the only D Pony Clubber who was old enough to drive himself to the rally. Lol.
Most kids jumping 1.30m (a bit over 4 feet, we’re not talking high Junior/ Am or GP level) flawlessly, don’t have sponsors, they have parents.
Why do you believe that the program that Laura and Katie have generously given their time and energy to, will be teaching junior jumpers to beat their horses as an avenue to reach success for the U.S. in international and Olympic competition?
I don’t think that’s what anyone said. What some of us are saying is that the branding of this opportunity as helping talented “under resourced” YRs get to the Team is disingenuous. Kids who are coming from nothing are not the ones who are (currently) getting this opportunity.
@paw ^This is what I was responding to, not the quibble that this program was meant to help “kids who come from nothing” because it’s not and was not ever meant to be.
It is a mentorship program to help the talented young riders whose parents or trainers are not necessarily familiar with what it takes to learn how to do their absolute best to progress, to realize what it takes to be successful in International competition and to earn the sponsorship that it takes these days to represent the U.S. in International and Olympic competition as adults.
That is what this program is about. It’s not about bringing schooling show kids to the Olympic level, and I’m surprised that people are complaining about this generous donation of time and knowledge.
There is much to be said for bringing up young riders who cannot show in rated shows (and that is a very worthwhile endeavor), but that is not what this program was ever meant to be about.
Why do people feel they need to rain in other’s parades and nit pick at any others do?
Is their program, in an industry they know best, a program to mentor who they think needs mentoring.
Armchair quarterbacking is really unnecessary.
This program also doesn’t stop other programs others may want to run under different parameters.
Being positive about someone doing something to give others a leg up should be applauded, not criticized because in someone’s opinion is not perfect.
I grew up a poor barn rat and rode whatever everyone else would let me ride until I finally bought my own OTTB in my early 20s. So I always suck at reading the “Hey, the poor little rich kid (or ammy) needs our help to get from where they are (with a great show horse and resume) to Germany to study or the Olympics or whatever.” I get stuck at the definition of “poverty” here and I can’t get past it.
With that disclosure in mind, your post helps me read more fairly.
You are right-- this isn’t about people like Matz or Kusner because members of the middle class don’t get to the level that this program wants to pick them up.
If that is so-- there are riders who are poor but not Poor, and they need a helping hand for the purposes of creating a supply of competitive Olympic teams, how do we make that not distasteful?
I was just entering the horse scene as a kid in the early 1980s when the USET was in the business of putting together Olympic teams (and I got to see the show jumping win at the 1984 Games in L. A.). I believe that was at the tail end of a much more nationalistic, paternalistic kind of system where the patrons of those horses or horse and rider teams were there to create a great American team.
So, though it sounds slightly quaint, very mid-20th century, to speak of the importance of having a competitive American Olympic team, do you think that rhetorical strategy be resurrected?
Or perhaps there is no going back from the case where the billionaire’s daughter gets bought THE horse that would take her to international competition (not that she doesn’t have to be a helluva athlete also); there is no separation horse and rider teams such that a great horse gets paired with a great rider with the owner’s blessing; before there were lawsuits about how selection was done.
I agree completely. Katie and Laura stepped up when they saw the need. They should be commended, not have their program picked apart by the peanut gallery.
This criticism of Katie and Laura’s program posted on this thread is just uncalled for. " Kids don’t need to learn how to deal with the pressure of jumping around 1.30m flawlessly to keep their sponsors, they need to learn how to train horses properly without beating them. I don’t think this program, as stated, is going to teach them that."
Someone, who apparently knows nothing about Katie and Laura, has the gall to opine that they will be teaching these young people to beat their horses.
If they’re appealing to the general horse loving public for donations to fund the program, which they seem to be doing with the OpEd piece, they are opening themselves up to the peanut gallery in the process.
I will say the podcast was quite interesting in the way they explained how the whole program works.
Yes, everyone on the internet will have something to say and there isn’t anything wrong with asking questions or constructive criticism.
It’s the clueless naysayers who have no idea what it takes to develop young people into high level international and Olympic riders, yet feel free to bash a program created by two very experienced equestrians, that I find disappointing.
The program seemed pretty clear to me from almost the first couple of paragraphs. They’re looking to help the next couple of possible Olympic level riders. They are looking towards the sponsors that the Olympic level riders used to have. They’re looking to give a leg up to the riders who show talent and work ethic but don’t have mega millions behind them to buy big time horses.
Lol you have got to be kidding me, right? How soon you forget:
"Others were incensed when she mentioned flipping a horse over backwards, suggesting one rider should “crash him into a fence rather than letting him turn” and saying that horses “need a good licking sometimes.” "
Literally telling young people to beat their horses. Not sure how much more clear it needs to be.
I remember that “social media storm” over her comments. Some people really took what she said and ran to ridiculous lengths with it. She certainly could have stopped with the hyperbole and realized what social media is today and how verbally letting your frustrations out is unwise.
That clinic has nothing to do with this program, and she has never suggested beating horses as a training tool for upper level riders seeking to compete internationally and ultimately at the Olympics. It is counterproductive and the riders in the program with Katie and Laura are very far ahead in ability from the riders in that clinic.
Possibly my favorite memory of him riding was when he was judging the Maclay final one of the years it was at the Meadowlands. And he was also showing a jumper in the Grand Prix on the same day.
So he judged the first round of the Maclay in the morning, then changed into his riding clothes, won the Grand Prix in the afternoon, and then changed back to his judging clothes to judge the second round of the Maclay. It was fantastic.
Plus the courses for the two classes were extremely similar, even if they were about two feet apart in height. So any kid who was thinking, “I would like to see the judge tackle that course,” had their chance on that day. And he did it in excellent style. Lol.
In hindsight, I wonder if they had a back up judge on hand, just in case anything bad happened during the Grand Prix. But it did not occur to me to ask that question at the time.
I had to look it up to refresh my memory. The person who won the Maclay that year is now a grandmother. Yikes. Time really flies!
Really? Have you been at every single one of her training sessions? I’m not saying she does advocate for beating horses every time she trains, but she certainly did that time.
Oh so it’s ok to tell younger, less experienced riders to beat their horses, but not ones headed to the Olympics. Got it.
That’s not what she said. She didn’t tell the riders to “go and beat their horses.”
The fact that these riders needed more help than she would expect for riding at the level they were, was obviously frustrating. I watched the clinic and it was surprising that some of the riders were having problems with the basics.
That is a bizarre interpretation of what I wrote, and again, she didn’t tell the riders to beat their horses.
