Very true. :yes: Live and learn. I think many of us have put our foot in our mouths at some point, but we have the decency to be embarrassed, to apologize, and to not do it again.
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Agreed.
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I don’t speak inappropriately around children though.
I think that “watching your language” and staying away from “adult” topics is something that comes naturally to most people when they’re around kids. Most people that I know anyway.
Many kids and adolescents see their riding instructors as examples. They love to ride and the instructor is a mentor that some kids will emulate. It’s a bad example to set. Even though some teenagers know more vulgar words than many adults do, there is no need for a teacher to lead them to believe that it is cool, or the the norm, to speak and behave that way in public.
One day the kid will find out the hard way that the behavior of their trainer is not what is acceptable in society or the workplace (unless they aspire to a career in reality television).
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The two people I know of are alive (John Manning and Steve Milne). USEF says that they can’t be placed on the USEF list because there are only two options for that list: suspended or not suspended. There is no gray area of limited participation for USEF.
Actually, they have added a new section called “interim suspension” list and Steve Milne is on it. Someone else from California was also recently added - Sanjay Bagai? Jumpers. I believe in that case it only says “allegations of misconduct”
ETA : everyone on the interim suspension list seems to say “allegations of misconduct” next to their name.
There is also a list below the main Safe Sport banned list, and the Safe Sport interim suspension list. This one is specific to people who have criminal convictions. I’m guessing this is a list for people that the NGB went ahead and simply suspended or banned without prodding by Safe Sport. That is the list Barisone, Hammerschmidt, and the Thomas Keogh guy made their way onto. Another name from the Ohio area was added recently to that list (a month ago) - Carlos Pardo. He has an 18 month suspension specifically for sexual misconduct with a minor. The other names I mentioned note the reason is a criminal issue.
I don’t see a John Manning on any of the USEF lists though.
Out of curiosity, I cross referenced the full Safe Sport list. John Manning is on that, and it does note that he is allowed “limited participation.”
More detail is on the Safe Sport list in general about reasons, and extent of the penalties. Multiple names have a note that they are supposed to have “no contact.” Which I assume to mean no contact with a specific person. It also is specifically noted if their suspension is a temporary suspension only. Or if they are restricted, but not suspended.
Others are correct - Rob Gage is still on the Safe Sport list but not on the USEF list. Jimmy Williams is on neither.
Another name was very recently added to the Safe Sport database though as a temporary restriction
(I think - I’ll go back and double check) - Chris Fellers of Oregon. But his name has not yet been added to the USEF list. Maybe because it’s also a “restriction” but not a suspension (that seems similar to be the case with a Manning, but he is actually noted as being allowed limited participation).
Bottom line, there is much more nuance and information on the actual Safe Sport list in their database.
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IIRC, Manning is allowed to be a course designer, which might be due to limited contact required by that job.
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This made me laugh out loud. Thank you!
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Good to know about the update in lists. Wonder if USEF got tired of people contacting them about the discrepancies.
Manning was listed as show manager for one show, but it’s in May so not going to happen. I don’t thing that the SS folks realized that a course designer can be at the show all day, wandering around at will.
Sanjay Bagai apparently got in a fight with his groom at Thermal and went after him with a pitchfork. https://www.riversidesheriff.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=954
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@Peggy - wow oh wow - that’s some insane conduct toward a groom :no:
I’m with you all on Safe Sport potentially being unaware of what the role of course designer or show manager actually entails. I can’t remember details… but Manning was actually convicted of a crime awhile back… correct? Perhaps he’s banned from cos hung specifically…
I do think it’s worth watching the USEF list to see if Chris Fellers is actually added at any point. I don’t know what “restriction” means, and how that differs from the “limited participation” status Manning has, or what the issue is at the root of that one. There is no mention of anything involving a minor. The Fellers ruling is VERY recent… so maybe that’s also why his name isn’t on the USEF list yet. Or… perhaps it’s because that is a pretty big family last name to end up on EITHER list… :uhoh:
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@Virginia Horse Mom Now that I’ve looked at the USEF list it appears that Steve Milne just got moved from limited privileges (a SS-only designation) to interim suspension (which applies to both). I think the interim list has been there for awhile.
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Can we get back to Packy for a minute??
Packy’s “substance abuse” was alcohol. The “substances and paraphernalia” found in his vehicle when he was pulled over (one of several times) were a bottle of Acepromazine and a needle and syringe. Packy was a self admitted “drunk” until New Year’s Day 2017. When he died, he had not had a single drink for three years, two months and twelve days.
Packy’s only assets long before he died were his car and his personal belongings. Banbury Cross Farm was owned solely by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. AS McGaughan, and has been since the 70s. It was sold because they are both in their late 70s-80s and ready to downsize and his mom was ready to retire from breeding and teaching dressage. Packy had rented an apartment on my parents’ farm, twelve miles from Banbury Cross, for the past 10-15 (can’t remember) years. He stayed in the house at BCF in the winter when his parents were in Wellington, where they also own a home. When they returned, he moved back to the place in New Market.
Packy went reluctantly to the emergency room at Frederick Memorial Hospital the afternoon of Tuesday, March 10, with heart-related symptoms. He was released later that night. Sadly, EKGs miss 25% of the time, and his cardiac irregularities went undetected. He went home, still feeling badly, stayed in the house all day Wednesday, canceling a few lessons and communicating briefly with his working students, via phone or text. When no one could reach him on Thursday, his mother sent his brother, who lived nearby, to the farm to check on him, and found him dead. Packy was living clean when he died, but he was still about 75 lbs. overweight. He died of a heart attack, folks. Because he was a single, stubborn man who didn’t like hospitals, he died unnecessarily of a heart attack. The cause of death was not included in the obituary because the autopsy results had not yet been released.
Was he edgy? Sure he was. Was he purposely tone deaf on some things? Yes. I’ll chalk it up as fiercely loyal, because he was as loyal a friend as the day is long.
Will I change anyone’s opinion here? Probably not because you all LIVE for the tabloid trash that is this Chronicle Forum. I am here only because another friend alerted me to the comments you made the other day. I was also discouraged from commenting or trying to change the minds of the blissfully ignorant, but I can’t help myself.
He was my friend. He was imperfect, as we all are, but he paid his dues for his legal wrong doings (DUIs. Just DUIs. He didn’t teach drunk. He didn’t day drink. He didn’t serve alcohol to minors. He finished his day, went to a restaurant and ate/ drank at the bar until he went home and went to bed. He lived alone and was lonely. The bottle was his friend for many years, until it wasn’t any longer, and he truly embraced his sobriety when he finally did, attended AA, etc.). He died too soon because the one addiction he hadn’t yet kicked was food.
Shame on all of you for the nasty comments and piss-poor assumptions you made. Shame on you for hiding behind your silly screen names while you did so. I sincerely hope that the karma you wished on Packy finds you some day.
Signed,
Jennifer S. Webster
proud but not blind, lifelong (39 years) friend, student, and once-upon-a-time Pan Am Games groom of gold medalist Patrick McGaughan.
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Also of note, if you check the real estate multiple listing service, you will see that Banbury Cross Farm had been on the market for well over a year. There was no “sudden liquidation”. If you are going to be armchair detectives, at least be good ones. That’s what Packy would tell you. 
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Funny how all of those things that are a matter of public record, suddenly aren’t. Thanks for posting Jennifer. I wouldn’t know Packy from Adam’s off ox, but the speculative smear was appalling.
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And when I say “just DUIs”, please don’t think I am minimizing those crimes. They were very wrong. He endangered the lives of others. He had several sideswipes and near miss accidents. Thankfully he was caught & punished before anyone died. He knew this! He agreed with this. Addiction is heinous…but he was strong and overcame it. Not everyone can say that.
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@Denali6298 , it is when you don’t have your facts straight. Packy didn’t put the farm up for sale, because it was never his farm. In all fairness, he was DEVASTATED when farm was listed. Truly devastated. It was his parents’ farm and their decision to do so. There were plans early this year to build him a house and barn on the other end of the property still owned by the family, but obviously those plans will never be realized.
As much of a loud-mouth as he could be, he was a very private person. He practiced law very successfully for at least a decade…not a “stint”, dividing his time between Washington DC and New York City. That divided lifestyle burned him out and cost him an 8 year-long relationship; one from which I’m not sure he ever truly recovered.
He would kill me for defending him here, to all of you, because frankly, he wouldn’t find you worthy of an explanation. I don’t find you worthy of an explanation, but I certainly find him worthy of my defense.
@LexInVA I challenge you to come forward as your true given name, so that I can know exactly who it is who has so incorrectly disparaged the life and actions of Patrick McGaughan.
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Well allow me to retort Jenny…
The farm went up for sale several days after SafeSport went legal in 2018. That’s a fact. Given their age, I will agree that they definitely had no reason to hold on to the farm, but if they wanted to sell the farm because they were getting old and wanted to downsize to move to Wellington, they would have likely done it years ago, given how old they are now and that they would have had an easier time of it when Packy had his own place and was gainfully employed. They have had a FL address in Wellington and business active there long enough to have done exactly that, just before Packy lost his lawyer job, so people find it a bit too unlikely that it’s just as simple as you say it is and a matter of coincidence. If they can’t really use the farm themselves and Packy faces the possibility of being booted by SafeSport or the USEF, ruining the family business and making it insolvent in short order, which would necessitate a fast and unprofitable fire-sale, then they certainly wouldn’t want to hold on to it, so it makes sense to liquidate it for a good amount ASAP, before a proverbial hammer drops and you are left holding the bag.
One can’t refute his controversial Anti-SafeSport stance and the fact that his record would have gotten him in trouble with SafeSport, as he was charged and convicted and violated his probation while being paid as a teacher/coach/instructor. Since Packy was a lawyer and you claim he was wholly innocent, why would he not have his “bogus” possession charges expunged by filling out a single form, which he could easily have done because it was not prosecuted, if everything you say is true about him being accidentally caught with Ace and some syringes, no harm and no foul? If he was wholly innocent, why did he hire another lawyer from Baltimore to deal with the prosecutor instead of hashing it out with the county prosecutor himself, lawyer to lawyer? The record shows that the case was not closed until 2012 and had been on the stet docket. A lot of stuff isn’t present in the public listings, so I’ll clarify some things. That often happens when you negotiate with the prosecution to avoid going to court and the prosecution has no strong desire to waste time and money prosecuting the matter, so they make a defendant enter a diversionary program or simply go on probation.
Before that case was closed and charges dropped in 2012, Packy had his driver’s license suspended outside of VA, DC, or MD - I don’t know when or where - sometime between his arrest and when he was back on the radar in MD and was caught several times driving, so something was definitely going on with him. I don’t think anyone really wants to discuss it further at this point, but why did the family claim that he “passed away unexpectedly in his sleep” when they could have simply kept everything quiet for a bit until they had an actual COD to share and it coincidentally happens several days after the farm was pending sale, which doesn’t at all fit with this random Heart Attack scenario that you’re claiming? Given the disappointment he would have felt in having to give up the farm, I will say that it is entirely plausible that he had a stress-related cardiovascular episode that drove him to death, but again, they should have just kept everything quiet until they could actually say what did it, so that there would be no controversy and people could put it behind them.
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Wait. I thought you said it was Packy’s farm. And why would they have done it years ago instead of now? You don’t know any older people with two homes?
If they can’t really use the farm themselves and Packy faces the possibility of being booted by SafeSport or the USEF, ruining the family business and making it insolvent in short order, which would necessitate a fast and unprofitable fire-sale, then they certainly wouldn’t want to hold on to it, so it makes sense to liquidate it for a good amount ASAP, before a proverbial hammer drops and you are left holding the bag.
You know there are a good number of coaches with multiple DUIs, right? Why do you think SafeSport is going to permanently ban someone for DUI. Is there any evidence they have ever done so?
everything you say is true about him being accidentally caught with Ace and some syringes, no harm and no foul? If he was wholly innocent, why did he hire another lawyer from Baltimore to deal with the prosecutor instead of hashing it out with the county prosecutor himself, lawyer to lawyer?
“Only a fool has himself for a lawyer.”
I don’t think anyone really wants to discuss it further at this point, but why did the family claim that he “passed away unexpectedly in his sleep” when they could have simply kept everything quiet for a bit until they had an actual COD to share and it coincidentally happens several days after the farm was pending sale, which doesn’t at all fit with this random Heart Attack scenario that you’re claiming?
There are too many things that make no sense with Packy and what you claim is true.
Perhaps you don’t want to discuss it any further, since you have ‘misrepresented’ your ‘facts’. Why would they feel any need to keep his death quiet? Since he’s been dead for over a month, why don’t you share is actual cause of death with us? Jesus, do you not get how appalling this is? I disagreed with Packy right on this thread, but you are going far beyond ‘matters of pubic record’.
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jennifersw, I’m sorry for your loss. It must have been shocking. It was shocking to me and I did not know him in person. I appreciate your adding the extra information about someone you cared about.
I don’t think anyone posted anything that was false, but each bit is only part of the picture. People are complicated. Situations are complicated. There’s no need to create conspiracy. Lots of extra people are dying right now and this isn’t TV; getting an autopsy and accurate COD does usually take time even in the normal times. I think this discussion has gone as far as it needs to.
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