This seems highly unlikely to me. How many other horse show competitors are known to occasionally do drugs recreationally? How many former addicts are competing in dressage or other disciplines? This is probably not something the USEF keeps a record of and my understanding of human drug testing at competitions so that it’s supposed to be random, not targeted. Same as it is for horses. At least that’s how it works in Canada. Is it the same in the US?
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I still remember a show where every single horse was tested, some more than once all because a horse at that show the year before was positive.
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People who shoot their clients should remain banned.
Trainers who assault their clients, sexually or otherwise, should be banned.
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Someone might be able to get a therapeutic use exception for suboxone.
Someone using suboxone as a therapeutic med and also an opiate recreationally would not be able to hide the opiate
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Don’t they have to get clearance in advance?
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Clients that drive their trainers to a psychotic break should also be banned.
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Well, now that LK has admitted in court to a drug problem, I guess it will be easier to step up and admit that problem means they need a drug exception before she competes. So I guess there is one good side to driving someone insane by tormenting them.
People who admit in court that their goal is to torment people and they go about it doing many illegal means should be banned.
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Jinx
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As I understand it (and I may not have the facts correct), LK reported MB to state child protective services as well as USEF and Safesport. He was subsequently excluded by SS but it’s not clear to me that it was based on LK’s report but rather the fact that in the meantime he had been criminally charged for attempted homicide. If those facts are true, I’m not sure this reveals any problems with the SS process. If he indeed was excluded from the sport not based on the report but due to pending criminal charges, that does not demonstrate that LK successfully “weaponized” the SS reporting process.
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I believe so but she can’t compete until she completed her Safe Sport update training anyway
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LK called SafeSport about MB, making a claim of child endangerment/abuse/neglect. SafeSport poked the local authorities, who went into action almost immediately, to meet with MHG and other people there and see what was going on. That is what came out at trial.
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An investigation into child abuse, even if totally unfounded, is terribly stressful
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The rules state that a prohibited substance cannot be approved for use by an athlete due to the need to use it as a result of previous use of a prohibited substance without approval. In other words, there is no free pass for LK’s continued use of suboxone as a result of her long-term opioid addiction, as a key ingredient of the drug is a prohibited substance on the Narcotics list. She has to be completely free of opioids and other prohibited substances, in order to compete at the levels she wants to be at and claims to be a part of.
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I don’t disagree. But that’s separate and apart from SS imposing an exclusion. And reforming the SS process does nothing to prevent someone from making an unfounded report of child abuse to state authorities.
My understanding is that it was the criminal charges and nothing to do with the unfounded child abuse allegations that led to the SS/USEF exclusion. People can (and do) make child abuse reports all the time. It happens ALL THE TIME in custody battles. Reforming SS can’t change that.
I also don’t know how clear it is that SS caused the state to act more quickly. I mean, that may be what individual people think but I don’t know that we’ll ever know conclusively. But if it did, is that a BAD thing? It seems like the state went out and concluded pretty quickly that the children were not subject to abuse. Isn’t that the desired outcome? When there’s a report, go confirm it quickly to ensure children are protected and that false allegations don’t linger? That doesn’t really seem like weaponizing the process if, indeed, there was a speedy and fair investigation of the allegations.
Perhaps was an attempt to use SS against someone but an unsuccessful one because the child abuse allegations were not what cased SS to act to exclude MB. SS acted to exclude him because of the criminal charges. It was the shooting that led to the exclusion, not the allegations of child abuse.
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They cant even get rid of dressage hub…
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Thanks.I wasn’t sure
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The fact that it may not have been the cause of the exclusion, or it was “unsuccessful”* doesn’t change that it was weaponized to do so.
*since the point of the allegation was to irk, harass, etc MHG and MB, I’d argue it in fact did work. Sadly.
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People do all sorts of things to irk each other. Seems like throwing the baby out with the bath water that someone made an unfounded allegation that the SS system correctly concluded was unfounded and which resulted in no exclusion. What kind of reform are you looking for that would improve the process when it worked?
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We don’t know that. He might have been suspended pending further investigation, were it not for the altercation that occurred. Or maybe MHG would have been? Or both.
I don’t understand your question.
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The question is what reform anyone thinks is necessary when someone tried to weaponize a system and failed. That doesn’t, to me, suggest any problem with the process that requires reform.
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