At some point it becomes dangerous riding, and dangerous riding deserves a card/being rung out. This became dangerous riding (for horse and rider) long before it ended.
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Sorry for your horse. How do you know what the substance was and that it was put on intentionally? What does this have to do with AK? Does it having something to do with him?
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Posted 2 pages ago.
Em
The FEI has a rule against pushing an exhausted horse. The rule is by nature subjective, many of the horse welfare rules are.
I do understand your concern about potential mob rule. However, I think that enforcement of the FEI rules regarding horse welfare in competition is not so stringent that mob rule is a concern at this time.
There continue to be too many instances where the FEI has been made aware of flagrant violations of the horse abuse rules, by bystanders and not stewards. Many of these instances were live streamed. The officials were not doing their jobs for whatever reason and the rule breakers were suspended by the FEI after investigation…
If the FEI decides that no rules were broken in this instance then we will have to accept their decision, but I don’t see a problem with people questioning the ride.
As far as tack is concerned, if the rules allow it, obviously it’s allowed.
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I appreciate what you’re saying, and you bring up a good point. Maybe the FEI is not doing enough. I guess the endurance live streams do come to mind…
I guess what I’m seeing more and more is the subjective nature of what is acceptable practice is becoming more divisive, and it concerns me that good people may be falsely accused by internet radicals who don’t understand the horse, the day or the level of sport that they are watching on a small snippet of video. I’m not saying that is the case in this particular instance, but this incident has made me think about every time I’ve seen a scary round at a horse show, and there have been many.
I feel like being a steward is an exceptionally difficult job and I’ve seen them treated poorly when trying to address violations.
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They are two different issues. Rule enforcement, and ignorant-people-on-the-internet-criticizing-things-they-know-nothing-about.
The former needs to be addressed. FEI and USEF stewards need to be willing to enforce the rules and their organizations need to back them up.
There isn’t much we can do about the latter but ignore them. While everyone has an opinion and is entitled to it, forums such as these seem to be a better place to discuss opinions, and see what other people (with actual experience) think about the issue.
I suppose I don’t see the worst of what you are describing because I don’t do face book.
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I think you do have a valid point and there are difficult situations that can be perceived incorrectly by an ignorant public. Times where one is dealing with a very naughty or dangerous horse come to mind - the proper handling and corrections can seem inappropriate to someone not educated enough to tell what’s really going on.
I do not think that is the case with this particular video, and I think it is poor horsemanship for putting the horse in back-to-back top level, taxing classes and then not having the wherewithal to pull up when it’s not going well - and then to give the hindsight reflection that he should have once he realized the win was out of the question. Noooo…you pull up when your horse is struggling, regardless of if the win is on the table or not.
However…I think we can all agree we’ve made poor decisions we’ve regretted, and most not in the public eye scrutinized by the public.
BUT. This rider is somewhat known for questionable methods and a quick google search will bring up quite a history, much of which has been cited or intimated at on this thread.
I think my real reflective issue is that this and all the other plainly bad horsemanship that’s seen at the top levels shouldn’t be accepted, and it makes me really sad that it is. You’re right - it shouldn’t be acceptable at the lower levels either, and the sport as a whole needs to step up and call this stuff out when it happens - whether it’s at Spruce or the local show down the road.
But I think a different standard is at play when we’re talking the creme de la creme of horses and riders.
And what disgusts me lately is the total ambivalence this sport has towards known bad horsemanship and bad ethical/moral behavior. The tolerance for it because it’s exhibited by a BNT and “that’s just how it’s done.” The fact that certain BNs are KNOWN for drugging, KNOWN for commission padding, KNOWN for “legal” but questionable med cocktails, KNOWN for “off site schooling” or exhausting the horses or 9tubeapalooza or “liking the young girls” or changing a name so a horse can be re-shown in the greens and it’s just okay at the most elite levels of our sport because that’s “so and so” of a BNT or BNR and they get top results and look fancy on Instagram at WEF.
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Very eloquently stated @Mac123 . It seems like criticism (I don’t mean by amateurs or on these forums, but on the circuit itself) only seems to take place when someone isn’t winning, or on the rare occasion when a video goes viral in a bad way. There needs to be criticism, backed up with action, of bad horsemanship, even when unethical competitors are (technically) winning awards.
So it’s interesting. I watched the other derby round that AK rode first, last night. (Full rounds available on Clip my Horse and the subscription price is not expensive)
He was eliminated for a ridiculous situation that when you watch you realize it’s a mistake pretty much most of us could make. Before that point though he had an actual nice round. I’m not changing my overall opinion about his lack of horsemanship but it actually created more confusion given the competence disparity between the two rounds.
The first minute and change of the offensive derby round was not terrible but the horse grabbed the bit on the table top jump and things went downhill from there.
I am now wondering if the complete at all costs mentality on Carollo was in fact caused by the ground jury’s take on Squirt Gun’s elimination. I think that while a rider should know the rules at all times when a member of the ground crew asks you to move, I would have thought that an official’s directive to me would then supersede the closed obstacle aspect because an official is asking you to move. I likely would have made the same mistake if I’m being honest.
Just my thoughts.
Em
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I was at the event, the incident with Squirt Gun happened well after the incident with Carollo. I believe Carollo was within the first 10 or so horses, whereas Squirt Gun was towards the end.
I think the Squirt Gun thing was definitely a strange judgement on the part of the officials… he was clearly asked to move by the ground crew from where I was sitting, and they even asked him several times. The grounds crew motioned after he left the paddock that he was supposed to start again from the A obstacle of the bank, so he started cantering that direction when the announcer pulled him up and announced the decision. So it was the fault of the grounds crew not understanding what a closed obstacle was, and they got a stern talking to by Leopoldo Palacios after the fact. If anything, I wonder if the judge’s decision had something to do with the Carollo incident, not the other way around.
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Someone should tag Eyecandy/AK in this video. THIS is what a derby should look like! Spectacular!!
https://www.facebook.com/cianoconnorofficial/videos/657228831458149/
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I think governing bodies will have a defensible leg to stand on if they can point to a record of action in those crystal clear cases and a consistent response in those instances. It’s the foundation for being able to say “We did/did not act and this is why”. And I think that will be vitally important as we reach a nexus of social media and animal rights activists (some good, some bad, some off the charts idiotic).
Remember the ammie who lost her temper and tried to boot her horse in the gut after she was dumped from a fairly dirty stop/jump/prop at the Hamptons? I mean all things considered, AK’s horse had it worse for things that made him go “ouch” (conking into 7 jumps has to be higher on the ouch scale than a near miss from a 1 legged hopping angry small adult)but nevertheless, we are supposed to be adults out there (unless we are kids, in which case we are supposed to have adults to teach us sportsmanship and horsemanship).
She deserved calling out, but not the sheer scale of internet abuse she got, but she sure deserved some sort of punishment from the NGB (and she got it). And I suspect both served as a cautionary tale to anyone else out there contemplating losing their temper. Ditto if AK gets some sort of punishment. I imagine for those people who don’t have good horsemanship practices, they will give a bit more thought in some situations.
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Interesting opinion on the likelihood of any action by the FEI regarding this incident.
https://horse-canada.com/cuckson-report/kocher-gate-really-viable-case/
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My apologies. I clearly got that backwards. I apologize for my mistake.
That makes more sense if you think about the judges already having seen Carollo.
Em
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Very interesting. Especially the title.
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She is most likely right, having had a great deal of experience in these matters.
Trust me, I’m no fan of AK. But being petty doesn’t help anything. That was in no way a comparable round with comparable questions asked.
Henrik von Eikmann (sorry if misspelled) on Mary Lou jumped two good rounds at Aachen, helping Sweden to win the Nations Cup. He chose not to ride her in the later GP, feeling those two rounds were enough to ask of her. If course, she is his only horse. Perhaps Kocher doesn’t care, since he has more than one ride.😬
One thing that kind of made me think that Andy doesn’t get it is, he said Carollo could jump 1.60 like cross rails and the derby was only set at 1.45. They have the derby set at 1.45 because it is such a difficult track, they actually lowered it from before. So even though the jumps are smaller, the efforts are just as big. That made no sense to me at all from a supposedly top FEI rider.
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This. And bad horsemanship also needs to be called out even when the results aren’t so egregious. It’s sobering to think that even though the horse was clearly not fit to compete, if he’d left up just a few more jumps, we might not be having this discussion. Until people’s horsemanship is put under scrutiny, even if they’re technically “still winning,” nothing is going to change. Otherwise it’s an unending circle of “you can’t question X until you ride at this level,” and “to ride at this level you need to do X.”
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