I understand that, and I think that’s a good decision by the rider, but we still have to think about the impact on the horse. Especially with events that have XC as the last phase, the horse has already done a lot and needs a rest. They’ve already traveled to the venue, done the warm-ups and other phases, if the rider pulls up midway through XC, that’s still a good amount of physical strain on the horse. And in the case of Couture, the management team sees no problem with competing the horse extremely frequently at a very high level at competitions hundreds of miles away from each other. At some point, she’s going to hit her limit.
BTW, I think USEF should also limit the number of classes that HJ and dressage horses are able to be entered in per show. I saw a video on TikTok of someone talking about a trainer who entered a horse in 30 classes in a single show. Yes, 99% of people would not even think of doing that, but there are rules that are only because of the edge cases. We know there are horses that will work until they collapse, but the governing bodies need to make sure there are rules in place to prevent that from happening at a show.
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Did the horse do 30 classes? You can add scratch all day long. I add a bunch of classes in case the first one is a blood bath then scratch later.
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Yes, the horse did do the classes. With a bunch of different riders so they could all compete, iirc.
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Not to mention, you’re telling me they aren’t going to jump school/XC school/gallop during the week between those outings…
Show us the mare’s leg ultrasounds Rick, if you want to post more.
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So while I’m sure there are riders who practice the best horsemanship, when everyone who gets softball-interviewed by EN or COTH or H&H and/or gets puff pieces written about them, how are we supposed to know who’s lying?
That’s one reason why I pretty much stopped listening to the USEA podcast or basically anything where Nicole Brown is doing the interview unless I’m really interested in the topic. She only asks softball questions and never gets into hard hitting subjects. Granted, I realize for the USEA show they probably want to stay away from controversial topics, but seems to me that’s a disservice to members who have legit concerns about some of the things going on in the sport.
Caroline Culbertson OTOH usually did a good job digging into issues and not being afraid to ask tougher questions.
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If CP was having her grooms warm up her horses, how was that not caught by the stewards? I’m not familiar with FEI events, but aren’t you only supposed to warm up your horse in the officially designated area? So either the steward(s) failed to notice that CP was in two places at once right in front of them or failed to act on a report of a competitor warming up a horse in an illegal area. Totally understandable that LN would be upset, I would be upset too if I were in her position.
I know riders having a large number of mounts at a show had been a well trod area of discussion, but if your theory is correct, this is a good example of why there should be limits. Sometimes you are just limited by the space-time continuum, and if a rider needs to break the rules in order to show their string, that is something that needs to be addressed.
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I loved Equestrian Voices and I love her new Horse Person podcast. Because you’re exactly right, she does dig into the deeper issues and I usually learn something interesting from every episode. The EV series about grief helped me through losing my gelding to colic and the deaths of three of my grandparents. If anyone deserves all the kudos, it’s her.
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That doesn’t made it ok for any of them
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I think dressage already limits the number of tests a horse can do. I haven’t competed in a long time, but I think it was 4 tests at 4th level and below, and 2 at the FEI levels. Obviously most horses do not do that many tests. Feronia occasionally did 3 in a day but they were spaced widely, we never did higher than First Level, and these were one day shows.
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Here’s the TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8j65NFH/ The horse did compete in a lot of classes at shows, sometimes with multiple riders at the same show. He reached his limit and it’s not a great mystery why.
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I often enter 2 dressage tests the first 2 days of a show and scratch one. If my horse is good we almost never do the second one. If he comes out spooking at every shadow and makes me feel like Dr. Strangelove I try a second time. lol! 30 classes is obscene, especially if some of them involve jumps. If I was a horse I think I’d rather have that vet kick me in the face than do 30 classes, even (especially?) with beginners.
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An eventer who pulls up or opts out of XC has done 1 dressage test and 1 show jumping round, in the competition. Plus warm-up. Eventers tend toward conservative warm-ups so as to save the horse for XC.
So, the horse hasn’t done much at an event where it didn’t run XC. May have spent more time hand grazing than it has under saddle.
The way the work load is spread for an eventer is very different from other types horse shows.
The one-size-fits-all rule solution rarely ever makes sense in any context. It doesn’t here.
Making a rule to address just one (or a few) instances of bad judgment is a cluttering of the rule book with junky rules that are likely to have unintended negative consequences for the sport. That’s bad management in sports, business, etc.
When an individual is a problem, not the group – address the individual, not the group.
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No, this is not what happened. It’s already been stated up thread.
No, one person stated that’s what happened and somebody else said that wasn’t what happened. So who knows?
I heard that she was putting something in the mouths to lubricate the bit/prevent rubs/cause foam. The intent was not clear.
Edited to add another rumor because who really knows what happened.
LN calls on you to share with all of us, through her vaguepost. Thank you. 
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I don’t know if anything has been confirmed for sure. That’s why I used the “if that’s what happened”. At this point, no one has provided any great detail as to what incident LN is referring to, so if it was a case of another competitor clearly breaking the rules and the officials refusing to act, I agree she has good cause to be upset.
But we (those of us who were not at the competition and are not part of the proverbial group chat) still don’t know what happened. At least as far as I’ve read.
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Most eventers, sure. But whomst among us can’t recall a warm up where someone was drilling their horse for a long time in hot weather and/or jumping jump after jump after jump on hard ground.
Most people will not try to jump an obstacle of significant height from a standstill, but that’s still in the rule book. Most eventers will not ride a BN course at Advanced speed, but speed faults are still in the rule book. There are plenty of one-size-fits-all rules for horse welfare in the book and yet the sport remains. If the rule book said that (for example), a horse that starts an event may not start another event for 10 days, I don’t see that being a rule that would put an undue burden on most eventers. And it might actually improve horse welfare, or at least provide a safeguard.
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It has not been my experience that eventers do more “conservative” warm ups. The warm ups I see are on average 30 minutes for each phase. I seem to be an outlier when I jump 3 fences and I’m done.
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I was at the start/finish of the 4* at TerraNova, and here’s what I saw:
The volunteers at the warmup didn’t realize there was a built in time gap in the schedule, so they sent Lauren to the start box about 9 minutes early. Lauren goes over to the start box, is told she’s too early, I’m guessing she argues with the start-box official over that, but loses her argument. I didn’t hear whatever conversation happened at that time, nor do I know the rules of who was right or wrong in this situation.
She returns to the warmup, and then is sent back at the appropriate start time. Goes out, gets a 20, seemingly has a tough run on XC. Comes through the finish line and immediately starts screaming at the officials. I believe her exact words are something to the effect of “you guys get fucking paid for this, you can’t be screwing up so badly.”
(Which was ironic given that there were about 9 volunteers wearing fluorescent vests with “VOLUNTEER” across the chest between the immediately adjacent warmup, start-box, and cooldown areas)
Lauren continues to canter her horse around the finish line area, continues her ranting, says something to the effect of “Now I’m going to make a scene”. I don’t remember everything word for word, but the gist of it is that they ruined her horse and her run because they don’t know the rules and that’s bullshit.
To me, neutral party at the finish, it was absolutely gross behavior - mostly because she was screaming “you get paid for this” while yelling at a group that is mostly comprised of volunteers, even if her frustration was primarily directed at a paid official.
I don’t know what happened between Lauren and any other rider and her veiled comments about horse welfare, etc. But that’s what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears. I was shocked that her social media post didn’t include an apology for her appalling behavior.
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