Nothing changes. Until the day when it does.
And on that day, the people who have been doing things the same way for years and years look around and wonder what happened.
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First I am glad the horse is okay. Do I think he should have continued? No- but that is water under the bridge now.
Something I think that we all need to remember is that every horse sport, even if your horse enjoys it, is 100% about human ego. There is absolutely no purpose to them other than human entertainment. Are there countless jobs etc that revolve around the horse industries? Yes. But when you boil it all down, there is no reason a horse has to do any of this.
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The horse was not spun. We can introduce ourselves next time, as I have been at every jog on the vet team for this event for years. The veterinarians associated with the event have limited opportunities to inspect these horses close up.
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But things have changed. There have been significant measures taken to make the sport safer for horses and riders. They just didn’t help in this particular case, and no one died or even needed medical attention that we saw.
@alyssaequestrian Was the horse not held?
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In this particular instance, it seems as if the horse turned out to be OK afterwards. Thank goodness.
But it would be smart and strategic to use this opportunity as a way to think of a better approach going forward.
Something similar to stopping the horse to check for blood, which seems to be a perfectly efficient system that did not offend anybody on Saturday.
Both for the welfare of each individual horse, which should be a high priority for anybody, and for the optics of the sport in general.
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It was HELD.
It was not SPUN.
It went on to compete in the SJ portion.
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Look, I’m just saying that people’s outraged responses to this incident on FB and the corresponding outraged responses that how dare anyone say this rider didn’t love his horse and keep your mouth shut are not going to KILL Eventing.
This sport has progressed in safety and rule changes in leaps and bounds. If that process was effective with THIS incident I think that’s a discussion that might be happening behind the scenes and is certainly happening online. It’s entirely possibly this incident and the response to it behind the scenes/lack of response in public/etc may result in a change next year. We specifically have a rule about blood (which ended up not being blood it seems) we don’t have a rule about “horse wallows across ground but appears sound galloping” Perhaps they will Yellow card him later. Perhaps not.
I think being outraged that people are arm chair quarterbacking on FB is ridiculous because that’s a lot of what FB is and people have been doing that for millennia. For better or for worse.
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Got it, thanks for clarifying. So he did not have to represent the horse. How long was the hold?
I know he finished the SJ.
Sadly, for having watched this pair numerous times, I was not surprised at this young rider’s poor horsemanship.
Phantom is a saint, whose rider has very often displayed some dangerous riding with very low consideration for his horse’s welfare.
In fact, I no longer watch him on xc.
Since I believe he was under MJ’s “supervision”, I’m surprised he was not advised better…
I do hope they (especially Phantom), remain unhurt throughout their career.
And, yes, this is not what eventing needs.
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He did have to present again and passed. I didn’t even know about the XC fall when I saw him at the jog and said to my friend it looked like the rider was masking something. He jogged very slowly and the horse def looked off. He did look fine the second time to my non veterinarian eye.
Huh. I hadn’t seen this clip, and I actually think I dislike it much more than the “big incident” that everyone is talking about up at the Hollow.
In no particular order my thoughts about the Hollow:
- IMO horse fall rules exist because horses, as very large prey animals, do everything they can to stay on their feet. If they lose that fight a) something has gone very wrong and b) they often come down with a significant impact, which can injure them or the rider. I am very much in support of a horse fall being the end of someone’s day.
- Having said that, the moment in the Hollow didn’t really meet that criteria for me. The horse fought to stay on his feet, as you’d expect, and ultimately succeeded. His belly was down for a moment, but he had his feet between himself and the ground and that’s how he was able to get back up with Calvin intact (and while Calvin’s riding style isn’t particularly for me, I have to admire his balance in staying out of the horse’s way and allowing him to recover). Because the horse touched down in this way, while it was definitely taxing to his muscles there was no extreme impact to his body.
- My initial thought was the same (why not pull him up and at least check him?) and frankly for the purposes of the general viewing public I might still think that. But from a horse welfare perspective, the two things I’d want to see are a) a trot circle or two from Calvin to assess and b) every vet on the course to be red alert on the radios watching him for signs of a struggle. Any significant issue that might arise from that incident would be easier to spot in motion than when stopped. Stopping him has the benefit of letting the public know there are eyes on him, but I wish we could explain how many educated eyes are on him while he’s moving and why that’s more useful in this specific situation, instead of doing something that doesn’t necessarily help the horse or rider just to make the public feel better.
The reason I said the Cosequin Cove clip is actually more concerning to me is that was the first time I saw the horse struggle. At the Hollow the horse shoved himself back onto his feet and took right back off again - contrary to some internet comments, I did not see Calvin excessively encouraging him in any way other than giving him lots of space with his hands, which the horse willingly took. I did not see a horse that was experiencing any lingering difficulty at that point. But in the Cove clip, the horse does look like he’s struggling to keep his feet, and that taken in combination with his known extra efforts earlier on course perhaps merits some intervention at that point.
Agreed. I am also of the opinion that the horse was held at the second horse inspection specifically for this reason - they wanted a closer look at him, given the exertions of the day before, and I don’t think the hold was related to anything they saw in his first pass down the lane. Again, I think this is something we might benefit from being more open about to the public - this was another check and balance on the situation, but not stating that openly leaves room for the internet to misrepresent it, intentionally or otherwise.
I did think the horse looked wonderful in the show jumping, for what it’s worth. Keen and enthusiastic about his job. He would not appreciate me in the saddle holding him back, that’s for sure.
Completely agree. I share the concerns in many comments above: these pages who trade in ragebait are a massive problem (for the sport, but also for the world at large). I understand that the easiest way to an interaction is through anger, but I think this mentality is going to be the end of so many great things. And as much as I love eventing, I don’t think it’s even going to be in the top 10 of wonderful things that get affected by this trend.
I’m aware that not everyone will agree with my opinions in this post. But I wanted to put my honest thoughts out there. That’s getting tougher and tougher to do these days but I think it’s the only way we can have a dialogue.
I think this whole post is great and deserves a second read:
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It’s not just a single factor. The Tevis Cup killed 2 horses in 2022, 2 more in 2024 - but because it isn’t widely publicized and turned into a destination event, no one even notices.
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I am not outraged or even concerned about armchair quarterbacking on Facebook, or here on the BB, for that matter.
I am concerned that there was no measure in place to check on that horse’s welfare before he continued, even if he did not technically meet the definition of falling that is in the current rules.
The horse was on the ground after the jump. Full stop.
The horse had to get back onto his feet to continue, because he was on the ground. Even if his shoulder and his hip were not both on the ground at the same time.
So maybe they need to tweak the definition of a horse fall so it is more specific, in the same way that the rule very clearly says that a rider has fallen if they have to vault back into the saddle, or whatever the exact wording is now.
Or maybe they need to add a clause that says if a horse needs to regain its feet, it needs to be checked by the veterinarian before it is allowed to continue.
That clause in the rules would allow the vets to examine the horse to verify that he is in one piece, which would also give the rider an opportunity to think for a minute about whether he really needs to continue at that point after the horse is examined.
Granted, most riders would probably just continue if they had the chance. But at least it would be a way to verify the horse’s welfare at that point in the course before it tries to gallop another three miles over jumps.
I am not an expert on race horses, but I believe that since the government finally decided to step in and get involved in race horse welfare, it has not gone terribly smoothly.
So that is probably a good indicator for everyone else involved in horse sports that we need to clean up our act ourselves before it gets cleaned up for us by an external force.
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if horses falling off trails is going to end competition, we have to also shut down using horses in the mountains at all, full stop. ribbons or not, life is dangerous on a steep slope.
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Exhausted horses falling off of trails in the middle of the night with minimal available help, for a belt buckle.
Yeah, we could probably end that without me shedding a tear.
I’m just pointing out that the publicity of the Kentucky Three Day is a big factor in how they need to police it. They want to make it a big spectacle, then they need to be on-point with no room for error.
I’m honestly ok if the “big sticks” of eventing die, too. I don’t, and won’t, ever understand pushing the limits of an animal, for a human reward. We can still enjoy horses with more reasonable expectations.
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While I am very glad that Phantom is ok and was jumping well yesterday, I still feel that his welfare was not properly advocated on Saturday. I agree with other posters that had Calvin stopped and done a few trot circles, that would have been a lot better than just going straight back into a canter/gallop. Horses are flight animals, we’ve all seen horses that are grievously injured continue to try to run. It would also have been better if the officials had stopped him on course for a vet check. That would also have been an example of protecting the horses welfare.
I’ve mentioned this previously, but a bad public reputation can chip away at the support for a sport, regardless of the facts. There used to be 13 greyhound racetracks in Florida until they were banned by a ballot measure in 2018. One of the representatives of an organization advocating for the ban was quoted as saying the number of active greyhound race dogs in the state was ten times higher than it actually was. And it didn’t matter to the voting public that 99% of racers go on to be adopted into loving homes; most of them probably thought that they were killed at the end of their racing career. So if eventing has a bad reputation from videos like Calvin and Phantom going around, how confident can we be that it would survive a ballot measure if one were put to the public? I don’t know the answer.
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I certainly have similar concerns.
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I didn’t get a chance to watch any XC this weekend, I got called away. But… wasn’t this one of the safest 5* weekends in a long time…?
The majority of the field finished.
I watched the video of the fall. It doesn’t meet the requirements of a MR, so I understand why he was not pulled.
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I will say I find it wildly fascinating that there’s so much vitriol over CB but not Emily Hamel’s near-fall from her horse.
Phantom fell, but CB stayed out of his way – it’s quite clear in watching the clip that there was no urging by Calvin for Phantom to get up and gallop onwards. Yes, the horse fell, but the horse passed every vet check. At some point you have to trust that the rider, who is spending hours on hours with this horse, knows what they’re doing and that the vets inspecting them do, too.
So while so many are angry at CB for not pulling up, I find it quite fascinating that Hamel is getting nothing but praise for staying on her horse, who she spurred several times in the haunches and groin and yanked quite aggressively on his mouth.
Eventing involves two live creatures – the rider and the horse – and there will always be a possibility that “shit’s going to happen.” At some point, we have to trust that the rider and the onsite vets know what they’re doing.
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The greyhounds are an excellent example. And I have to say that whole change completely slipped past me when it happened. There are only two greyhound tracks still operating in the US now, according to Wikipedia.
I have two different family members who adopted retired greyhounds after they were done racing, and they both turned out to be great dogs who led very long and happy lives as couch potatoes with my relatives.
But I also remember a conversation years ago with somebody who worked in dog rescue, who said there were people at the tracks who would just throw the dogs in the canal for the alligators at the end of the season when the dogs got too slow.
But I would guess that those people who discarded the dogs and the people who went to the trouble to place the dogs in nice retirement homes were equally shocked when the whole greyhound industry shut down virtually overnight.
Because nothing had changed for years and years. Until the day it did.
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