THIS..... This is what will kill eventing

[LSBC]

Not saying what she did was the right thing to do, but I don’t see the two events as similar, to be honest. Calvin wilfully kept going after his horse went down, whereas Emily just tried her best not to fall off and inadvertently spurred the horse. I would understand less if this happened in the cross country portion, but as it was showjumping, the last phase, and potentially the horse’s last event at this caliber, I view it more as she tried her best to stay on to complete the course and therefore be noted as completing the event.

Personally, if I was jumped loose at speed, I’d probably try my best to stay on too - it would be instinct, no? I’d have to fight to let myself drop.

[MHM]

@coffeehag

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.

I did not see her horse on the ground, so I don’t really get the comparison there.

I also did not see her do anything other than try to get back in the saddle and get re-organized after she got jumped loose. It certainly did not look to me like she was purposely doing anything to punish the horse.

[Annie10]

@enjoytheride

The horse portion of the Pentathlon has been horrific for years and was well on its way out as an Olympic sport. Pentathlon still exists.

Trying looking up cliff racing. It’s where you man from snowy river race horses up or down massive inclines. Still going strong.

Eventing did not die when we had televised horse deaths at Kentucky. It’s not going to die when someone may or may not have made a questionable horse welfare decision.

Eventually the camels back will be broken.

[Incantation]

I was more concerned with his neck during the fall. IMO he should had been checked on by TPTB since his rider did not check on him. Maybe going forward they can have a system to do that put in place like they did for the blood check.
I was happy he looked so good for SJ.

[Djones]

@endlessclimb

Exhausted horses falling off of trails in the middle of the night with minimal available help, for a belt buckle.

Or a pissy horse pitching a fit in a bad spot on a trail when asked to let others pass her, which is what happened to Max’s horse. She reared and dragged him and her off the trail. The other argued with his rider, bucked her off, and bolted. That could happen to anyone on a skinny trail in the mountains. That could happen to a Philadelphia cowboy’s urban horse.

Do we close all the trails that aren’t flat? Do we just stop riding?

[endlessclimb]

Maybe if they actually published what happened, that would be good start. Instead, when you look up the official reporting, they’re listed as a metabolic pull and an overtime.

Riding a horse 100 miles straight through treacherous terrain is NOT necessary. Human ego at its finest.

Maybe the pissy horse was pissy because she was exhausted, and it was the middle of the night in a strange location. Maybe the other horse, who reportedly had a tack failure but who knows when they won’t report what happened, would have had a better chance if not at his mental wits end.

“However, it must be acknowledged the historic Western States Trail includes very precipitous sections which cannot be fully mitigated and – combined with unfortunate equine reactions – have the potential to result in tragedy.” Ok super, so let’s ride 100 miles across it, with some of the more complex portions being navigated in the dead of the night. Excellent idea.

[Djones]

You are ok with a non competing trail rider’s horse falling off a different mountain on a pack trip or day ride at 2 in the afternoon? I’m trying to find your ok/not ok line.

[Amberley]

@Texarkana

the crowd currently complaining was equally irrate over meaningless still photos of toplines, claiming the horses were unfit to ride when anyone with two brain cells knows that isn’t true.

I know one of the loudest complaints and they are grossly mentally ill. I have always assumed a lot of them are and i think trying to cater to people who will never be happy is a fools errand. We should strive for good horsemanship and quite frankly the xc riding and coaching over fences in the USA is a disaster and needs a lot of work, but there is no need to cater to people who do not live in reality.

The person I know has a disgusting house full of neglected cats and dogs and “rescues” horses that they also neglect. Yet they are constantly online criticizing others for their horses topline or what have you. While actively abusing and neglecting the animals they already own. There is a very fine line between hoarding and seeing oneself as the savior of all animals in my experience.

[endlessclimb]

If you can’t recognize the difference between a trail ride and the Tevis, we clearly won’t be seeing eye to eye here.

One is a starter level schooling event, the other is the Kentucky 5*.

Doing things with horses comes with risk. Horses in general can get hurt doing zeros. Using that as the reason to push their limits is not ok with me. “My horse can break a leg in the pasture, so I’m going to ask him to jump giant solid stuff for several miles.” “My horse can fall off the trail, so I’m going to ask him to ride 100 miles straight.”

It doesn’t work for me.

It’s like horse diving. Just because we CAN doesn’t mean we SHOULD. We can still compete and have fun, without taking it to the edge on extremity.

[tabula_rashah]

You have such an obsessive hangup with endurance riding when you admit that you’ve never done it and don’t know anything about it. But maybe try to steer back to the topic on hand

[endlessclimb]

The Tevis’ record is worse than racing for deaths per entry. And, the Kentucky 5*, for that matter.

Blind allegiance isn’t good for the sport, either.

But the focus is - when one isn’t widely publicized, then the outrage is non-existent. Unless I missed it, no one even talked about it on the endurance forum here. Cover your eyes, nothing to see here.

[Ghazzu]

You’re looking at an equine competition which has moreveterinary oversight than any other, and complaining that they didn’t write you a whole paragraph on why the horse was pulled?

[endlessclimb]

The horse died a catastrophic death on the trail. It wasn’t “pulled.”

[StormyDay]

The horse in that video was mildly annoyed by their rider attempting to not fall off. I don’t think that’s comparable to a horse taking two really bad distances and falling on its belly and head.

[Djones]

@endlessclimb

If you can’t recognize the difference between a trail ride and the Tevis, we clearly won’t be seeing eye to eye here.

There is no meaningful difference between a tired pack horse stepping off of a trail and a tired endurance horse doing the same. Well, that’s not true…one was vetted 8 ways to Sunday multiple times in the past 3-4 days.

If you are going to assert that the four “exhausted horses fell off a mountain in the middle of the night” in 2022 and 2024 when that’s not what happened, then perhaps it is your blind contempt that is getting in your way of seeing my point.

[endlessclimb]

@Djones

There is no meaningful difference between a tired pack horse stepping off of a trail and a tired endurance horse doing the same

If you can’t see the thousands of differences there, you’re being willfully blind. You seem to be ok with this event horse being decked and just going on as if it never happened, not even a brief check. For that, I’m 100% sure we will not see eye to eye on horse welfare in competition.

[MNEventer]

@MHM

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.

The 99% adoption rate comes from the National Greyhound Association and they do keep stats on racing greyhounds after their racing careers are finished. If I look up my girls’ record on https://www.greyhound-data.com/breed.htm I can see her DOB, color, (abysmal) racing stats, and her adoption agency. But anecdotes of dogs being abandoned, shot, or used as bait from the 80s and 90s have staying power in the minds of the general public. Once a sport has a Reputation, it takes a strong and effective counter-message to change it, and the greyhound racing industry just didn’t have the resources for that. Maybe equestrian sports do, considering the money that the industry has. But you can’t just hope that the money is enough, you have to take action.

[Djones]

Nah, I wish he’d circled and even glanced at his horse, for sure.

[Rnichols]

How anybody can see a horse that face planted into the ground and then got up and continued to complete a 5* and think “that’s fine because its technically within the rules” absolutely boggles my mind. He didn’t even take a trot step to see if the horse was OK.

@Xctrygirl

It was never going to be the athletes messing up their income streams. It will be Jane Doe uneducated observer screaming “Abuse!”

Really. How about riders don’t crash their horses face into the ground and then get up and keep going. Then there will be no “unedcuated observers” screaming abuse. Give me a break. You don’t have to be of the highest education level to see that that style of scrappy riding is dangerous.

It all worked out for him Saturday, but that is an accident waiting to happen.

ETA: If I’m an “armchair QB” and “manufacturing drama” because I think a horse that looks like this should’ve been pulled up to at least be CHECKED OUT at a minimum, then so be it.

[Ghazzu]

The vet tech program I used to work with had an arrangement with a greyhound adoption group.
We’d take a dozen greyhounds for the semester as teaching animals.
They’d get spayed/neutered, dentals, any minor surgeries like lumpectomies, etc. and the obedience class would work with them to teach them how to be house pets (negotiating stairs, not being freaked out by televisions, etc.) Each one was taught some sort of “trick” by theiir student, and the school had an event at the end of the semester where the dogs showed off on the agility course (some better than others, but it was low key and fun), did their “trick”, and the rescue group took adoption applications.
It was a pretty decent program, as the greys were used to being kenneled, so that wasn’t a source of stress for them.
.
After the greyhound tracks closed, the school took in retired laboratory beagles.