There are lots of people who are just getting started who may not know the ins and outs of looking through USEF to find active suspensions. If even one person gets a heads up that this is not a good trainer/pro, then yeah - it’s worth it.
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How many here, responding to these threads have never done something as stupid as what the either video or report describe?
I’m not proud. Every day I apologize to every horse in my past. Every time I ride, peanut carries the ghosts of all the horses I failed as I work to be a better horseman. I am lucky to have trainers and mentors who called me out and held me to a higher standard, teaching me to be better.
Public lynching does nothing to lower the “crime” rate and only serves as entertainment for those who attend.
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Oh my gosh, yes! Me freaking too!
Edit to add - to clarify, I have never done what is shown in the recent video. Me falling off was always my own fault, certainly not falling off and beating the horse for it.
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I’m far from perfect and there are plenty of past training choices I’d change if I could, but I can confidently say I’ve never done anything close to the behavior reported in this incident or in the other thread referenced. Hitting a horse repeatedly over a period of time to the point where the steward gets called over can’t be explained away by “not knowing better” - it’s a fundamental flaw in that person’s horsemanship and their overall character. Even if there were somehow a reasonable justification here, social license is a real thing these days and we have to be concerned about how things look to outsiders and not just how they look to educated horsemen.
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Boy, I’m glad there wasn’t social media in my youth. I’m also glad training techniques have grown and developed from the “old” days.
Perhaps what is missing here is a lack of institutional knowledge? Folks who grew up in a world without understanding how bad things used to be?
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I mean I’ve certainly lashed out in anger but never to the extent of what was displayed here… there’s momentary lapses in judgement and then there’s this deliberate, repeated cruelty.
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You do realize that what you perceive at a certain level may be perceived as a different level by others? Nobody perceives the world the same as you do.
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Well of course, but I think that’s only due to some of the inherent problems of the sport itself and the way different people in the industry view horses. There’s definitely some outdated practices out there.
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I’m not really sure what your point is here, institutional knowledge had nothing to do with it. You either believe the behavior displayed by this rider is acceptable or you don’t. And again, this wasn’t a one-off tap with the whip that may or may not have been justified - this rider hit her horse multiple times in the ring, continued hitting him all the way back to stabling, and then hit him some more in the stall including slamming the door on him. All out of anger over getting eliminated. That is not now and has never been acceptable horsemanship. The fact that people have gotten away with similar behavior in the past doesn’t change that fact.
I do believe people can change and learn from their mistakes, and if the suspension prompts this rider to do some self-reflection and get help for her anger management issues then she should be able to return to competition. But that doesn’t mean she should be immune from consequences, or that other people shouldn’t be aware of her past behavior so they can keep an eye on her going forward.
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“Everyone’s abusive so this doesn’t matter.”
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My point is that majority opinion is not facts. Nobody in the public knows all of the facts in each of these instances. Yes, officials should be involved, and they were. But public opinion has no place in deciding what the reality is in these or any case.
It is no different than judging a horse’s ability based on a single x-ray. You can guess, but you still don’t know. You don’t know the underlying disease or lack of; the actual motion and biomechanics of the animal; the progression of the condition;…
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When you have multiple eye witnesses, interviews, and a suspension we know that those reports were factual enough to earn a suspension.
Regarding the video of the hunter pro, we literally have a video of her beating the shit out of her horse after it dumped her. She even posted videos of the horse dumping other people to justify her training technique. What else do you need do know? Neither of these incidents are a vague area.
We’ve all done things that we regret with our animals, they shape us into who we are today for bettter or for worse. In the case of these two riders, they have apparently learned that beating their horses is appropriate enough to be done in full view of cameras and dozens of witnesses.
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100% sure I have never repeatedly whipped a horse in the face after coming off.
If she does this in public, lord have mercy on what happens at home.
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There are plenty of facts available, as determined by the USEF investigation not public opinion:
This whataboutism is so supremely unhelpful. Refusing to look at the facts of the case in front of you because some other hypothetical case with nonexistent facts might not merit the same treatment does nothing to advance our sport and just allows abusive behavior to continue. We can deal with the borderline cases as they come up but we shouldn’t avoid tackling the obvious ones in the meantime.
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Then let the system work rather than judge online. Supposition and accusation about a single reported instance is simply a crowd of pitchforks and torches. At this point, the entire thread is gossip and personal opinion. Does this help the sport? Does public outing of sex offenders lead to less offenses? Does it allow rehabilitation? Please enlighten me as to how this thread and other like it make things better? The whole “sunshine disinfects” assumes that everyone is beyond rehabilitation and should be ostracized.
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You have GOT to be joking here.
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I don’t see any gossip happening here, we’re all working off of the reported facts (and video in the other case), so we’ll just have to agree to disagree. If you don’t want to participate in the discussion no one is forcing you to, but these disciplinary actions are public and therefore fair game for the community.
And the comparison to sex offenders is in very poor taste. If the only counterargument you can come up with is to introduce completely irrelevant comparisons (sex offenders? X-rays?) you should probably rethink your position.
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My admission of guilt: as a re-rider, I got to ride an old eventer who was just the bees knees at almost everything, but he was partially blind in one eye and would occasionally stop at a jump. He also had weird fears of water, which is why he wasn’t a beginner’s horse, and why he was no longer an eventer – he dumped his owner in the Training Level water feature at Groton House Farm, and that was when she realized that yes, he really couldn’t deal with water at a certain level. He was basically OK, with a little encouragement, going through water, or going into water and jumping out, so he did all right at BN and N. But jumping in, or jumping over something and in, was something he just couldn’t handle. Poor old guy once had a big spook at a trickle of water from a hose running down the driveway while I was riding him.
Anyway… if his vision made him unsure about a jump, he’d start to slow down, in slow motion, but a tap of the whip reminded him that he could do it. I did that a number of times. Was it cruel? I don’t think so.
The same horse was up for a 1.2 meters jumpers course at speed as long as there wasn’t anything too scary (but not with me!) And was the horse who introduced me to the joys of hacking out solo. Just an all around good boi.
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Please show me the evidence. Where are the facts that public shaming reduces any incidence of any crime.
I am using examples of where public opinion has been perceived to reduce instances. It has nothing to do with taste. You are making false equivalencies to deflect my argument.
I participate here because I can only say “there but for the grace of g-d go I” when seeing that video. I am very glad non of this was around in the past. As a sport, we cannot go after this person while glorifying the riders of the past who are guilty of even worse transgressions. We can only admit that our past is worse.
As you state, the information is public but that also means everything here is opinion given not one response has any factual basis, e.g. a poster said this rider clearly has anger issues. I would say that is an opinion based on a single moment in time. Just like an x-ray is a single moment in time where people expect a definitive answer.
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