Plus, if she was NOT married to that Olympian, with the very similar name, and moving in a more high level of the sport because of that, rather than her own achievements, would her comments have even had a fraction of the traction that they have had?
I doubt that any of my sub-smurf musings would be garnering the attention and ‘shares’ that hers has.
The word that might come to mind, perhaps, is ‘coattails’.
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What a gross comment. You’re acting no better than the person you are chastising.
Glass houses and all that.
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I was watching at Jr/am class recently, maybe 1.30 height, after finishing showing the the class before and one thing stood out: there are a few really talented young riders but there are so many that obviously just have been bought a horse to ride at that level and they have NO business jumping anything near that height. The many misses and even crashes were scary to watch. Eg. A steady 5 stride line oxer to vertical that multiple riders jumped in less than perfectly and had no idea what to do when the steady 5 was no longer there resulting in either saintly mid 6-figure type horses saving them somehow or multiple crashes.
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At Upperville I watched a $$$$ horse saunter past, groom in tow, wearing standing wraps secured with what looked to be duck tape. Unclear if the wraps were sans velcro or if the groom had had a moment like mine the night before – whereupon my brain melted after 16 hours in the sun and rerolling the standing wraps in the correct direction seemed more complex than than cutting a compound mitre angle or a Calculus B/C exam. Either way, if I’d had a beer in my hand, I would’ve raised it in solidarity, lol.
@dmveventer - I’m with you. Grew up at a barn with a “stern” head trainer. I can recall many situations where trainer’s sternness resulted in close calls and injury to horses and humans alike because she was so nasty that even the other competent, grown a$$ adults dreaded the onslaught engaging her was guaranteed to bring. Looking back on it now as a 47yo with 20+ years as a private music instructor I find it sad. Make no mistake. Truly great teachers are tough and set high standards. What sets them apart though from their mediocre counterparts is their ability to simultaneously foster an environment where students feel safe with them. Safe to explore their edges and make mistakes and take calculated risks. It’s impossible to learn without occasionally f–king up. Great trainers have cultivated the ability to innately feel just how much f–k up to allow so that the situation becomes a touchstone for learning, rather than a traumatic experience that pushes the student several back.
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I still regularly use “homemade” flannel wraps sans velcro and secure them with usually masking tape or electrical tape if you want fun colors. And I’ve been known to use duct tape when the masking tape roll came up empty and I can’t find more.
I’d say even today, most people at the racetrack still use flannel wraps and tape. Here’s Justify coming back from winning the Triple Crown with masking tape (unflattering picture, but hey, the tape is clear): https://www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/horses/horse-racing/2018/06/15/things-remember-triple-crown-winner-justify/700611002/
Can’t say I know anyone who still uses pins.
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I still use pins.
With flannel, you can also do a little origami type fold and tuck the ends in so that you don’t need to use anything. Nothing like a clean horse with fresh flannels and nary a pin or tape in sight.
I think most trainers -who hate change in most things - embraced the idea of not having pointy metal things in the stall. Nothing beats a barn full of young horses when it comes to bandage removal.
Although pre and post velcro era, a lot of trainers put the tape over both as one more anti bandage removal tactic, not in lieu of pins or velcro.
I loved my white flannels, used them forever. Unfortunately one of the consequences of a severe hand injury was that I found I couldn’t really get them tight enough to stand up overnight. After years of doing an 4-12 sets that could stay in place 23 hours, it killed a little bit of my soul to see a wrap not where I left it. Of course these days I have one that is 10 years old and has NEVER had a wrap on any leg, so at this point who knows how bad my wrap job would be? 
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Oh, how things have changed. The very idea of 23 hours of continuous compression applied to equine legs makes me shudder in horror!
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Well that part hasn’t changed much where I was doing it; the track and layup barns. OK, 23 hours was a slight exaggeration, but it was typically 20ish hours from the time you pulled wraps in the AM to standing them back up when your horses finished up by 10ish. Not much had changed about that system as far as I know.
At no point was anyone regularly doing that at show barns though!
I love that picture, Tex! I still wrap with flannels, bell boots and tape when shipping on long hauls. Years ago (decades?) when everyone had started using the prefab shipping boots and they were the “new greatest thing” I was in Lexington for the Derby and I saw a news report of the Derby winner being loaded up for a flight: Flannels, bell boots and tape, exactly how I did it. I decided if some of the most expensive horses in the world were being shipped that way it was probably good enough to keep doing it with mine.
Used pins a few times in Pony Club and it was probably the first time I realized “The Pony Club Way” may not always be the best way.
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Not that I really ought to wade in here…but
If the young rider in question had engaged a PR firm and said: “this article has damaged my reputation by stating false things about me, how should I respond and protect my good name?” I’m pretty sure a competent person in the field would have told her that the first rule is never use a microphone to repeat other people’s negative accusation about you–whether what they said is true or not. (Successful politicians follow this advice as well.). This is a close cousin to the “Streisand Effect.” Google it if you are unfamiliar.
Next they would have considered that before she responded the vast majority of people that knew who the article was referring to were locals. Or put another way, only the people MOST likely to know her and know the accusation was false. So now she has a situation where most people who could identify her have some warm feeling for her because she’s been treated unfairly. The rest of the country–which is the majority of people who read the original article–have no idea who the writer was talking about and would likely never know.
It sucks to be treated like this, but the reality is if you are only concerned about how to mitigate damage to your reputation you don’t use a microphone on the national stage to repeat the accusation. IF this imaginary PR firm did anything they would have placed a few positive articles about her in some publications–focusing regionally–about what a great young person and rider she is while never mentioning the first article. Without a PR firm it means if she wanted to fix any damage she thinks she incurred locally she needed to figure out a few ways to be visible in a good light to her own local horse community: something as simple as a little horsey volunteer work would do.
Unfortunately we are currently living in a cultural climate that extols victimhood and it makes it hard (for all of us) not to want to get up and stomp our feet over every little thing that insults us. It’s hard not to want to punch back. This girl punched backed and the results are more people have questions about her reputation by a factor of a gazillion.
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What a world we lived in when someone could bully you and say awful untrue things to make themselves look better and you had to go out of your way to prove you weren’t what the bully said you were by volunteering or making yourself visible in good light in some sort of meek manner that was approved of by society but really only served to continue the cycle of bullying. Today we now can confront bullies directly. Maybe it’s not so much a “culture of victimhood” but people feeling the freedom to no longer stay silenced by bullies.
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How do you think “confronting the bully” will work out for her over time?
Instead of having this quietly go away in a manner that would never be connected with her, even among the people who could identify her, she is now for the life of the internet connected by name to someone who seems to have legit qualifications saying unkind things about her. Every time her name is googled it will come up and people will wonder where the truth really is.
You can have all the freedom in the world to confront people and you can be as righteous about it as you want. And if that’s what you want to feel good about, have at it. Sorry to confront you with some of the real cost of doing so, or the fact that you aren’t going to accomplish what you say you want in “restoring your name.” But you will have punched back, by god.
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It’s not about “punching back” or crying victim. It’s not about being “righteous” and it’s certainly not about feeling good. It’s about not letting other people treat you poorly. It’s establishing boundaries and showing people you will not tolerate lies being spread about you.
If bullies are not confronted, they will continue treating you (and others) poorly. Why should this be tolerated for fear of how you look if you respond? Unreal. People off themselves over this kind of treatment, it is not to be taken lightly.
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What evidence do you have that Law is a bully?
Why do we think that every single incident of someone being critical of someone must be because they are a bully? A bully is someone who habitually–meaning they with regular occurrence–beats up on people that are in most cases “'weaker.” I don’t know of any other situation where this is something Law is known for. Nor is someone that has the apparent ability to have her so quickly rebutted in a national magazine an example of someone “weaker.”
Someone said something unkind about a person whose identity they seemingly intended to keep anonymous. That person had enough power to punched back in a national magazine. This is not an example of bullying; it’s an example of a cat fight.
If people were being grown ups about it, the offended party would have privately reached out to the original writer personally and possibly the publication and explained like an adult that they had been misrepresented and go from there. That’s actually how you “confront” people in a constructive manner where there might be a possibility of a good outcome. Instead the result in this instance is both parties are publicaly damaged on a national stage all to the amusement and entertainment of the peanut gallery.
And no, noone “established any boundaries” or made themselves look better here–I’m stunned that anyone thinks that was an outcome. And yes, the whole “I’m going to commit suicide because someone said something mean and people might think it’s about me” is exactly one of the reason the older crowd looks down on the younger crowd and are not impressed. You are literally feeding into the stereotype you’re trying debunk with that remark.
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You literally deserve no further response from me if you think me bringing up mental health is feeding into a stereotype. You should be ashamed of yourself. Do better.
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Totally agree. There’s no practical personal reason for making a rebuttal. No matter how offensive or egregious, it’s like how some questions don’t deserve answers. Answering gives them more legitimacy than they deserve. BUT if the person in question is passionate about this annoying trend of pros dunking on amateurs, and thought it was worth elevating the conversation, then it’s fair game to speak up, because at that point it’s not so much about correcting a personal grievance, but more about speaking on behalf of juniors and amateurs everywhere about how this “moral panic” of subpar horsemanship is 1) damaging to morale and counterproductive, and 2) predicated on a shaky foundation of anec-data and assumptions anyway. Perfectly fair for her to want to speak up about it, even if it would be easier and more in her personal interest to roll her eyes and let it go.
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Being as old as I am I have had many brushes with suicide and the suicidal.
Your post: “I’m going to control and manipulate you by threatening suicide” or “We will blame someone’s suicide on your actions if you don’t behave in the manner we think is appropriate” is devious and manipulative and controling. It is emotional blackmail. You go on about bullying then you use that tactic. The irony.
I hope you are never the focus of such behavior.
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Just floored.
People can and do commit suicide due to bullying. The fact that you think it’s devious for someone to mention that is a real thing that happens is, well, I don’t even know
So sorry that the older generation looks down on the younger generation for making a fuss over bullying and suicide
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Have you ever had someone tell you that if you didn’t drop everything and come over they were going to jump off the roof? I have.
Has your daughter ever called you from college saying her roommate just cut herself because your daughter went on a date with a boy? And then threatened if she ever moved out of their dorm she would kill herself? I have.
Has your brother-in-law ever abandoned his family, chemically and surgically transitioned only to discover those things didn’t address his depression and alcoholism, so committed suicide? Mine has.
Maybe my opinion on the matter has been developed over a long time period by personal experience. And that same personal experience tells me that suicide is caused by broken relationships–with yourself, with your family, with your friends. And trying to control and manipulate the voices of random people is not ever going to be a successful suicide prevention tactic–but it might make you feel virtuous about yourself.
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