Except Crackerjack was another horse who favored a big galloping course yet his connections opted for the Pau, the tightest, twistiest course, due to scheduling conflicts.
People need to ride the horse they have, at the course that suits them. When I hear riders say they are bringing a horse ill suited to a particular course—they know that in advance—and then there is a catastrophic injury on course, I don’t know how y’all can continue to wonder what mysterious thing is wrong with eventing.
All I think about when I think of CJ is that BM chose the photo of him flipping over to use as his profile pic on FB and laugh about for quite some time after the horse had died. Then the UL riders wonder why the public is coming with pitch forks.
I disagree with the bolded part. While riders and horse owners are generally best served running their horses at events that suit the horse’s strengths, the “penalty” for bringing a horse that is successful and prepared for the level but better suited to another type of course should be a subpar placing, time penalties, or runouts … not catastrophic injury and death.
If a plane crashes, nobody says “see, this is why pilots need to make better decisions, of course that was going to happen. What happened to pilot responsibility?”
While the aviation industry does set training standards and requirements that pilots must live up to in order to fly and maintenance requirements for aircraft, there’s probably even more time and effort put into making systems such that a single pilot error or mechanical issue doesn’t lead to catastrophe.
I think we’d be better served by applying some of that mentality to making eventing safer, rather than saying over and over “well, so-and-so made a bad decision so of course it happened, we need to do better.”
Was that after the horse died? I recall him using the fall photo to sort of take the piss out of himself while he was still competing on Crackerjack. Then people brought it up after the horse broke his leg, but he wasn’t actively using it when (and certainly not after) the horse passed away. But that’s just what I remember, I didn’t screenshot anything for posterity!
I mean is that really what one of US eventings biggest role models should be putting out there though for all who look up to him to see? For those coming for us and looking to see what we accept in our sport? Regardless of when it was? And it was after. It’s long time ago now, but it’s a good lesson for people to be reminded of since our sport is at a serious risk of being taken from us right now.
I really don’t think it was after poor Crackerjack passed. Boyd was riding the horse for an owner whose son had died young and the owner originally intended it for the young man. Boyd rode Crackerjack at Badminton and fell at the Vicarage Vee in a pretty spectacular fall (from which the photo was taken from). He used the photo as his profile, then rode Crackerjack at Pau, and the horse broke his leg going from firm terrain to a sandy area. I know he’d taken the photo down by then. Then there was a kerfuffle when Denny Emerson basically accused Boyd (and the owners) of running Crackerjack to the ground. People did, however, bring up the fact he’d posted the photo before.
I’m sure Boyd meant to take the piss out of himself and regrets it, if for no other reason, out of respect for the horse’s connections.
Regardless, the grim humor about falling is pretty common (as anyone who was briefly a member of Shiteventersunite on Facebook would know, I’ve long left the group). And given other equestrian disciplines (even racing, the best-known and most-followed by the public) are still kicking, I’m not sure eventing really stands a risk of animal rights groups getting the sport banned.
But that, of course, doesn’t make frequent horse and rider deaths any more acceptable. If anything, in an increasingly risk-averse society where people have less and less access to practice and condition on varied terrain to ride cross-country as safely as possible with adequate preparation, I think it’s just more likely people will shift to other disciplines. At least in the U.S.
This was a terrible loss to the sport, and I’m interested in any new information that comes up or anything that can be learned from this horrible tragedy.
Have you been paying attention to the media and eventing at all? Or the media and racing? I’m guessing you don’t listen to the Eventing Podcast or the Horse and Hound podcast or read the articles or the comments on the Facebook pages? This is hands down the biggest issue facing eventing right now. Wake up. This is a serious issue that is coming straight for us and could eliminate eventing from the world scene. Hell, users on Twitter were ready to destroy LHS over wearing a flash and a strong bit, to the point they were contacting her sponsors and going to report her to the USEA. Social media is putting our bad side right under a microscope and we would be very very stupid to ignore it and carry on with bragging about horse falls online or proudly displaying them for the world to see.
Making a joke, and using it proudly as a profile pic as a role model are vastly different. I also don’t see the joke of flipping a horse over a fence, when horses and riders don’t always survive that. Not funny at all.
Also, I still have the screen shots.
Regardless, Twitter/ Facebook outrage, however justified, isn’t the same thing as actual steps to take action for, well, anything. Hell, at best it results in a withdrawal of a sponsor or two, not even that. This isn’t a contest about who can author the angriest post.
If there has been an actual move to ban eventing beyond Facebook comments, let me know.
No one following this thread is saying this isn’t a big deal. It’s an attempt to move forward and ask questions about why specific tragedies occurred (not all have the same cause), and determine the best ways to prevent them, and to channel outrage in a productive direction, even if we can’t solve things instantly.
Ros has been pretty open about the fact that she had backed off his dressage training quite a bit. As in, he very rarely went into the school in a dressage saddle and worked on the movements. It was a change in mental workload, not physical. She hacked him daily, which was used to build his fitness, and he did his schooling out there in the fields. If anything, more time outside a manicured school should have strengthened his legs, not weakened them.
Agreed. I see people referring to falls as “unlucky” or “freak accidents” all the time. The only fall I can think of in recent memory that I’d consider remotely “unlucky” was Tom’s fall at Luhmuhlen when the dog ran out on course (and even that had a cause, it was just wholly outside the control of horse/rider/course designer). The rest aren’t unlucky…we just don’t understand them. I so badly wish we did. This is hard on the heart, and more importantly, hard on the horses.
When people say that a horse is “ill suited” to a particular course, they do not mean that they suspect the horse will struggle physically with the conditions at the venue, or that they are at an increased likelihood of injury. They mean that the horse will likely post a better score at a different event due to venue-specific factors (ex. the horse is very powerful so would have fewer time penalties at a venue where there are wide open gallops to maximize that acceleration; the horse is a bit spooky so show jumps more accurately or is more relaxed in dressage at a venue without an imposing stadium).
It absolutely is not referring to a welfare concern that is overlooked to avoid “scheduling conflicts”. That would be a horrible thing to do, but even if you found the most heartless rider out there who couldn’t care less about the happiness of the horse, it would also be completely against their own interests. It does not happen.
Unfortunately, you are incorrect.
Horse & Hound magazine has recently had articles on further restrictions to drag hunting in the UK (these come from non-horsey constituents who convince their MPs to bring legislation) and a very interesting one about recommendations for the Paris Olympics in 2024 from a French parliamentary committee.
The committee recommended the following for both horse welfare and “social license” to continue with horse sports:
FWIW, a lot of these recent deaths have resulted from fractured pasterns.
Hunting has always been a bit of a powder keg of controversy in the UK (and is a different sport, regardless).
Recommendations specific to the Olympics, like all frangible fences are (with good reason) designed to reflect the fact the Olympics represent a competition of “the best of every country” which is different from “the best of the best.” And truthfully, some restrictions on what bits can be used cross-country and a blood rule don’t sound bad to me. Hardly equated with “banning eventing.” Limiting the use of a whip that much, I agree, would likely make a course less rather than more safe, and taking spurs out of dressage, well, that would likely change how the horses are trained entirely! But that’s a recommendation specific to the French Olympics by a non-horsey commission, and the Olympics is always a bit of a weird thing (especially where eventing is concerned) re: horse sports.
I still think in the U.S., it’s more likely eventing will struggle because so many events and venues are closing up shop, rather than animal rights activists, who seem more attracted to bright, shiny things in the public eye (like carriage horses in NYC). But it’s not a question of “we need greater self-scrutiny to avoid bad publicity” but rather “greater self-scrutiny is necessary because it’s the right thing to do.”
I hate lists of demands such as this. They take a few good ideas and mix them in with stuff that demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how horses are trained and was clearly written by peta-types whose only interaction with horses has been railing against equine sports online.
Whips, when used correctly, are only very rarely used for punishment. A grown man putting his full force into hitting a horse is absolutely abusive, but giving a tap to a encourage a horse forward is not. Using a longe whip to direct a horse during ground work isn’t abusive in the slightest (and the whip on very rarely makes any contact at all, and when it does it’s generally just a “flick” on the bum, not anything remotely forceful). By all means, punish overly forceful or excessive whip use … but used correctly, there’s nothing abusive about it. What counts as a “hit,” anyway? A forceful smack meant to reprimand? What about a little tap behind the leg with a dressage whip in warmup?
Ditto belly bands … some horses, especially if clipped, get rubs just from the friction from the rider’s boots, even without the use of spurs. They’re not a sign that the horse is being abused. By all means, check underneath the belly band to make sure nothing is being covered up, but it’s not horse abuse to try to protect a horse’s coat.
Using all frangible fences … an interesting thought, but not an easy one to implement without completely altering the cross country phase. Many people insist that doing so would make XC more dangerous because people would ride recklessly, but I’m not quite convinced that’s the case. Regardless, including it on a list with a bunch of animal-rights-y demands isn’t likely to get anyone on the inside of the sport to give it serious consideration.
Change to the sport for the Olympics has a tendency to create permanent change in the sport. Remember when the “short format” was introduced for the Athens Olympics in 2004, it was only supposed to be for the Olympics.
Hunting opposition in the UK is a class issue and increasingly a political one. Animal rights groups there have been very savvy to align themselves with the left wing and to make it a values issue. They will also go after sport fishing and gun sports soon. However they do not go after farmers shooting foxes at night with lamps, or poisons or anything that is not able to be turned into an upper vs middle class issue. They are absolutely going to go after all horse sports next, it will happen.
“Whips, when used correctly, are only very rarely used for punishment” - so I know this is going a little off-topic, but I volunteer at events in Ocala regularly as a fence judge, and at least 3x this year I’ve called in abuse of the whip on the radio - for fences other than my own - and either nothing happens, or they tell me to mind my own fence. I’m talking about repeated smacks that I can hear from several fences away. Once it was literally 6x at a single fence. I realize that this would be incorrect whip use, but no one is doing anything about it when it happens. It is horribly off-putting and is something that is preventing me from volunteering more often.
I don’t doubt that whip overuse goes unaddressed too often. The fact that some people use overuse their whips doesn’t mean they should be banned, though. That’s animal rights talk. It’s not abusive or bad horsemanship or detrimental to horse welfare to carry a whip when it’s used properly, and the fact that a minority of people use them incorrectly doesn’t mean they’re “bad,” it means we need to do a better job of addressing those people.
Should bridles (including bitless ones, because they can cause plenty of discomfort as well when used badly) be banned because some riders have rough hands?
What is the point of having a rule about whip use then, if violation of the rule goes without any consequences? We have also seen this with upper level riders, Oliver Townend is one I can think of immediately. I mean, I think the horse deaths are a bigger concern re: losing support for eventing, but the “little” things add up as well.
And genuinely I’m more sensitive to this than an average person, and probably not the best person to discuss animal rights issues with, I use a lot of R+ with my horses and I don’t carry a whip or wear spurs etc. I see a lot of lovely riding when I’m volunteering, but also some riding that I feel is abusive. The horse that got smacked 6x, my SO (who is not a horse person) was sitting with me and was appalled that it went basically unnoticed, with no consequence.
I agree with you, but the way to fix this isn’t to create new whip rules, it’s to enforce the ones we already have. The same could be said about many rules that are “in place” but not enforced. Blood in the mouth comes to mind…
I think our rules are quite good as they stand. I think the enforcement is sorely lacking (though I do understand what a wildly difficult task it must be to officiate).
The one thing on that list from the French is getting me all excited.
“Any flexion that puts the horse’s head behind vertical should be banned.” FINALLY!
When I got my first horse in 1970 I was taking lessons from the stable that I bought him from, run by two BHSI full instructors from the first class at Morven Park.
My horse was Anglo-Arab, had 3 weeks of training (green, green, green) and wore a full cheek single jointed snaffle with a hunting style cavesson with two fingers of space. In the first month my riding teacher stopped me in the ring and discussed the issue of proper head carriage. Basically she said that it was NEVER acceptable for the horse’s head to go behind vertical, and if people saw me ride my horse with his head behind vertical they would know that I did not know how to ride properly. She also taught me how to tell, from the saddle, if the horse’s head was behind vertical. She emphasized this to me because I was on an Anglo-Arab who was really wide between the jowls that it would be all to easy to end up with him constantly behind the bit if I did not watch out for this the rest of my riding life.
In the 52 years since that lesson I ALWAYS correct the horse (and myself of course) if the horse goes behind the vertical.
When I got back to taking lessons around 15 years ago or so I briefly thought about dressage. My MS makes me too bad a rider for dressage, in my opinion, especially since after much searching on the web I COULD NOT FIND A DRESSAGE TEACHER THAT TAUGHT THEIR RIDERS NOT TO RIDE BEHIND VERTICAL. I was NOT going to waste my time, money and energy to learn how to ride dressage on a horse with its head behind vertical. Fortunately I found a really good hunt seat stable so I did not have any problems getting suitable lessons.
If this “new” suggestion that the horses’ heads are to never go behind vertical gets around maybe someday before I die I could actually run into a dressage teacher that does not teach how to ride the horse badly–behind the vertical. THEN, and only then, will I ever consider looking for dressage lessons again.
This had been my line in the concrete, I will NOT ride any horse behind vertical. If the horse goes there I get the nose back where it belongs.
I talked about this with my riding teacher today. She agrees with me about this. She wants the horses to LOOK where they are going for the basic safety of both horse and rider.
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