WTF Are We Doing?

[Mohan]

I mean the USEF does autopsies only because the death of a pony made the NYT. People ride withand make excuses for the people who electrocuted horses, bashed them with a sledgehammer, bashed them with a crow bar…… for a pay out.

My point is eventers like to get ahead of things. And while TPTB don’t necessarily listen, people like @Jealoushe start threads like this to make improvements.

Point me to other threads in the other disciplines that have this much discussion to make the sport better. For horse and human.

You can get your back up as much as you want over her comments but that doesn’t give you the right to start a pile on and call her experience into question.

ETA: The USEF not providing the data for other horse sports isn’t @Jealoushe’s problem. Nor is it her focus. If y’all want the data that bad I suggest you bang the drums and rally the troops like @Jealoushe has and countless other participants in this thread. We will support you, but I’ll speak for myself, short of getting people who molest or rape minors out of the sport, I won’t do it for you. And I’m sure I’m not alone in that statement.

[SoCoPony]

[Bearx2]

While I don’t think you have done anything wrong I do think people have said some things can can easily be perceived as an attack against the sport .

Eventers don’t like their sport misrepresented any more than you do and in my opinion when people come in and don’t understand the safety improvements or that many horse thrive in the sport that is a type of misrepresentation. Eventing is not for everyone and it’s okay to question what we can be doing to make eventing safer. Coming in and acting like someone is an evil person because they want to do upper level eventing can be very hurtful to those who love the sport . Before people piled on it might have been worth the time to try and understand that some people have come to this thread and shown very little empathy or understanding and sometimes you want to push back against that.

[erinmeri]

@Bearx2

While I don’t think you have done anything wrong I do think people have said some things can can easily be perceived as an attack against the sport .

Eventers don’t like their sport misrepresented any more than you do and in my opinion when people come in and don’t understand the safety improvements or that many horse thrive in the sport that is a type of misrepresentation. Eventing is not for everyone and it’s okay to question what we can be doing to make eventing safer. Coming in and acting like someone is an evil person because they want to do upper level eventing can be very hurtful to those who love the sport . Before people piled on it might have been worth the time to try and understand that some people have come to this thread and shown very little empathy or understanding and sometimes you want to push back against that.

I was not one of those people who made any such comments. The only comments I made were about the H/J assertion. One of my best friends is a pro eventer at the top of the sport, so unless aliens overtook my body, please do not misrepresent what I have said here. I do not agree with people attacking eventers or their discipline.

ETA: upon second read, perhaps you were not lumping me in. I didn’t find comments that were anti-eventing tasteful myself, for what it’s worth. I do understand the desire to push back against that.

[Bearx2]

Sorry for any confusion, definitely not calling you out, just trying to give you and other some context about what @Jealoushe was responding to.

[erinmeri]

No worries! [And I think then you can understand my response to the statements she made about my discipline.]

[Mohan]

I for one totally get that response. I just didn’t get the subsequent posters. It wasn’t you I was reacting to it was the collective group that followed you. You made very good points and I completely understand where it came from. I came from the same place with my original post.

[Bearx2]

I can understand your response 100%, and I appreciate you asking for clarification about what was going on. I think it’s important to remember at the end of the day we all want good things for our horses, no matter what discipline we do.

[trubandloki]

@Mohan

Why take away from that because you don’t like what she posted on the Barisone threads and “was friends” with Lauren Kanarek on social media that hasn’t been active for a while? (Yeah I have had a lot of time to read with health issues.)

YOU are the only one who keeps bringing up this other thread.

In my opinion, at least my posting here, has nothing to do with that thread and nothing to do with Jealoushe’s connection to Lauren Kanarek.

You are the one derailing really.

I have posted in this thread before, I have read it all along. I posted again because the claim that there are more deaths in hunter/jumper did not ring true and then we had the art of twisting that made it an opinion, to something she claimed to have real data for, but that data is super secret and only she has access to it and she is not going to tell us where it came from.

We (general) are allowed to rebut things like that when posted. We do not have to leave hanging out there posts like that, just because the rest of the thread is interesting.

@Bearx2

I think it’s important to remember at the end of the day we all want good things for our horses, no matter what discipline we do.

Very well said.

I am very pro-eventing. It is what all my friends do. It is where I spend my volunteer hours.
I just do not think the pro-eventing stance is coming across well when the person who in theory is in charge of this thread is bashing another large active sport and then pretending to have data to back up their bash.
In doing that she is losing her reputation on her main point and people will stop listening to the points she is making there. “can we believe her on this, when she seemed to not be honest on that?”.

[Bearx2]

I can absolutely see your point, but I also feel that it has to be acknowledged that she is not the only one bashing a discipline unnecessarily here without the facts to back it up. Other posters have made some pretty gross generalizations about upper level eventing that were hurtful. Can I understand getting upset over what she said, absolutely. Can I understand questioning her facts and figures, absolutely. Can I understand the personal attacks because she pushed back because she was upset , not at all. Emotions are running high right now, and while I agree her response would have been better without the unsubstantiated statements understanding the context and having a civil conversation would have just been better overall.

[endlessclimb]

I provided my opinion, on not just this sport but all “extreme” levels of horse sport.

It’s not fair to take an animal that has been conditioned to never say no (see all the absolutely exhausted horses trying to make efforts etc, or the horse jumping straight into a wall), and then ask them to do stuff that is more likely to get them injured than not, and then call it humane.

There’s no reason for extreme anything, except human glory.

[enjoytheride]

@Mohan

I swear there isn’t enough drama else where, so let’s kick up dust in a thread that had been civil for the most part.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you suggesting that I’m not being civil? Why? What other threads? I’m addressing a specific poster who looped endurance riding in with abusive and “extreme” horse sports on THIS thread. There are many other endurance competitions that include 100 mile rides, not just Tevis. Tevis is simply the most famous due to it’s historic significance. American endurance has more stringent rules than eventing ever has. If the top level of endurance is “extreme” and unnecessary then where does that put upper level eventing?

[endlessclimb]

And yet a horse sat fatally injured in a valley until sunrise, all in the name of a buckle.

I don’t care if they have “rules”. Riding treacherous terrain in the dead of night where rescue is literally impossible for anything other than absolute emergent reasons is not humane. It’s for human glory. Even if you don’t win, you get to say “look what I did”. Hell, Denny Emerson twangs that string every chance he gets.

[Bogey2]

Did they do a necropsy on the pony and found nothing?

[enjoytheride]

Do you feel the same way about eventing then? Where a higher number of horses have died in eventing in one year than ever have at a 100 mile ride?

[endlessclimb]

Yes, I do. I think extreme levels of sport that involve a living creature that can’t say no are stupid - all around.

Do you think horse diving is/was cruel? How about the Suicide Race in Washington, where they head down that hill and crash into the river? Why is one level of “extreme” ok, while others are not? Because there’s a vet present to say “yup, you hurt your horse and can’t continue”?

[endlessclimb]

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying don’t ride at all, ever. But using endurance as the example - why does the Tevis have to be 100 miles continuous? Why can’t it be split into segments that allow for the riding to be conducted when rescue is remotely feasible - for example, 50 miles one day, overnight at a camp, 50 miles the next?

[enjoytheride]

Because it would then be two separate 50 mile rides, which many people do to test readiness for a 100 mile ride. 50 on Saturday then 50 on Sunday. Riding in the dark is not unsafe on appropriate terrain. The safety issues at Tevis were firmly addressed last year and the trail was rerouted.

Do you know what constitutes a vet check at an endurance ride? How often they are? Vet checks and rules in endurance are much more stringent. The other things you are comparing have ZERO vet or safety features involved it’s not a comparison at all.

If you want to get rid of all 100 mile rides then you’d have to also be for getting rid of all 5 stars in eventing.

[endlessclimb]

And I am, until they can prove to be safer for the horses.

Honestly I don’t care if the riders get hurt, they knew what the risks were. The horses do not.

Why does it have to be 100 miles? (it doesn’t - why not 200 miles? 1000? Who set the bar at 100?) Vet checks are great, but a horse is spun because they’re injured or metabolically unfit, which was triggered by the goals of the human to ride 100 miles of garbage terrain.

Is the Suicide Race inhumane? Horse diving?

[enjoytheride]

I already addressed the suicide races and horse diving. There are significantly fewer horse deaths in endurance than eventing yet for some reason you are fixated on not only endurance, but one race. If you want to get rid of ONE endurance race for horse deaths then you’d basically also have to get rid of ALL 4* and 5* eventing period and probably move into getting rid of some of the other levels as well.

For the last time, the vetting requirements in AERC are significantly higher than eventing.