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On Friday when I posted what can only be called my opinion piece on the bloody mouthed horse situation, I thought it might get a little bit of attention. What I didn’t count on was it getting over 40k hits (and counting), lighting the Internet on fire, and causing me to spend most of my weekend trying to respond to it all. Those 10″ of rain we got here in Texas at least came in handy for something, since it was far too wet for me to ride anyway.

There are a few more things I’d like to say on the matter before I return to my regularly scheduled blog content, mostly in general response to a lot of the conversations I’ve seen on the blog comments, Facebook, and message boards.

Somehow a lot of people got stuck on my post being a snaffle vs non-snaffle discussion. If you’re getting hung up on that, you’re missing the much more important big picture.

Some defended the blood, saying it happens to everyone and isn’t uncommon or a big deal. I’ve been to a lot of competitions in my 32 years and never seen it before in my life. It’s never happened to me before either. Not to mention: if you think it’s ok for horses to be bleeding from the mouth in the middle of a competition, you must not like horse sports very much. Eventing already has a bad enough reputation for safety and horse welfare. What kind of repercussions do you think we will face in the future if we let bloody horses continue around course and do nothing to stop it? We have to police ourselves or someone else will.

In case you missed it, someone named Emily jumped to ML’s defense with her comment on the blog post, which was probably the saddest of all the comments I read:

You have no place to comment on another rider’s system. Especially not one who is as successful as Marilyn. As a groom at the FEI level I’ve seen the behind the scenes and Marilyn’s horses are not being abused in the least. They are strong horses and she needs control.
So you can comment after you’ve won a gold at the Pan Am Games, won a few Grand Prixs and gotten multiple horses to Rolex
#TEAMML

I wasn’t aware that bringing home medals and ribbons was justification for leaving a literal trail of blood in your wake. I think Aimee of Sprinkler Bandit fame said it best

Our sport cannot survive mindsets like Emily’s. Any horse showing visible blood while on course should be pulled up IMMEDIATELY, no matter who you are or where you are. This isn’t just about ML… anyone should be pulled up. But a rider who has two bloody mouthed horses two weekends in a row should get extra close scrutiny. That’s not normal, especially not in conjunction with some pretty wild equipment setups.

I received story after story in my email and fb inbox from people who were at Fair Hill, all saying that many spectators clearly saw the blood and wondered aloud to each other why the horse was being allowed to continue. Is that what we want people to see and think when they come watch our competitions? A couple even went so far as to question officials, who assured them the horse was “fine” and had just bitten it’s tongue. That looks bad for our sport. Incredibly bad.

How it happened, while important to understand for the sake of prevention, should not factor into a decision to stop the horse/rider pair because it can’t be determined until after the fact. Visible blood should equal immediate mandatory retirement. Period. And I personally, as an eventer, would be 100% ok with that if it happened to me. I would WANT to be pulled up on course if my horse was bleeding so much that people could see it even as I was galloping past. No competition is worth risking his well-being or causing him discomfort. I would hope that the vast majority of my peers would feel the same. Not to mention that IMO a tongue bite serious enough to cause that much visible blood is not a minor injury at all. Mouth injuries hurt like a mofo, I think any of us can attest to that.

If we want to stop things like this from happening, IMO we have to target the specific wording of the rules regarding blood and we have to make sure they’re fully enforced. Having arguments on the internet about snaffles is a waste of time and energy. There will never (and should never IMO) be a rule saying we can only use a snaffle while jumping. So instead of arguing about bits on Facebook groups and forums until we’re blue in the face, why not channel our efforts into something that will actually matter? Email, call, and make yourselves heard to our governing bodies. Sign the petition. Submit rule change proposals. Help protect our sport.

And to those trying to threaten me, bury the photos, or have them removed – shame on all of you.

I’m sure a lot of you have seen this photo floating around on facebook

The first time I saw it I thought “hear, hear” but then moved along on my merry way and didn’t give it a whole lot more thought.

I love horses, that much is 100% true. But I’m also not a total bleeding heart. They are big animals with minds of their own and I understand that not every horse can go in snaffle. I don’t have a problem with “big bits” in theory, and I generally believe the adage that a bit is only as severe as the hands holding the reins. I also believe that upper level competition often requires a little more “whoaing power” than us peons down at the lower levels would need, especially on XC where they need to go from high speeds to slower speeds as quickly as possible. However – I do think that there’s a line between what is acceptable and what is just plain abusive. When this picture of Marilyn Little and Scandalous at Boekelo popped up on the internet, I admit to being a bit horrified.

A double twisted wire gag, with one rein, a lever noseband with a chain under the jaw, and a running martingale. That combination is enough to set any horseman back on their heels a bit. But the nail in the coffin? The evidence of blood in the mouth.

This isn’t the first time that the internet has been set ablaze by ML and her bitting choices. The very first one that I remember was not long after she made the switch from show jumping to eventing and this photo appeared on the cover of Practical Horseman. Hard to see here, but yes that’s a chain flash. Never seen one before. Never seen one since.

Her bitting choices are known to be on the less conventional side. That lever noseband with the chain under the jaw makes an appearance on her horses quite often, as do somewhat unconventional bits.

There’s no doubt that she is a great rider and highly successful. I totally understand that sometimes there are strong horses that require something a little outside of the box. I don’t understand what’s going on when the majority of the horses in one barn end up in these kinds of contraptions, especially when they end up bleeding from the mouth. I also totally understand that sometimes horses bite their tongues (granted, I have never seen it, but I know it happens on rare occasion). I REALLY DON’T understand how the same rider could have blood in yet another horse’s mouth at yet another competition only a week later.

link (edited 10/28: the professional photographer that took the most damning photos has had them removed from facebook, so this link is no longer active. You can still reference another photo below, you just have to zoom in.)

There’s another angle here where you can see it very clearly as well, in case there’s any question about the authenticity of the above photos.

This looks bad for us. Real bad. The first time raises some serious eyebrows. The second time establishes a pattern. There’s a trend here, and it’s not a good one. I might not make any friends with this post or this statement, but it has to be said:

What in the holy hell is going on here?

WHY has the same rider had two horses with blood in the mouth, at two competitions, on two continents, within one week of each other, and gotten away with it both times? If we’re just missing it – how do we catch it? How do we punish it? And more importantly – how do we prevent it? If this can happen, multiple times, with zero consequences, something is very very wrong. Somehow we seem to have forgotten that the welfare of the horse is the first priority.

I chose ML as the subject here because so many pictures like this have surfaced in the past week, but it’s certainly not fair to throw her into this alone, because she’s not the only one to end up with blood on her horse in competition. There have been incidents like this showjumper and this dressage rider, where blood was noticed and they were immediately eliminated. And of course Steffen Peters’ elimination from the World Cup that happened earlier this year because of bloody spur marks. The difference is that those instances were dealt with appropriately and these with ML have not been. Blood in the mouth and bloody spur marks cannot be allowed to happen at any level without some kind of penalty. So how do we make sure that we’re catching it every time, especially in eventing where the rules are so vague?

The FEI eventing rulebook only addresses blood in one brief and fairly vague section:

526.4 Blood on Horses

Blood on Horses may be an indication of abuse of the Horse and must be reviewed case by case by the Ground Jury. In minor cases of blood in the mouth, such as where a Horse appears to have bitten its tongue or lip, or minor bleeding on limbs, after investigation the Ground Jury may authorise the Athlete to continue.

It seems like in both of these recent cases that the blood was not noticed and not investigated. The USEF rules for eventing are even more vague and don’t address the issue of blood in the mouth at all.

4. SPURS—Spurs must not be used to reprimand a horse. Such use is always excessive, as is any use that results in a horse’s skin being broken.

5. BIT—The bit must never be used to reprimand a horse. Any such use is always excessive.

To add fuel to my own personal fire, I came across a couple more rules and rule change proposals yesterday that made me wonder what exactly we’re thinking.

The first was this – a USEF rule change proposal for dressage.

which seems to be targeting bridles like this in particular

followed by this note, put out by a USEF Steward General to other stewards:

“I am attaching a few updates that have been clarified for me by the FEI regarding tack, that have to date, not been added to the FAQ’S online.

The first is regarding the accepted diameter of a snaffle bit that is allowed in competition. After much discussion regarding the verbiage in the FEI Dressage Rules and the lack of language in the FEI Eventing Rules, the FEI has notified me that there is no legal minimum requirement as to the diameter of a snaffle bit allowed in competition.

The second is regarding the new bridles that are being seen. One is manufactured by Stubben as the 2500 Freedom, and the other is being called an “ear cutout” by the other manufacturers. Both have been declared illegal by the FEI.

Thirdly, please be aware that “attachments” to the bridle of any kind are illegal.“

So… there is no minimum diameter of a bit, but we want to ban the use of bridles or attachments designed to make the horse more comfortable? This is the Stubben bridle in question:

Ugly as sin, no doubt, but what about it is so detrimental to the horse or the sport that it becomes necessary to ban it from dressage competition? The idea is not that dissimilar from a Micklem. Shouldn’t we be embracing changes and advances in technology that could make our horses more comfortable? I also don’t understand what’s so bad about a poll cushion or similar “attachment”. A system that allows a rider to go unreprimanded after having two bloody mouthed horses two weekends in a row yet wants to ban anatomic bridles REALLY has me scratching my head. I have to wonder why it seems like the priorities in these rules are so, well… backwards.

The obvious question is – what do we do?

First, we have to care. Second, we have to be heard. Third, we have to come up with solutions. Maybe we need to start by defining our rules more clearly. Maybe we need to have stewards at the end of each phase specifically to check the mouth and sides of the horse. Maybe we need to be more proactive about penalizing those who toe or cross the line, regardless of who they are. Maybe we need to remember why we make rules in the first place. I don’t have the answer and I don’t know how to solve this problem. But make no mistake, this cannot keep happening. As soon as we cross the line into looking abusive and forget about horsemanship, there is no more sport.

To those who see pictures like these and would rather just keep quiet, make excuses, or turn a blind eye  – you are part of the problem. We have to stand up, speak out, send emails, write and submit rule change proposals… do something. One voice gets lost. A lot of voices put together can make a difference. How do we fix this?

 

I wouldn’t know of course, but Uni sure does. If you aren’t following her on facebook then you missed out on some pretty great pictures from Fair Hill:

Uni even made a cameo appearance in the official highlight video around the 2:50 mark:

The plan for Uni’s future has been updated a bit… instead of being auctioned off over the winter, we’re going to hold on to her and take her to Rolex for even more mingling with the stars. She can get more autographs from and photos with some international eventing stars, and thus be even more awesome. She’s going to be the most well connected unicorn in the business by the time she’s ready to go to her new home.

Side note: Yes, that means a Rolex trip is in the works. Brace yourselves, Kentucky. You’ve been warned. Is anyone else planning on going to Rolex? Possible meet up, perhaps?

When we oh-so-innocently adopted Quinn a few months ago, we didn’t realize that we were adopting Joseph Stalin reincarnated in dog form. Don’t be fooled by the cute face and ridiculously adorable waddle, he rules this house with an iron paw and uses terror to keep his subjects in line.

First of all, he’s just not very good at dogging. He doesn’t play with toys and he acts like going outside is some kind of brutal punishment suitable only for the other two peons he lives with. He just can’t figure out how he ended up in a place with two such common canines, but it only took him a matter of days to terrify them enough to move to the top of the pecking order. His favorite activities to partake in with his “brother and sister” (which he finds terribly insulting) are: barking at them, chasing them, trying to steal food from them, and snarling at them if they come anywhere near him when he’s chosen to have People Time.

That’s right – he chooses when he wants affection. If you pet him when he doesn’t want to be petted he glares at you as if he’s contemplating having you hauled off to a military prison and tortured. But when he does want affection, he wants it NOW and he wants it on his terms. If that means he has to put his fat little stumper feet all over your laptop, freezing and crashing every program you had open… well, that’s the price you pay for the privilege of his company.

Our other two dogs don’t sleep on the bed. When Rob and I were each single, both of our dogs slept on our respective beds. Since Rob and I have been together, both of dogs have been relegated to their own beds. Fair is fair, after all. Or at least fair WAS fair, until Quinn came along. Guess who sleeps on the bed? Not just sleeps on the bed, but gets lifted onto the bed every night at bed time, because if you’ve ever seen a corgi try to jump then you know how little lift those stumpers generate. Quinn waddles into the bedroom, looks at you with that penetrating corgi stare, and says “Hey, human-servant! Raise me onto thyne throne!”. And we do. Because dammit, he’s just so cute. Plus if we didn’t, he’d probably have us killed in our sleep or something.

You’d think that things like this would buy us some loyalty from Quinn Stalin, but no. He has tried to leave with not just one but TWO delivery guys. He made it all the way to the pizza guy’s car before we snagged him, and the poor Chinese food delivery guy looked appropriately terrified when he realized he was being chased (at a slow trot) by a perpetually hungry corgi.

It’s obvious that Quinn lives for food. Any time you walk into the Magical Food Room he’s right on your heels, usually completely in your way and standing in front of whatever you’re trying to access. I have never seen a dog actually try to climb into the refrigerator before. Just make sure before you leave the kitchen that you know where Quinn is… that one time he accidentally got shut into the pantry really pissed him off. We were all walking on eggshells for days worried about retaliation, but luckily the treat I gave him upon release seemed to soothe the beast.

Quinn being deaf has added a little bit of complexity to having him around, but not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. Mostly because even if he could hear, I’m pretty sure he’d ignore us just as much. The only difference is we have to wave our arms to get his attention instead of just saying his name, so that he can then flip us the bird and do whatever the hell he wants anyway.

The thing you hear most often about corgis is how much they shed. People aren’t kidding, Quinn leaves a trail of hair behind him wherever he goes, regardless of how much we bathe and brush him. I find Quinn hair in all kinds of places… my underwear, my purse, all over my car, in between the keys of my laptop, and I even found a Quinn hair on Henry’s bridle. Let’s not even talk about how much of it I eat on a regular basis. I’ve given up trying to keep the dog hair out of the food and off of the dishes… it’s like velcro. I’m pretty sure he climbs into the cabinets while we’re gone and has a good shake, laughing maniacally all the while. But after the first few weeks you become blind to the tumbleweeds of dog hair that are forever blowing across the living room.

Basically, life with a corgi is a lot different than life with our other two mutts. I’ll tell you a secret though – and please don’t tell Quinn because he’ll see it as a sign of weakness and surely have me offed – we absolutely adore him and wouldn’t change a thing.

I know that in some ways my fashion choices are a little more “out there” than the average person’s. I love something that is a little different, a little unique, and not quite so… boring. Piping, a little bit of color, some kind of pattern, or – one of my absolute favorites – just a tiny touch of bling. Specifically on the back pockets of my breeches. Why, I don’t really know, because lord knows I’d rather no one spend any longer than necessary staring at my butt in a pair of breeches. Yet my white show breeches have bling on the back pockets and not only do I get compliments on those things all the dang time, I love them. Stare at my butt all you want, but you’re gonna need shades, cuz that rear end is blingin’. You can’t really even see it much when I’m showing because it’s covered up by my coat, so to me that’s kind of the best of both worlds. Fancy AF, but covertly.

For as resistant as I was to adding white breeches to my arsenal in the first place, I will admit that I’ve come to love them. A lot. They look so sharp, and although I was afraid of how terribly unflattering they would be, they’re actually one of my most flattering pairs.  I like them so much in fact that I’m considering adding a second white pair to the line-up. And to take crazy all the way to insanity, I might even run XC in them, even though it seems to me like white breeches on XC are basically the same as begging to fall off in the water jump. But they’re just so pretty, I see now why so many people do it.

The white pair I have are La Valencio, a brand carried by Divoza, one of my favorite European shops. So when the thought entered my mind to buy another pair, I immediately marched right back over to Divoza. Because let’s face it, if you want fancy pants, the Europeans have got the market cornered.

The first ones that caught my eye were these, which are almost exactly the ones I’ve already got but in a sticky seat version.

http://www.divoza.com/english/la-valencio-expression-fg-riding-breech

But there are a few other cool pairs too:

http://www.divoza.com/english/montar-2094

http://www.divoza.com/english/eurostar-laura-luxe-full-riding-breech

If your left ass cheek is super into America but your right ass cheek is feeling more British, they’ve got pants for that:

http://www.divoza.com/english/montar-flag-studs-grip-riding-breech

for the more subtly patriotic

http://www.divoza.com/english/la-valencio-barbra-plus-riding-breech

 

Fancy butts are pretty in all colors, not just white:

http://www.divoza.com/english/montar-2071-embroidery-riding-breech

http://www.divoza.com/english/eurostar-laura-luxe-grip-riding-breech

Silver pegasus tramp stamp, FTW.

http://www.divoza.com/english/montar-2070-wings-riding-breech

ORANGE

http://www.divoza.com/english/la-valencio-belicia-riding-breech

Of course Aztec Diamond and Animo (two of my other favorite brands – coincidence? No.) are both fans of butt decorations as well, and naturally – European companies. Come on America, why are we such a cookie cutter snoozefest? Let’s liven things up a bit, starting with our butts.