Category: Uncategorized

I’m sure anyone who has access to the internet/social media has seen the Mark Todd thing by now. Short version – there’s a video from a clinic a couple years ago where a horse didn’t want to just down a small bank into the water, Mark got a thin branch from a tree, pulled some twigs and leaves off, and proceeded to use it like a switch on said horse. This is the full video, but the most problematic part starts around 1:25… there’s a string of quite solid whacks to the horse with the switch.

I think (HOPE?) we can all agree that this was an inappropriate incident. Mark himself admitted as much in his statement, saying “I wholeheartedly apologise to the horse and all involved for my actions in this video clip. One of the main things I preach is about establishing a mutual respect between horse and rider and that patience and kindness is the best way to get results. I am very disappointed in myself that I did not adhere to that in this case.”. It was made even more complicated by the fact that he was a patron for World Horse Welfare, a position he has since stepped down from.

The fact that there was a wrong-doing here is, to me, indisputable. The more interesting thing about all of this (and geez, I feel like every time something like this happens it’s always enlightening in the worst ways) has been the social media response. You get a lot of people lambasting Mark Todd, for sure. But what I have seen a great deal more of, BY FAR, are people jumping to his defense and defending these actions and this behavior. That’s the part that seems almost more problematic than the incident itself, to be honest, or at least indicative of some serious underlying issues in our industry (Matt Brown and Kate Samuels said it way better than I can, I think). These are the main points I’ve been seeing:

• “But he’s Mark Todd. He’s a legend. He wouldn’t be successful if he abused horses.” – I think we all know this is a garbage argument and can name plenty of very successful yet repeatedly abusive riders. What you’ve achieved says nothing about how you got there. Trying to choose a rider for your 5* horse or a chef d’equip for your team – absolutely his resume is valid in those scenarios. But in this particular instance of determining abusive behavior? His resume is completely moot. This is a ridiculous defense.

• “The rider waited this long to come forward? Must not have been that upsetting to her.” – Ok look, this one just has major shades of the George Morris argument to me. It doesn’t matter when or how long or who or why. Again, those are moot points because none of them change what happened on that video.

• “The horse seemed fine” – Horses (and people for that matter) seem fine through a lot of instances of abuse… doesn’t make it any less wrong.

• “He barely tapped him” – I’d hate to see your idea of a wallop, then. If there’s a backswing involved, it’s not a tap. Also, all of us former barn kids that used to hit each other with those long thin whips know EXACTLY how much they hurt, whether you put a lot of force behind them or not, so… let’s just put this argument away eh? There’s a difference between a few encouraging taps and 10 good wallops (which is why the FEI has a black and white definition for how many times you can use a whip and where).

• “I met Mark Todd a few times and he seemed like a nice guy” – This one also has shades of GM. How many times can we say over and over again that behavior and personality do not go hand in hand. Nice people do bad things all the time, the same as bad people do nice things all the time. Just because someone seems otherwise exemplary of character doesn’t mean they are immune from doing bad things, nor does it automatically excuse their bad deeds when they do happen.

• “It was just a moment in time.” – I mean… sure, but… kind of a big moment.

• “I’ve seen way worse” – awesome, isn’t that a great testament to horse sports. And while sadly this is true – there is much worse – it’s still not an exemption. You don’t get to do a bad thing and not be held accountable for it just because someone else does something worse.

• “You can’t even train a horse these days without worrying about someone videoing.” That is a heck of a statement to dissect. I mean, I do get what this person was trying to say (I, uh, think). Sometimes training horses can be ugly. Sometimes horses react in unpredictable ways, and at times things can get a little bit, uh, western, or you have to make a quick and obvious point, or do something drastic to prevent a potentially dangerous situation for horse or human. I think anyone who has spent time training horses knows this to be true. And yes, if you took a clip of something like that out of context then it could certainly look like something it wasn’t. However, I think we also know that getting a tree branch and walloping it repeatedly across the butt of a horse at a clinic when it clearly doesn’t seem to understand the question in the first place is not one of the aforementioned emergency scenarios nor is it particularly helpful or compassionate to the horse. That’s the difference.

• “I’ve done that before and I’d do it again.” This one came from a pro, no less. Isn’t that lovely. Excellent horse training techniques at work in his barn, obviously.

• “Everyone makes mistakes” – now this is finally something I can absolutely agree with, although only as a statement, not as an excuse.

Here’s the thing: I think we’ve all lost our temper with a horse at some point. Probably reacted in a way we aren’t proud of, and would be ashamed to have anyone witness much less record and post online. I’ve done it in the past, and unless you’re a totally perfect person with zero emotions, you’ve probably done it too. To be clear: the fact that we’ve all done it is still not a defense of ANY behavior like that. This is still abusive and it’s still wrong. I’m only saying this because we all probably know what it feels like to realize you’ve fucked up and done the wrong thing by the horse. It feels totally shit. Or at least, it should.

To me the difference is what happens AFTER that moment. Do you fess up to it, admit you were wrong, apologize, feel ashamed, and vow to do better next time? Or do you double down and say that the horse deserved it, you did nothing wrong, and go out and do it again the next day?

It also matters what else happens in ADDITION to that moment. What else is going on behind the scenes? Is this standard behavior and you just finally got caught, or was it a very rare fuck up? How many provable instances of this behavior exist? Is it a pattern or is it an anomaly? In the cases of people like Marilyn Little or Andy Kocher, the absolute biggest part of my issue with them was the fact that the abuses were repeated over and over and over ad nauseum with absolutely no remorse, regret, acknowledgement of wrong-doing, or attempt to prevent a repeat scenario. Their only regret was getting caught. I’m very willing to recognize the fact that people make mistakes – bad ones, indefensible ones – and be able to move on from it. I’m very unwilling to forgive and forget the ones that seem pleased with themselves for their abhorrent behavior, and the people who enable/encourage/defend it.

As it stands now, I have yet to see any other evidence of instances like this from Mark Todd. Do they exist? Possibly. I don’t know the man, and I think there are probably only a handful of people on this earth that have spent enough time with him behind closed doors to know for sure. Is this incident enough to give me pause and make me wary? Absolutely. But I also think that if a genuine lesson has been learned and there is genuine shame and remorse and a genuine effort to do and be better, forgiveness is fair. People definitely have to be allowed to make mistakes… lord knows we all have. Whether or not he earns that grace is up to him IMO, from this point forward, and only time will tell.

What I really hate most is all those excuses I see people making, especially the pros. Let’s call a spade a spade here guys, this was an abusive and ugly and unnecessary incident. The industry is evolving (and MUST evolve if it wants to survive) from “training techniques” like this, and no one should defend this kind of crap, period. Also ridiculous to veer off course and attack the credibility or intentions of the girl who posted the video, or shrug and say that successful riders get a free pass to do what they want, etc. This is the EXACT SAME mindset that allows abuse of both horses and humans to perpetuate in our sport. Hold people accountable. Stop making excuses for bad behavior. If people fuck up, let them know they fucked up, let them deal with their own consequences, and let their own subsequent actions decide whether or not they’re worthy of redemption. Why do we seem to think that a certain subset of people are beyond reproach?

For as bad as it makes equestrians look as a whole, I do think that having stuff like this come to light and have all this drama about it on social media can be a good thing – IF we (collectively) learn from it. How not to behave. How not to handle a training issue. How to handle mistakes with grace. Maybe think twice before we do something similar in a fit of anger and frustration. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll make people less hesitant to speak up in defense of their horses if they ever find themselves in a similar situation, even if it means standing up to a big name rider.

How do I personally feel about Mark Todd after this? He’s on a bit of a “probation” period in my mind. I’m definitely not ready to sharpen up my pitchfork and add him to the list of the repeat or most egregious offenders, but there’s no doubt that he’s done a bad thing. I do appreciate that he was horseman enough to admit it and apologize, and I think that’s a positive step. From this point on, my opinion of him rests entirely in his hands. Will he come back from this and prove that he’s worthy of being called a legend? We’ll see. Right now he’s simply a successful rider that has also made a bad mistake, and I would love to see people stop making excuses for it.

Presto has been at Michelle’s for all of a week now, and I’m guessing that if you asked her she’d say it felt like a year. Perhaps I undersold his general level of day to day mayhem. Perhaps she’s just forgotten since we haven’t heard as much about it while he’s been at Megan’s. Or perhaps Michelle is just too nice and didn’t fully realize what she was signing up for when she offered to let him come stay at her place. Either way… she’s stuck with him now, no takesie-backsies. (just kidding. maybe. not really.)

When we left off with last week’s update he was in the pen next to the 2021 foals. They were obsessed with him, and he had already recruited their Chief Chaos Officer (Teddy) to his cause. It was very suspicious how Presto and Teddy would stand there in the corner just looking at each other, probably plotting all manner of terrible things. And then that next night Michelle came out to feed and found that SOMEONE – I’m not naming Teddy names or anything – had chewed a chunk out of Presto’s tail.

These LITTLE SHITS. I mean luckily it was off the top and I think we can just…. blend that for a while until it grows in, but seriously guys. WTF. Thank goodness Michelle noticed it before they ate the whole thing. But they did immediately lose neighbor privileges, and Presto got switched with Daisy. Now he’s got the end pen with Daisy as his only neighbor, and the babies are another pen away where they can no longer victimize his tail.

Naturally he wasn’t particularly pleased about having his minion army taken away, and did some really fancy arabian impressions while expressing his feelings. Michelle had to spent the rest of the evening dealing with THAT (her trying to make him walk places instead of trot is futile but cute… on the plus side he sure has looked awfully darn sound in all the videos). I’m pretty sure she’s rubbed like half a gallon of lavender oil on him by now in an attempt to just… take all the PRESTO down a notch. Good luck. You’d have to dip that dinosaur in a vat of it to root out all the chaos demons, I think.

And let’s face it, even when he’s chill (which he is most of the time, to his credit) he’s still a wrecking ball in horse form. Maybe I should have warned her that he’s a feed bucket/feed pan serial killer, but, uh… she knows now. He just simply cannot resist the excuse to paw at and put his feet in something that was clearly designed for just that purpose.

Every single place I’ve kept this horse we’ve gone through the gamut of how to feed him without him tossing it all over the place, tearing the feeder off the wall, or putting his feet in it. I’m not sure there’s a bucket/feeder/pan in existence that he hasn’t met by now. Usually things end up bolted to the wall, high enough to where he can’t put a foot in it and designed so that he can’t easily fling the food out. That’s just an accessory of Presto. So he started out at Michelle’s with a regular rubber feeder, which… LOL… and then Michelle went and dragged out her big guns: the red no-turn feeder.

It took him all of one day to master that one, but ya know… A for effort, Michelle? He finds the no-turn feeder to be a very delightful toy. Finally, someone gave him something FUN! He’s smart in all the worst ways but at least he’s never boring?

At this point I think I owe her a few bottles (or maybe just skip straight to a barrel) of Pinot Noir. And some chocolate. Maybe a fancy dinner. Definitely a value-size bottle of tums and some omeprazole, because he’s definitely giving her an ulcer. Welcome to the club, my ulcer is Presto-size and has been there for almost 5 years now.

One week down, Michelle, just… 2-3 more months to go. Hang in there…

Alright I absolutely hate foosball but can we talk about that halftime show for a second? I’ve been a fan of Eminem since he first hit the scene when I was in high school, and my love has not faded over time. I’ve said for years that he’s the greatest lyricist of our time and I stand by that. Also Dr. Dre is still absolutely baller. If they could have just cancelled all the football and let the halftime show go for a couple more hours, I would have been delighted.

In more horsey news, Gemma continues to have very minor and easy “lessons”. Hillary ponied her out on the trails in the back

which Gemma thought was really fun. She does love to get out and see things and explore, and she was super interested in looking around at everything but she wasn’t spooky about it. Not even when two giant helicopters came thundering right overhead. Ears pricked, happy girl. You can tell she’s itching to stretch her legs and let off some steam, but seriously she gets two big gold stars at how well she’s keeping herself under wraps during her rest period. I’ve been bringing her into the barn every other day in the afternoon so she can stand in the crossties, get groomed, and get some Durasole and Keratex on her feet.

She’s understanding the crossties well now, and she stands pretty well. No fuss about leaving the other horses or being alone in the barn (unlike a certain hangry hangry hippo we all know and love) Her feet are still a bit sore, mostly the hinds since they’re barefoot now, but it’s definitely gotten better since those first couple days. The timing worked out pretty well for her shoeing transition since the ground is has mercifully softened up a bit but it isn’t muddy. One thing about Gemma for sure though – she is a FOODIE. You wouldn’t know it by looking at her since she still has a lot of weight to gain, but that girl really likes her food, especially treats. She absolutely SCREAMS at me when I’m coming with food. And not in the way that makes you feel loved… the way where you’re pretty sure she’s saying “Walk faster, peon!”. I live to serve. After all, I was trained by the Chestnuttiest Marey-est horse alive.

Gemma still doesn’t even hold a candle to Henry when it comes to the stereotypical chestnut mare behaviors.

I’ve been riding Henry some though, on the days where Hillary can’t come out. He’s really thriving I think, doing a little bit of “harder” work again with her. He’s a bit stronger than he was, but everything is still easy and infrequent enough to where he’s not being taxed by it. Although she has figured out more and more how to flat him better, which he’s not quite so pleased about. He would appreciate if everyone just believed all his “oh I don’t know what that means” or “oh I don’t do that” LIES when it comes to proper flatwork.

Presto is settling into Michelle’s too… I think she might need a bulk delivery of wine on like a weekly basis while he’s there, but more on all his tomfoolery tomorrow.

One more little newsworthy item – I’ve been officially brought onto the Eventing Nation team to provide some regular breeding articles, as well as extensive breeding guides for all of the major events. We officially kicked it off yesterday with a “fun” Valentines Day themed piece to get the ball rolling. I’m pretty excited to have the opportunity to get all my nerdy info out to a bigger audience, and hopefully see what we can do about getting this info more mainstream. I’m especially interested in doing articles that might appeal to people who aren’t already involved in the breeding business or have experience with breeding, so if you guys have any ideas for what you might like to read about or learn more about, please let me know!

Omg y’all, where the hell is the time going? Henry officially turned 15 yesterday. WTF? I remember when turned 10 and I was like oh man double digits. How did we already get halfway through his second decade?

Henry was not much of a fan of any of his birthday shit aside from all the cookies. The hat? Stupid. The banner? Annoying. The balloons? DEATH MONSTERS FROM OUTER SPACE. And once we finally convinced him to stand close to them without snorting, he then refused to put his ears up at all. Total mad donkey mode. I tried every single sound on the AllEars app but NOPE he wasn’t falling for my bullshittery.

We were busy shooting Patreon content this weekend (patrons check your dashboard – first podcast episode is up!) but Hillary did do a quick bareback flat ride on him yesterday. I’d say that he got 15 cookies, but that would be a lie because he probably got more like 30. I did give him 16 smooches last night at night check though (15 plus one to grow on) which he definitely almost tolerated without looking murderous. Almost.

I rode him a couple times last week, during one of which I propped my phone in my Pivo and got a few shots of him galloping. He was WILD AF that day but we had fun, as always. He’s the best dude.

Well ok there was one pass in particular where I’m not quite sure what he was trying to do… I think he wanted to both run away and dolphin at the same time but somehow it came out looking like a deranged llama. He is beauty, he is grace. Some things never change.

He also got to do some jumping with Hillary (I’m pretty sure she’s rapidly becoming his new favorite person, with her BEMER and her handfuls of cookies and her lack of wanting to smooch his face all the time) which he thought was super fun. Aside from the part where she’s asking him to be more round before and after the fence – he thinks that part is mega stupid.

All in all though, not a bad lead up to his birthday week, and a pretty fine birthday itself. I really need to know how to freeze frame time though… 15 already. Man.

Everyone’s favorite chaos factory (aka Presto) made the trip to Michelle’s yesterday to start his R&R time. I went up there to meet her so I could see her off, grab all his stuff, and give him a proper nose boop.

Megan says he’s been quite well-behaved with all of his down time (something I found highly suspicious, because, ya know… Presto) but indeed he did seem pretty chill about things. Immediately patted me down for cookies in a very thorough and perhaps overly personal full body search, put the sleeve of my hoodie in his mouth, and tried to make me wear his head like a hat, but that’s all very normal. He seems a little bored maybe, but he’s certainly holding himself together a lot better than I anticipated considering how long he’s been out of work.

We got all his stuff loaded up, talked for a bit, and then put Presto into Michelle’s trailer. Not gonna lie, I spent the first hour drive home regretting sending him away instead of bringing him home. I really miss having him around on a daily basis, he’s absolute mayhem YES but he’s my brand of mayhem. Once I got past the emotional side of things though and remembered why I made this decision in the first place I was like oh yeah, that’s right, it was 100% the better choice for him. He won’t be lonely, he’s got a perfect living space, and all of the extra services he needs to aid in his healing are readily available. I do miss him tremendously though, not gonna lie, and every time I see him I’m reminded of that.

Michelle got him home to her place in west Texas yesterday evening and stuck him in a pen next to the 2021 weanlings. The kiddos will be leaving for Ocala soon but for now they think he is THE COOLEST HORSE THEY’VE EVER SEEN and I’m just over here like oh my god what kinds of terrible things is he going to teach the children.

I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. Poor Michelle, I’m not sure she quite realizes exactly what she signed up for. ^{(too late now, muahahahaha)}

Hopefully he decides to behave himself there too though, so he can get healed up and back to work. I know he’s prefers having something to do and would much rather have a job. Just gotta keep your legs out of trouble, kid, and stop pawing shit so aggressively.

As for a little Patreon update – tremendous thanks to everyone that’s signed up as we launch, I’m really excited about what we’ve got planned and upcoming and it’s giving me so much life to see that you guys are excited for it too. Things are coming together! We’re filming and recording all the first real content this weekend and I’m looking forward to branching out into these new formats. If you’re a Patron you should have already gotten a message with the link to the private fb group (there’s already lots of discussion and updates and some exclusive video there) so please make sure to check that out, and for the Supporter and VIP tiers I also posted a fun thing for y’all this morning – check your Patreon dashboard. 😉

Happy Friday everyone!