It’s no secret I love nice things. Love them a lot. Sadly, I don’t have a bank account that permits me to go around buying all the nice cool stuff I want… one of life’s biggest injustices. So when I see things that I must have, I usually play this little game with myself that I like to call Trading Up (yes, I might have issues).

Basically I can only buy said item if I sell the item I’ve already got that’s like it, or enough other stuff to make up the price difference. This is why I try to buy stuff as cheaply as possible, because some day it’ll probably be on the rotation out. I recently did a massive purge of stuff, so we all know what that means. UPGRADES! I recently sold off everything in my breeches collection that I wasn’t wearing, specifically because I needed to buy another pair of whites. Behold said whites.

They’re La Valencio’s, just like my current whites, which I bought from Divoza in the Netherlands. I had a coupon code (because always always coupon code) so before I checked out I decided to take a quick glance at the sale section. Why do I do that? Why? It’s a trap. What I did I see there, staring at me with their big puppy dog eyes, begging me to take them home? Navy Lorenzinis. The ones I’ve been lusting after for months but could never justify the price tag. They were almost 40% off the best price I’ve ever seen anywhere else. So what did I do? Added them to the cart and sold a couple more things to make up the difference. There was nothing else I could do, obviously.

Not a new item but equally exciting – my Samshield finally came! She’s so purty. Too bad no one will know just how pretty she is until next show season. I need to take a pic of it with my coat so that it’s all matchy. Obviously I had to sell a lot of stuff to make this one happen, but it needed to. My current GPA is at the end of it’s life span so I needed a new helmet anyway. And one simply cannot buy a plain regular helmet when one is an eventer. Especially when said eventer already has a coat and Ogilvy pad (also bought via Trading Up) that are navy with yellow piping.

And since I had a remaining shop credit, I jumped on the chance to try out the new merino quarter zips from Kastel. The green one was calling my name. An atypical color choice for me but there’s just something about it…

There has also been some saddle shuffling and news on that front, but we’ll talk about that tomorrow. The struggle is real. Real painful.

I obviously have a lot of reviews to do in the coming months.

Somehow, out of all of this buying and selling, I still managed to come out of it in the black and put some dollars aside into the Black Betty Rejuvenation Fund. Trading Up… it’s a thing.

FINALLY, a month later, I can finish the recap! In case everyone has forgotten, here’s Day 1 and Day 2 to refresh your memory. When we left off, Henry and I were sitting in 10th place individually after XC and Team Always be a Unicorn was first in the Adult Team Championship with a 17 point spread over the second place team.

At AEC they run show jumping in reverse order of placing, so I had about 20 people ahead of me in our division before I went. Luckily I think the ring crew was just as ready to be done as we were, because they were ushering horses in and out of there without so much as a pause in between. So fast, in fact, that even though there were 4 other rounds between my first teammate to go and myself, my trainer didn’t make it back down to warm-up until they were calling me to the ring. We quickly jumped 3 fences and off I went up the hill and into the ring…

where I proceeded to ride one of the worst stadium rounds I’ve ever had on Henry. I just couldn’t get a canter that I liked, couldn’t pick a rhythm, kept changing things instead of letting it flow, over-correcting, and basically every choice I made was wrong. I really have no good explanation or excuse. We had a few well-deserved rubs along the way before finally having a rail at the very last fence. I walked out and told my trainer “I deserved that”, and she agreed, because I did. Still, we got our completion medal, Henry got an apology, and I dismounted so I could stand and watch our last two teammates jump.

Jeannette went in and had a trip fairly similar to mine, also having the last rail (damn that stupid last rail, it came down a lot). Then, finally, it was Bobby’s turn. He was in first place after XC so he was the very last person to show jump, and he DID NOT have a rail in hand. At this point I wasn’t even sure what our team had left in hand anymore either, because I hadn’t been able to pay close attention to everyone else. The pressure was on, and I could hardly watch.

I was so nervous for him, I think I jumped every fence with Halo. He had a couple of rubs that made my heart absolutely just STOP, but they stayed in the cups. Finally, after what seemed like an hour instead of a minute, he rounded the turn to the last, saw a little bit of a gap, moved up to the distance, and had another hard tap. In that moment I think time stood still and I lost a good 10 years off my life, but all the poles stayed in the cups. This is the point where I lost my ever-loving mind, screaming like a banshee and jumping up and down like I won the megamillions. Somewhere in the walk between my vantage point and the ingate I started bawling, handed Poor Henry to Poor Trainer (who at that point was laughing at me), and hugged Bobby for a good 30 seconds. Proud doesn’t even begin to describe it. Bobby is a huge turd but I love him anyway and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of that win.

They did the awards for the Adult Team Championship first. Turns out that even with my rail and Jeannette’s rail, we still opened up the gap and finished with 19 points in hand over second place. Since they drop the highest score, all 3 of ours that counted toward the final tally were in the top 10 overall… hard to beat that. The best part is that our trainer made a bet with us that if we won the ATC, she would wear the unicorn mask for our win photos. She thought she could weasel out of it by standing outside the ring and trying to look nonchalant in the hopes that we would forget, but I yelled at her to get her ass in there and put the damn mask on. Everyone got a good laugh out of it and asked who was under the mask… I made sure everyone knew that it was AMANDA MERRITT of ANCHOR EQUESTRIAN. I think she told me that she hated me a couple hundred times but we all know that’s not true. She looked majestic AF.

After we got our team awards (which was so much stuff that it took a whole ‘nother team of people to carry it all) I started to leave the ring because I figured my rail had knocked me out of the top 12. Then I heard them call the 12th place person with a 35.8 and I came screeching to a halt, turned around, and put myself in line. I knew that I finished with a 34.8 but had no idea what place that was… turns out I didn’t change places at all, we stayed in 10th. If I hadn’t had the rail it only would have made a 2 place difference, putting us in 8th. I was actually kind of okay with that because the 10th place ribbon is way prettier than 8th. Shallow people problems.

Henry thought the entire awards ceremony was stupid and refused to look even remotely interested for his award photos, but the victory gallop was pretty damn fun. I will happily run around the ring to “We are the Champions” without complaint any day of the week. It was a pretty cool moment.

All in all, it was a very successful and fun AEC experience. We had a blast, had a great dressage, easy XC, and learned exactly how not to ride stadium. Plus we walked away with lots of awesome stuff. Can’t really beat that!

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?