In the wake of the Andrew McConnon horse abuse case decision and other issues facing our sport, the EN team has penned some opinion pieces to share with our readers. You can read our full breakdown of the McConnon case here.
Struggling to keep hold of all the reasons I fell in love with this sport in the first place. Struggling to find the enthusiasm to support this sport at the highest levels. Struggling to be a fan of people that I used to openly admire. Struggling to feel excited to participate in something that’s feeling more and more like it’s sliding down a slippery slope.
Many times over the past year I’ve found myself hacking around the farm on one of my horses, ruminating on current events in the horse world, and having a bit of an existential crisis. I have sometimes asked myself what the hell I’m even doing. I’m “just” an adult amateur that’s competed to Preliminary level, so I know that most of the elite and the powers-that-be will fully and automatically dismiss my viewpoints. I urge them not to, because people like me are what keep this sport and industry afloat.
No, I’m not a top level rider and I never will be. But what I am – and I would dare say this is just as important if not even more so – is a fan. A participant. A supporter. A cog in the machine that makes this all work. I pay my membership fees every year (although this year I admit it has come with a dearth of enthusiasm), and I enter plenty of horse shows. I buy tickets to Kentucky and Maryland, pay to attend YEH Symposiums and judging seminars. I give money to USEA programs, buy things in online fundraising auctions, and donate to riders raising money to attend overseas events. I don’t have the kind of bank account required to be an owner for a top level rider, but if I did, I would. I’m 100% in, with every spare dollar.
I love this sport so much that I gave up a corporate career to move to Ocala just to be “in the thick of it” and learn as much as I can from some of the best in the country. I have several different jobs within the horse industry, working 6-7 days a week to make it all work.
This is my life, probably just as much as your average professional but in a different format. Again, because I love it… there’s simply no other reason than that.
And yet, for the first time, I’ve found myself questioning what I’m doing. What we’re all doing. Whether or not I actually want to be a cog in this machine. Every time another abuse allegation drops, I’m sick to my stomach. Every time the claims are dismissed with “we all make mistakes” or “you don’t know what it’s like because you’ve never ridden at this level”, I feel like the words ring more and more hollow. And every time someone with a clear and well-documented history of abuse gets a slap on the wrist, I feel a lot more enraged.
Reading through the FEI Tribunal docs in the McConnon case was astounding, in all the worst ways, and incredibly disappointing. If that’s an example of our best system at work, the future doesn’t look particularly promising.
I will acknowledge that we all make mistakes. I don’t know a single one of us that can stand here and say we haven’t. The key, however, is to stop making the same ones repeatedly. Albert Einstein was famously quoted as saying “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” That’s exactly what we’re doing. This is starting to feel like insanity (and not the fun kind that we like so much here at EN – the other much more sinister, considerably less enjoyable kind).
If people are reporting these incidents to the proper channels and it goes nowhere, or their testimony is weighed less heavily because they aren’t as “important”, or they’re disregarded and intimidated by a group of big names that rally around an offender… this will never stop. We’ll be sealing our own fate.
Having employees sign NDA’s and banning people from having phones… well, that’s… uh, one approach I guess. We’ve managed to make social media policies high priority and a major talking point, but if our only answer is to close ranks and try to hide, we’re not on the right side. That CAN’T be it.
Social license to operate has been a hot topic of conversation, and it’s critical. However, I feel like it’s manifested more as people being trained on PR, rather than what it really means in the big picture.
Social media is a highlight reel of the things you do, but your actions are what show people who you are. That’s what’s really up for debate here, and that’s what the general public is trying to decide, whether we like it or not. Who are we really? When footage or testimony comes out that so harshly contrasts the carefully cultivated image we’ve chosen to put forth, it leaves people wondering how much of what they’re seeing in the highlight reel is true. If any of it is true.
So the question for me is: what are we actually doing to eradicate the kind of behavior that keeps getting us here in the first place? How do we make it so these things don’t happen? What are we doing to support the mental health of people in our industry? What programs do we have in place to help teach people better horsemanship practices in times of stress? Where is the system to start catching these things before they spiral out of control? And how do we make the system actually work properly to protect the horses? Reporting incidents to the proper channels hasn’t seemed to work very well.
And if everyone makes mistakes, how are we as an industry helping people not make them over and over again? If we really believe that people can be rehabilitated, HOW exactly is that going to happen? Show me the notes, the outline, the bullet points. We don’t need the same tired, empty words, we need action items, and we need them desperately.
I also think the reporting process needs a hard look. if we don’t want to even investigate allegations without major proof, yet we either a) take away any ability to provide said proof, b) immediately start trying to discredit people who report because they aren’t as important or established in our industry… what exactly is the path here? We all know who wins in that scenario, and it certainly isn’t the horses.
What’s so frustrating, as someone in my shoes, is that I see a lot of the same empty words, a lot of protecting and brushing aside, alongside a whole lot of complicity. What I don’t see is people in positions of power that are actually taking the reins and steering us toward actionable change. This makes me deeply concerned for the future of our sport, because I truly don’t think it can take much more of this. I don’t think I, as a fan, can take much more of this.
There will come a point, sooner or later, where people like me are left with no choice but to vote with their feet and wallets. And to me, that’s a devastating future to ponder. I love this sport, but I love horses more. I don’t want to have to choose between the two just so I can sleep at night without feeling like I’m complicit.
Some will say I’m being dramatic, but I don’t think we’re being dramatic enough. This is a critical time in history for horse sports as a whole, and we’re failing the open book test. We MUST evolve, or we’ll be eradicated. And honestly? We’d deserve it. If we can’t do better than this, we don’t deserve the sport, and we don’t deserve the horses we claim to love.
What we’ve done so far, it’s not enough. It’s not addressing the root problem. I bet that many of us can sit here and think of at least a few top level professionals that are abuse allegations just waiting to come to light. And the fact that the behavior of those people is so well-known, if not within the industry at large but certainly within the circles of the elite, yet apparently nothing can be done about it… it’s a festering wound. We can only take so many before the infection is systemic. In a sport that prides itself so much on courage, I find us to sometimes be severely lacking in all the ways that count.
The optimist in me believes that it’s not too late to change course. That surely we have enough integrity, as horsemen and horsewomen first and foremost, to do what needs to be done, even if it’s hard. To take action. To get ahead of these situations while we still can. To better educate young professionals, to stop protecting and supporting the current bad actors, and figure out how to solve the very real mental health crisis that exists within our community.
I believe that we can be better and we can do better, but that’s the key, isn’t it? The “doing”. Either we figure out how to right the ship ourselves, genuinely and from within, or we’re doomed to be tried and convicted in the court of social media.
I don’t know the answers. I wish I did. I don’t know how to fix this. I wish I did. But I do know that more and more people are struggling the same way that I am. We are standing on a precipice; a point of no return. What’s our next move?
