[Anne FS]

Article is on drugging of show horses as opposed to race horses, which the NYT covered in previous articles, but it begins with the death of a pony at Devon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/us...anted=all&_r=0

"Moments later, with Ms. Williams and her daughter watching, Humble collapsed and died. The death of a supposedly fit pony about to carry a young rider over hurdles was worrisome by itself, but circumstances surrounding the death made it even more so.

"In the three days before Humble died, he had been scheduled to receive 15 separate drug treatments, including anti-inflammatories, corticosteroids and muscle relaxants, according to his medication chart."

[Molly99]

got to hunter/jumper. long thread

[Justa Bob]

Thanks for sharing...You might find there are at least two threads already started about this....

http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/sh...SEF-and-Humble

http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/sh...This-is-so-sad

There is lots to discuss!

[Anne FS]

Thanks. I've been offline for the holidays and just looked down the first page. Never looked at the "this is so sad" thread as the title was so generic.

The quotes in the NYT article are shocking. The extent of medicating and the matter-of-factness of statements like 15 injections in 3 days prior to a show, including one within 2 hours of a class, the blatant comment "that Humble had most likely died from an undiagnosed lung disease," "Hunters are judged subjectively....horses with unnecessary movement or exuberance show poorly," "the makers of “Perfect Prep” products recommend using its “Extreme Formula” 90 minutes before a performance without fear that it will be “detectable as a foreign substance by the laboratory tests run by the governing bodies of high-level equine events.”

Ugh. How do these people sleep at night?

[caballero]

Tthe blatant comment "Hunters are judged subjectively....horses with unnecessary movement or exuberance show poorly,"

Aren't those true statements?

[Anne FS]

Absolutely true. No problem with the subjective judging - of course it's subjective judging. But the "unnecessary movement or exuberance" has become so exaggerated that what it means now is "normal movement" is penalized. Any show of being an actual undrugged animal is penalized. Hence the plethora of drugs to zombi-ize the hunters before they go around.

[caballero]

But the "unnecessary movement or exuberance" has become so exaggerated that what it means now is "normal movement" is penalized. Any show of being an actual undrugged animal is penalized. Hence the plethora of drugs to zombi-ize the hunters before they go around.

OK, I get what you are saying now.