Sir Mark Todd - where’s the outrage? Animal cruelty

[ConasAtaTu1]

Just watched a disgusting video of this man whipping a clearly terrified horse ten times to get it to go into water. Cowardly running back each time so the horse couldn’t kick him to rightfully defend itself from the beating. Total scum.

I hope he will get similar fines/outrage/RSPCA investigations as ongoing for Kurt Zouma.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10505319/Sir-Mark-Todd-caught-whipping-horse-branch-TEN-times-make-water-obstacle.html

@Waxonwaxoff0 As the quote about British eventing is from one of the why questions (as already stated) no, that is not what they were asking.

‘It’s a class issue’, ‘football is better know’, ‘this sort of thin is seen as normal on the equestrian scene’. Sure. I’ll ask that you reread (and perhaps reflect on) the last two sentences of my previous comment.

known and thing. Typos galore.

I think the reason British Eventing haven't "come down on him like a tonne of bricks" is that he is retired and has been for a few years.

They can't exactly kick him out of events he's not competing in. He might not even be a member anymore.

The white teacher who hit the horse lost her job and was in alllll the papers despite being an unknown.

The horse beating is less controversial because crops exist and people use them! Doesn’t make it acceptable but certainly no item has ever existed in living memory to use to hit a cat

Dear lord. Now we have dairy cows being abused.

Giraffesandbottoms
The white teacher who hit the horse lost her job and was in alllll the papers despite being an unknown.

It seems like many posters are just ignoring the points about the teacher.

@FrippEnos

Convenient.

Anyone got a link to the video

He's been suspended by the BHA.

@ilovesooty

He's been suspended by the BHA.

Glad to hear it IloveSooty

It’s an interim suspension while further investigations are carried out. Technically speaking I’m not sure the BHA can actually do much as this did not take place on racing premises or involve racehorses. Technically they could charge him with behaviour prejudicial to the integrity of racing but that’s about it.

I’m hearing a few more things about this video that, whilst striking the horse was undoubtedly the wrong thing to do, it is a very short clip of what actually happened and failed to show the efforts that had been made to encourage the horse into the water beforehand.

I’m hearing a few more things about this video that, whilst striking the horse was undoubtedly the wrong thing to do, it is a very short clip of what actually happened and failed to show the efforts that had been made to encourage the horse into the water beforehand

I am a follower of eventing, a horse-owner and my DD rides x-country but I am not sure that the efforts made to encourage the horse to cross the water prior to the incident, is of any significance.

I think most people who ride and are up-to-date with modern training methods know that it is totally counter-productive to keep on insisting that a horse goes in to a puddle or a lake, having tried walking through dismounted, ordinary encouragement once on board with hand and leg aids. Most people would take a break and work on something else for a bit, or approach from a different angle, or take more time and try on a different day. To get in to a stand-off with a 500 kg animal is pretty stupid (a) because a horse's strength is superior to ours and we should be relying on our brainpower to train them not brute force and (b) the horse will associate water jumps forever more with a negative experience. And that's before you introduce actual cruelty and hitting a horse with a tree branch which is morally wrong and reinforces the fear response.

Long thread currently on the Horse&Hound forum also lamenting the behaviour of someone who has always been respected in the equestrian world.

Todd has retired from Eventing, isn't setting Racing on fire and his branded products are now commercially useless so I think that must be it for his career. Hopefully riders who think it's ok will now be rethinking their approach seeing the public response.

Frightening/beating a horse into doing what you want is stupid and counter productive as well as morally wrong. This isn't new- it was in all the pony books of the 1950s!

[quote ConasAtaTu1]@cheekychaplin the Tik tick account holder has said she is the jockey and it’s her horse and that it is mark todd beating the horse.[/quote]
If she is the jockey and the owner, why didn't she pull away from the water and give the horse a break?

I read that she was young at the time (21 I think) and felt too intimidated by the situation, being taught by the "master" etc, to speak up.

@FumingFredericka when was the video taken?

@sillysmiles the video is about 2 years old I understand.

Thanks. From the link, I could see the video or see any reference to when it was.
I always question though the "why" of releasing historical videos. Is it just that they are now no long involved with him and feel there are no repercussions for them releasing now? Or what's their gain?

@sillysmiles

Thanks. From the link, I could see the video or see any reference to when it was. I always question though the "why" of releasing historical videos. Is it just that they are now no long involved with him and feel there are no repercussions for them releasing now? Or what's their gain?

I don't know for sure in this instance but I think it may be tied up with the way the press works. We will sit on this story for a while if you feed us some information about someone else. Or I will feed you this story if you sit on a worse one. Or a disgruntled member of staff leaves and and leaks titbits or whatever concerning past events.

And attitudes change and evolve and we become more knowledgeable - and this is true of horse welfare and training , as well as issues such as sex trafficking to use a current example - and people mature and reflect and think "bloody hell, looking back, something was really off there".

I agree you should always question the motives of why pictures/videos like this come to light a long time after the fact. Allegedly, so the racing industry rumour mill goes, the reason the despicable picture of trainer Gordon Elliot came out was because it was his ex-girlfriend who sent it to the press after she caught him cheating on her.

I think it's depressingly common at the higher levels. I had the misfortune to be stuck in a judging box with another extremely well-known eventer several years ago (at the time he was fairly young and lots of people on the horsey forums went into a swoon over him, he certainly thought he was God's gift). He was the most unpleasant arse of a man I've ever had the misfortune to be in a room with for any period of time. Made dreadfully cruel comments about the young children riding, fell about laughing recounting a story of how he'd repeatedly booted his horse in the guts to punish it for "embarrassing him" when he fell off at a Pony Club demo, numerous comments between him and his groupie/writer about "leathering" horses when they misbehave. Vile, vile man. The fellow judge that I was writing for requested to the organisers that she never to be put in a room with him again at the end of the day. He won a very well-known event a few years after and there was lots of people posting over social media and commentary on equestrian publications about how much he deserved it and I couldn't have disagreed more.

I am surprised by this video, though. I grew up idolising Mark Todd and it's horrible to see this.

@CaveMum

I agree you should always question the motives of why pictures/videos like this come to light a long time after the fact. Allegedly, so the racing industry rumour mill goes, the reason the despicable picture of trainer Gordon Elliot came out was because it was his ex-girlfriend who sent it to the press after she caught him cheating on her.

Oh crikey. I can well believe that snippet of (alleged!) info.

@toastfiend

I think it's depressingly common at the higher levels. I had the misfortune to be stuck in a judging box with another extremely well-known eventer several years ago (at the time he was fairly young and lots of people on the horsey forums went into a swoon over him, he certainly thought he was God's gift). He was the most unpleasant arse of a man I've ever had the misfortune to be in a room with for any period of time. Made dreadfully cruel comments about the young children riding, fell about laughing recounting a story of how he'd repeatedly booted his horse in the guts to punish it for "embarrassing him" when he fell off at a Pony Club demo, numerous comments between him and his groupie/writer about "leathering" horses when they misbehave. Vile, vile man. The fellow judge that I was writing for requested to the organisers that she never to be put in a room with him again at the end of the day. He won a very well-known event a few years after and there was lots of people posting over social media and commentary on equestrian publications about how much he deserved it and I couldn't have disagreed more.

I am surprised by this video, though. I grew up idolising Mark Todd and it's horrible to see this.

How depressing. You always like to think the "higher ups" are doing it better, properly, setting a standard etc. I certainly was deceived by MT

And I can take a good guess as to who that young buck was I'm afraid ...massive chip on his shoulder ... .

I just don't understand it tbh. Where are these attitudes coming from? My experience of riding in the UK and Europe over the last 30 years is that welfare standards and knowledge and techniques and know-how sharing and sensitivity to the horse's mind, have all got better and better and better, from the grass roots up.

Why is this not the case at the top level?

@FumingFredericka I agree, so depressing when those you look up to and admire prove you wrong in this way.

Interestingly, I think I know who your guess is and it actually wasn't him, although I don't think he gives a great account of himself either. This guy was an international rider. If I hadn't known this before I definitely would have done by the end of the day because he seemed to believe that being from this country and an event rider was a perfectly adequate substitute for his otherwise appalling personality and so he mentioned it about 5 times in every sentence.