On the Line

The past week has been such a blur – Menlo already seems like it was a month ago! Such is the price I pay for juggling deadlines with running our October cover contest, setting up a new Sidelines blogger and fitting in a few in-person interviews along the way!

However, it was fantastic to take a short and refreshing trip to the Napa Valley Wine Country this past Friday night. El Molino Winery invited me to visit their private horse facility on the grounds of their 15 acre vineyard. Lily Oliver Berlin and her husband Jon kindly invited me to stay the night so that we could get up early the next morning and shoot photos of her wonderful winery/horse property.

And yes, wine tasting was involved. Oh, the life of an equine journalist!

Cats, dogs and other happy animals were in abundance at El Molino

Trail riding up and down vineyard rows? Sounds good to me!

That's his ivy-covered, complete with waterfall stone water trough you're looking at.

Lily and Jon's beautiful home is steps from their barn, and nestled within a circle of huge oak trees.

Well it seems that none of On the Line’s faithful readers were very moved by the previous post. I still think it’s a darn good idea to pull the Morrissey video down, but we’ve already learned that without an internet furor, not much will actually happen, will it? Here’s hoping, again, that no horse-crazy kids go searching for “How to jump a horse” on YouTube.

Moving on. This weekend was another one spent wishing my horse was enjoying a summer of jumping instead of rehab. That’s right, I spent another Saturday watching the grand prix at another very nice local show. This time it was the annual Menlo Charity Horse Show, held every August on the polo field at the Menlo Circus Club. It’s Northern California’s annual “big deal” show, and despite the same old complaints about footing and an unusually small grand prix class, the glitz and glamour of the show was still out on full display, as was the crowd:

It's always nice to see a crowd assembled five deep to watch a show jumping class!

Congratulations to Rachel Fields (neé Yorke) for winning the $40,000 Grand Prix. I interviewed Rachel for Sidelines last year, and in addition to being one of the nicest riders out there, she’s got an absolutely incredible story. It’s well worth the read, and I’m not just saying that because I wrote it!

Later this week I’ll start to accept the fact that WEG is a mere 38 days away. Almost all my plans are set – I’ve even got a great place to stay! The final hurdle is ground transportation; my urban mindset is having a hard time adjusting to the fact that everything is “real spread out” as they say, in Kentucky, and that a rental car will be a necessary expense. But hey, it could be worse. Yesterday I read an announcement advertising rooms at the Lexington Embassy Suites during WEG show jumping. They do their best to make a double occupancy suite for $525/night sound like a deal. Earlier I got a forwarded email from a friend who had a friend who was trying to sell a room for $325/night. Hellllllo, price gouging. As PhelpsSports’ Buffy and Neil so eloquently wrote today. . . IT MIGHT BE TIME to remember that WE ALL JUST RIDE HORSES.

Talk about carefully worded press releases. The one reporting on Michael Morrissey’s grand prix win on Saturday at the Kentucky Horse Park recounts that his “talented and sensitive” horse Crelido “always gives his best effort and the pair has learned how to help each other and be successful in the ring over the years.”

Hmmmm, interesting. If the name Michael Morrissey doesn’t ring any bells, search YouTube for “How to get a horse to jump”. Remember now? Morrissey’s riding during the USEF Show Jumping Selection Trials for WEG back in February touched off a huge outcry when the video spread like wildfire on the internet (this blog fanned some flames, too.) It led to his suspension for striking his talented and sensitive mount more a dozen times after a refusal at the water jump. USEF stewards also took a big hit for not penalizing Morrissey on the spot.

I feel the same way that Crelido probably does about this guy; distrustful and wary, but settling on a cautious acceptance as long as he behaves himself. After all, we don’t have much of a choice, do we?

It’s easy to bag on him, and that press release sure takes context to a whole new level. (“I feel pretty good, it feels good to be back,” smiled Morrissey. . .) But Morrissey served out a three-month suspension that ended on August 4, and paid a $3,000 fine. He’s now eligible to compete again, and he won a big class over a hard track on his first trip out.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m among the 72,304 viewers who wanted to take a whip to him after watching that video. But there’s another point to be made here. Michael Morrissey beating his horse is the top video that comes up in the search for “How to get a horse to jump” on YouTube. It has 64,612 more views than the second rated video, which is of last year’s Hampton Classic Grand Prix. Thus, there’s a very good possibility of your average horse enthusiast plugging the same search into YouTube to find a helpful video and finding that.

And now someone’s first impression of how to get a horse to jump is that you must be a whip-happy fool. I hope that the person who posted the video thinks about this and considers taking the video down. Morrissey has been punished by USEF and condemned by the YouTube masses. But continuing to let that video live on the internet does a disservice to horse training, show jumping, and everyone involved with the sport. What do you think???

It was hard to ignore the onslaught of press releases that flooded my inbox over the weekend. Since I make it my own personal mission to stay abreast of all the horse news one can sanely handle, I’m on at least half a dozen equine industry media and association email lists. Equine media groups only seem to be multiplying these days, and sometimes I get the same news from three different groups. . . but it’s all good.

The bottom line is that it was a great weekend for grand prix show jumping. Across the country, $255,000 in prize money was given away in five classes; $100,000 between two classes at HITS Saugerties in New York, $70,000 at the Kentucky Summer Shows, $30,000 at Horse Shows by the Bay in Michigan, $30,000 at Sonoma Horse Park in Northern California, and $25,000 at ShowPark in Southern California. That’s pretty healthy, and it’s not even counting the classics, jumper derbies, or the $20,000 combined hunter derby prize money given out on both coasts yesterday. Then there was the North American Young Riders Championships in Kentucky. Even though the juniors don’t ride for prize money it was the biggest weekend of the year for them, too. Incredibly, all that still doesn’t compare to Europe; between just the Hickstead Nations Cup, Hickstead GP and San Patrignano CSI5* European riders competed for €900,000 in prize money over the weekend.

I don’t get a chance to watch enough grand prix classes, so it was a treat to visit the Sonoma Horse Park for the first time on Saturday for that class. Half of my barn is there showing, and as official West Coast Sidelines writer, I had to make sure that our ring banner was straight (it was) and that the wine in the VIP tent passed muster (affirmative.) My first trip there definitely won’t be my last! (Hopefully one day I’ll be accompanied by the sound version of my horse.) Here are a few pictures, more evidence that I’m slowly improving my action shot skills. With a zoom lens and a little more practice and I might be worthy enough to take photos at WEG. Maybe.

Pretty pretty views at the Sonoma Horse Park

Branding is everything. SHP oxer, front and center.

Sidelines banner, check.

If you’re anywhere on the West Coast, you should make the effort to check out SHP – this is only its first year of operation, and from vendors to VIP tent to competition, they are knocking it out of the park. And it was great to see Mandy Porter, who traveled 500 miles north from her base in San Diego, win the class!