2012 Olympics: when the "master race" within UK equestrianism ate the seed corn

Mithras said:
I am always surprised that you never fail to recgonise the irony in your constant labelling of equestrian, rural sports as elitist, when you yourself own a property in an area of the country so expensive it is out of reach for many of those you criticise for being elitist.
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Exactly.

I wouldn't be able to afford to live in wonderful Greenwich. If Rachel Mawhood ever sells her house, I have to remind her that she will have to sell it for £250,000 or less to make it affordable for people. Otherwise, she's being elitist. She complains because it's "on her doorstep"... which is a far more elitist attitude to have. She finds absolutely no problem if LOCOG had done it in Windsor Park - I think that park is probably more precious than Greenwich Park in terms of wildlife. Greenwich Park is landscaped - no doubt about it. For one, the grass is always short (I guess there's a lawnmower in use), which means it's not as natural as she makes it out to be. Short grass limits wildlife by quite a bit. It's not as though the park was a meadow with lavender and other herbs growing on the ground instead of grass.
 
tasel said:
Exactly.

I wouldn't be able to afford to live in wonderful Greenwich. If Rachel Mawhood ever sells her house, I have to remind her that she will have to sell it for £250,000 or less to make it affordable for people. Otherwise, she's being elitist. She complains because it's "on her doorstep"... which is a far more elitist attitude to have. She finds absolutely no problem if LOCOG had done it in Windsor Park - I think that park is probably more precious than Greenwich Park in terms of wildlife. Greenwich Park is landscaped - no doubt about it. For one, the grass is always short (I guess there's a lawnmower in use), which means it's not as natural as she makes it out to be. Short grass limits wildlife by quite a bit. It's not as though the park was a meadow with lavender and other herbs growing on the ground instead of grass.
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You can find out quite easily this information by googling the OP's name. Its in the public domain. The OP owns a valuable property, despite her derogatory comments about elitism in equestrianism.

I also note that the OP is perhaps a slightly older person, who I would surmise has little experience of life outwith the urban boundaries she has so far experienced. Perhaps a little empathy towards the rights and needs of other persons and an understanding of the need to encompass change would lead also to greater understanding on her part. Since she is so keen on convincing others to adopt her views.
 
Can I just say that those responsible for the venue did their utmost to cause as little damage as possible to the park. Special foundations were laid for the exercise gallops, warm up arenas and the actual main arena. Having this event at Greenwich has truly put the wonderful place in the worldwide arena. Visitors to this country will want to include Greenwich in their itinerary. Wildlife has coped very well. There were plenty of parakeets and squirrels around. The local business community have also gained from the increased footfall, so I honestly don't think there is any real justification for trying to put a damper on such a wonderful occasion...
 
Mithras said:
You can find out quite easily this information by googling the OP's name. Its in the public domain. The OP owns a valuable property, despite her derogatory comments about elitism in equestrianism.

I also note that the OP is perhaps a slightly older person, who I would surmise has little experience of life outwith the urban boundaries she has so far experienced. Perhaps a little empathy towards the rights and needs of other persons and an understanding of the need to encompass change would lead also to greater understanding on her part. Since she is so keen on convincing others to adopt her views.
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Yes, it's actually amazing what you can find out online these days. After reading your message, I tried and actually got an address!!! :o Thank God, I'm not as visible!

She is an older person (nothing bad about that)... but I have had a problem before with people her age who were just settled in their way and were opposed to change their views (to the point where I wanted to shake and slap them - which I boviously didn't do).
 
PolarSkye said:
Know what Rachel? You keep saying that people aren't paying attention . . . and you're absolutely right, they're not - and that isn't because you don't have a small smidgen of a point (actually you do), it's because your method of putting that point across - haranguing, belittling, being more than a little ranty and shouty - negates any sense you may be making.

Try dropping downright offensive phrases like "master race" and dismissive language like "your lot" and you get people to listen and respond to WHAT you're saying rather than how you're saying it.

That said, I still struggle to understand the point of your original post. It may, or may not, have been folly to hold the equestrian elements of the overall Olympic competition at Greenwich . . . funds, may or may not, have been mishandled and rules may, or may not, have been ridden over roughshod . . . but it's all a bit academic now isn't it? Is there a call to action in your rather ranty post . . . or did you just need to vent? If the latter, then choosing to do so on this forum might have been counterproductive.

P
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^^^^^^^

This. Couldn't have put it better myself.
 
teapot said:
Cptrayes - if you think that's too much for a venue, what about the cost of the Olympic Park? Is that not a success despite it costing far more than Greenwich? Moreover, for the most part is actually only temporary (the hockey pitches will be removed, the sides of the aquatic centre are going and the entire waterpolo venue is again only temporary). Also pretty sure the very top of the stadium will be taken down too...
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The Olympic Park is still there. The Equestrian facility will be removed. If it had been somewhere else it could have been left as a lasting legacy.

The Olympic Park hosted sports accessible to everyone. However they try to dress it up, the Equestrian sports are accessible only to an elite minority and it's no way to spend tax payers money, IMO

You can tell that by the fuss they made interviewing Charlotte's Mum to prove she just came from an ordinary background. They stressed it over and over. Ordinary? Who are they kidding, she showed ponies at HOYS and Olympia as a child.
 
Spudlet said:
Part of the park was turned into allotments during the Second World War, arguably doing much more damage than a bit of browned grass, yet it does seem to have recovered. That's before we even get onto the subject of bombs. Yet it does seem to have come back right again.
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No wonder Rachael uses inflammatory language if she is seriously up against people who are comparing growing food in order not to starve to death 60 years ago with wanting to watch a few people prancing around on horses in 2012 :rolleyes:

Why is everyone attacking her as if she has said the GB Equestrian team were rubbish riders who didn't deserve their medals? Surely she has a perfectly valid point that if the Olympics had been held somewhere else there would now be an additional wonderful world class facility somewhere in the country.
 
Rachel, Rachel - get over it and move on! Think of all the sandals you have to knit before your delicious lentil supper, presumably cooked on a Tibetan oven fuelled by yak oil. It's a bit of grass in a park - it will grow back so you can presumably anchor your backside once again on its manicured lawns, without having to see any one having a good time for a change. Why not pester the Guardian readership about this instead of us ? At the very least you can all be narrow minded NIMBYS together ?

(NB; have changed my position on the insults - as she clearly doesn't respect anyone's views but her own, disappointing, but not unexpected)
 
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cptrayes said:
You can tell that by the fuss they made interviewing Charlotte's Mum to prove she just came from an ordinary background. They stressed it over and over. Ordinary? Who are they kidding, she showed ponies at HOYS and Olympia as a child.
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Yes ordinary.

Since when did showing ponies at HOYS and Olympia come with a prerequisite of a wealthy, priviliged, or whatever background you imply with that remark?

My first HOYS was as an ordinary child from an ordinary (and most definately not wealthy) background was on an Irish bred 13.00hh of unknown breeding who qualified numerous times for HOYS. We took him down in a trailer, and old single pony wooden one at that. And not that was not pre war, I am not that old! We went onto qualify and compete at HOYS, Olympia, etc for over 2 decades as an ordinary family, from an ordinary background with ponies, hacks, and hunters.

You may wish to research the background of many famous British equestrians, some riders, and some top judges (dressage / Olympic ) to see they too come from very ordinary backgrounds.
 
Bestdogdash said:
Rachel, Rachel - get over it and move on! Think of all the sandals you have to knit before your delicious lentil supper, presumably cooked on a Tibetan oven fuelled by yak oil. It's a bit of grass in a park - it will grow back so you can presumably anchor your backside once again on its manicured lawns, without having to see any one having a good time for a change. Why not pester the Guardian readership about this instead of us ? At the very least you can all be narrow minded NIMBYS together ?

(NB; have changed my position on the insults - as she clearly doesn't respect anyone's views but her own, disappointing, but not unexpected)
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Oi!
I'm a Guardian reader and think its those that read the Telegraph, Mail and Express that have a problem....
 
Mithras - as the legal beagle on HHO. Is RM treading on thin ice here with racist implied comments on "master race", and libellous claims of theft (electricity and whatever)?
 
cefyl said:
Yes ordinary.

Since when did showing ponies at HOYS and Olympia come with a prerequisite of a wealthy, priviliged, or whatever background you imply with that remark?

My first HOYS was as an ordinary child from an ordinary (and most definately not wealthy) background was on an Irish bred 13.00hh of unknown breeding who qualified numerous times for HOYS. We took him down in a trailer, and old single pony wooden one at that. And not that was not pre war, I am not that old! We went onto qualify and compete at HOYS, Olympia, etc for over 2 decades as an ordinary family, from an ordinary background with ponies, hacks, and hunters.

You may wish to research the background of many famous British equestrians, some riders, and some top judges (dressage / Olympic ) to see they too come from very ordinary backgrounds.
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You think ordinary families can trailer a pony/hack/hunter and themselves to HOYS? You definition of ordinary is very different from mine. Just being able to own a pony at all marks you out as not "ordinary" in my book, never mind afford the fuel, entry fees and kit to show it to qualify for and then attend HOYS.

Ordinary families are busy working to feed and cloth the kids. Ordinary families have brothers and sisters who don't love horses so any spare money has to be shared fairly among them all, not dedicated to one passtime. I came from an ordinary family. My father could just about afford to let me have a riding lesson once every other week. Buying, feeding, keeping a pony? No chance.

None of the Olympians were ordinary people, whatever their roots; they were professionals riding horses worth millions of pounds a piece. It is my view that there was no justification for spending huge amounts of public money on the Equestrian events, and especially not sponsoring the teams to the tune of millions of £s over the last few years with lottery money, which is paid disproportionately by the people in society who can least afford it.

Put that together with the tiny proportion of Nations which can participate in those events at all; the overwhelming domination of white races, and the whole thing hardly lives up to the Olympic ideal.


I still think our teams were brilliant, though, just that it shouldn't be included in the Olympics. But since it was, it was great to see how well they did.
 
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cptrayes said:
You think ordinary families can trailer a pony/hack/hunter and themselves to HOYS? You definition of ordinary is very different from mine. Just being able to own a pony at all marks you out as not "ordinary" in my book, never mind afford the fuel, entry fees and kit to show it to qualify for and then attend HOYS.

Ordinary families are busy working to feed and cloth the kids. Ordinary families have brothers and sisters who don't love horses so any spare money has to be shared fairly among them all, not dedicated to one passtime. I came from an ordinary family. My father could just about afford to let me have a riding lesson once every other week. Buying, feeding, keeping a pony? No chance.

None of the Olympians were ordinary people, whatever their roots; they were professionals riding horses worth millions of pounds a piece. It is my view that there was no justification for spending huge amounts of public money on the Equestrian events, and especially not sponsoring the teams to the tune of millions of £s over the last few years with lottery money, which is paid disproportionately by the people in society who can least afford it.

Put that together with the tiny proportion of Nations which can participate in those events at all; the overwhelming domination of white races, and the whole thing hardly lives up to the Olympic ideal.


I still think our teams were brilliant, though, just that it shouldn't be included in the Olympics. But since it was, it was great to see how well they did.
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I'm with cefyl on this one.

I've known a number of children and adults successfully compete on very modest means.

Carl Hester has to be the obvious example of someone who has managed to succeed without family financial backing.

Finance is only part of the equation. Successful junior competitors have committed parents , rather than exclusively wealthy. For the record, I have parents who did provide me with a pony on grass keep. But they certainly did not want to spend every weekend traipsing around shows etc.
 
cefyl said:
Mithras - as the legal beagle on HHO. Is RM treading on thin ice here with racist implied comments on "master race", and libellous claims of theft (electricity and whatever)?
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Oh I'm not "The" Legal Beagle - there are many of us on here! But in answer to your question, I don't think she is, quite. Certainly her use of language seems designed to be offensive and segregational, but she hasn't really linked it to any one particular race or ethnicity. And libel is difficult and expensive to enforce in practise, so you couldn't say whether or not she has been libellous until a court action weighed up the evidence and came to a decision. tbh I'm not too sure whether anyone would really take her seriously, because her offensive use of language is going to come up in any searches on her name and forever be linked to her.

What I have repeatedly asked the OP is whether she has initiated judicial review of the planning decision yet, as this is the appropriate democratic mechanism for challenging decisions of this nature deemed to be unfair. I am as yet in the dark.

I am holding back in my replies because I think it is obvious from her writing that she is not to be taken too seriously and may have problems which mean she deserves sympathy, however offensive and rude her comments may be.

I'm sure she will be back on here however to point out how we should all agree with her superior wisdom and knowledge of the matter!
 
Another one who isn't sure of the phrase, "master race". It seems wildly OTT for this context. Rachel may well have a point but it's difficult to tell if she is trying to persuade/convert us to the cause or if she is berating us for allowing it to happen. People "who live in the country" and "horse riders" are not a different race from Londoners. I don't remember being given a choice in where the games were held, I don't feel responsible for the decision and I don't understand what Rachel is hoping to achieve by giving HHOers grief.

FWIW I was born in Greenwich and my Granny lived round a couple of corners from RM, and I used to take the kids to play in the park when they were little.
 
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cptrayes said:
No wonder Rachael uses inflammatory language if she is seriously up against people who are comparing growing food in order not to starve to death 60 years ago with wanting to watch a few people prancing around on horses in 2012 :rolleyes:
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Ehm, sorry... But I agree with she had a point, too, you know. :rolleyes:

Fact is, the OP is using the argument that because Greenwich Park is meant to be a place where the ground shouldn't be stirred because wildlife or artifacts will be disturbed. But wouldn't these things have been disturbed previously by what happened around WW2 and the amount of people who visit Greenwich Park even without the Olympics taking place? It's quite a busy park, you know...
 
digger66 said:
Another one who isn't sure of the phrase, "master race". It seems wildly OTT for this context. Rachel may well have a point but it's difficult to tell if she is trying to persuade/convert us to the cause or if she is berating us for allowing it to happen. People "who live in the country" and "horse riders" are not a different race from Londoners. I don't remember being given a choice in where the games were held, I don't feel responsible for the decision and I don't understand what Rachel is hoping to achieve by giving HHOers grief.

FWIW I was born in Greenwich and my Granny lived round a couple of corners from RM, and I used to take the kids to play in the park when they were little.
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Well said. Just because I ride/own a horse and watched/supported our Olympic equestrian athletes, doesn't mean I had anything to do with the decision to hold the event in Greenwich . . . ditto pretty much everyone else here on HHO. I'm guessing the only reason Rachel is targeting us is because we are a "captive audience" and, in her eyes at least, are representative of the "your lot" she is so angry with. She's wrong.

P
 
cptrayes said:
Put that together with the tiny proportion of Nations which can participate in those events at all; the overwhelming domination of white races, and the whole thing hardly lives up to the Olympic ideal.


I still think our teams were brilliant, though, just that it shouldn't be included in the Olympics. But since it was, it was great to see how well they did.
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This is a very UK-biased point of view. Riding lessons are much cheaper in Germany, and kids regularly go to week-long pony camps without their own ponies for less than GBP200. Blame the UK (ever-increasing houseprices & labour, the 50s/60s generation robbing the younger ones of their hard-earned money). Anyway, you can't transfer one country's elitist sport to another on a larger scale. If you think about it, Gauchos in Argentina or nomads in Mongolia are not generally wealthy, but they CAN ride. It's just that the horses needed to ride in the Olympics typically are bred from European lines, and without such a horse, you can't really do the Olympics.

If you think we can't have riding because it's elitist, and not every country participates, we also have to cancel sailing, and we may as well cancel the Winter Olympics altogether. Winter Sports are very unattainable to most people on this planet.
 
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tasel said:
If you think we can't have riding because it's elitist, and not every country participates, we also have to cancel sailing, and we may as well cancel the Winter Olympics [\b] altogether. Winter Sports are very unattainable to most people on this planet.
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You mean you don't go down to your local bobsled track to practise? ;)
 
Yes, I think its important to remember that whilst we're pretty hot in general, and esp at the minute in the horse world, germany, sweden who are no slouches on horseback, and other northern european nations are PISTES ahead of us when it comes to the winter games :)
 
tasel said:
Ehm, sorry... But I agree with she had a point, too, you know. :rolleyes:

Fact is, the OP is using the argument that because Greenwich Park is meant to be a place where the ground shouldn't be stirred because wildlife or artifacts will be disturbed. But wouldn't these things have been disturbed previously by what happened around WW2 and the amount of people who visit Greenwich Park even without the Olympics taking place? It's quite a busy park, you know...
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You REALLY think what happened there 60 years ago when people were struggling to get enough to eat counts towards your argument? Just shows how weak your argument must be, IMO.
 
tasel said:
If you think we can't have riding because it's elitist, and not every country participates, we also have to cancel sailing, and we may as well cancel the Winter Olympics altogether. Winter Sports are very unattainable to most people on this planet.
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no, we don't have to cancel sailing. A boat costs very little to buy and even less to maintain if you have a big enough garden to park a little dinghy in. Most kids in this country live close enough to the sea or a reservoir to sail if they want to.

Winter sports? But that's a whole different Olympics, and I agree with you. Thank goodness we don't have anywhere with enough snow in it in this country to even think of hosting it.

The Olympics as a whole is nothing but a giant advertisement. The whole thing lost its way when it stopped being for amateurs only. Now, it is simply an alternative World Championships for a bunch of extremely wealthy world class athletes, and a nice holiday for some worth hangers-on.
 
Rachel Mawhood said:
open every day of tsihe year since 1820 until your lot took it over totalitarian-fashion for the Olympics
I had some sympathy with your views but I am not going to read any more of your rantings with comments like this.

Common sense should tell you that 'us lot' had no more say in where it was than you, and you certainly shouted loud enough.

You are doing no good for your cause with snide and abusive remarks - I now don't trust anything you say, I just have you down as some hysterical woman with a chip on both shoulders.

And on a final note, I know someone who waitresses in a restaurant near there - she made more in tips in 4 hours than she would normally make in a week so presumably not all businesses were losing money.
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OP you are honestly ranting at the wrong people. Nobody asked the equestrian world at large if they wanted it in Greenwich, and actually most people I talked to prior to the games were against having it there.

The grass issue is a non issue. I live very close to the glastonbury festival site, that gets more of a pounding than you can possibly imagine. Within 3-4 months it is green and beautiful again. The same can be said for my field after winter. Grass recovers astonishingly quickly. If there is an acidity problem (which is definitely worse at the festival site for reasons you can imagine) it is easily dealt with by anyone who knows the slightest thing about grass management. Just because you don't know how to help ground recover doesn't mean the rest of us don't. Trust us, we're professionals :p

I definitely agree with you on the tree front though. I have family in Greenwich and they are distraught about the amount of trees that were cut down. This is a more long term issue and a regrettable one.

Could you please clarify your comments about "stealing" water and electricity? Not entirely sure how that works.

Just to reiterate: You are yelling at the wrong people. We have no influence over these events, funnily enough, as most of us are just normal recreational riders. I also find your comments about the "master race" extremely offensive and inappropriate. This may be important to you but comparing us to the Nazi regime is OTT and hideously wrong. I repeat, this was not our decision.
 
cptrayes said:
You REALLY think what happened there 60 years ago when people were struggling to get enough to eat counts towards your argument? Just shows how weak your argument must be, IMO.
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Ha! Then you obviously don't know about how to assess an argument. What happened there ages back set a precedence. You have to look at in a scientific way. It doesn't matter whether ground was dug up due to people starving or for the Olympics. But in both instances, the grounds of Greenwich Park were impacted. The OP threatens that the landscape may never recover. But it did back then, so why shouldn't it this time round? If you find an answer to that question, we can talk about the validity of my argument again.

How often have you frequented Greenwich Park in summers outside of the Olympics? As mentioned numerous times, this was already a landscaped garden, not some rambling countryside meadow that does need a while to settle. It's grass. The sort that grows in my back garden, and becomes a jungle without me having to do anything to it at all. I'm sure the one at Greenwich Park, a lawn mower regularly runs over the grass, and I often planted my bum on the OP's beloved grass frequently... which hardly ever looked green in the summer, but rather golden brown due to hundreds of people walking over it - Londoners and tourists going up the hill to the Meridian line.
 
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