McLain Ward disqualified

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SJFAN

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More bad publicity for show jumping: the leader after the first 2 legs of the World Cup Final has been disqualified. McLain Ward's mare Sapphire was found by the vets to have a hyper sensitised foreleg. No appeal is being allowed. This info comed from KNHS and there is due to be a press conference to explain the situation this evening. Vets have said there's no evidence of malpractice by Ward or his team. However it is not the first time that he has been under suspicion - at least once before in a WC Final.
 
I don't see why this would be suspicious, and why his Father has to be brought up, to be frank. Plenty of horses get spun during vet inspections afterall so why is it bad publicity? The horse wasn't found to be drugged or anything. Unless I've completely got the wrong end of the stick? I feel very sorry for McLain Ward and am certainly giving him the benefit of the doubt.
 
Mclain and his father are a team and have worked together forever - many years ago in another lifetime I was stood next to a horse that Barney Mounted it was Grand Prix Sunday in Wellington Florida - the fear and the reaction of that horse when he picked up the reins sticks in my memory now 15 years on .........
 
_JH_ said:
I don't see why this would be suspicious, and why his Father has to be brought up, to be frank. Plenty of horses get spun during vet inspections afterall so why is it bad publicity? The horse wasn't found to be drugged or anything. Unless I've completely got the wrong end of the stick? I feel very sorry for McLain Ward and am certainly giving him the benefit of the doubt.
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Rereading your post i am curious am wondering whether you do have the wrong end of the stick - A hypersensitised foreleg in a showjumper at that level would make me wonder ... especially if it were the shin area ....
 
These showjumpers know what they are doing to the horse. At that level it would make me suspicious.having worked on international yards here and in europe i have seen enough to make me quit working for others.
 
There's no suggestion that the mare was lame. It's rare indeed for me to defend the FEI, but in this case I think they were probably right in this instance. They have to wait for the results of the tests to see whether the sensitization can be attribute to any malpractice. Had they let her jump today but had to disqualify them after the event - possibly changing the winner and/or top placings, that would truly have been very bad for the sport we would all have been complaining about their failure to act immediately.
 
Capsaicin!! Showjumpers as a breed are defo not the kindest to their horses, Win at all costs!! Yes i know what im talkin about as i worked for Int. SJer who gave his horses human epilespsy tablets!!! ( Left as soon as i found out)
 
Originally Posted by _JH_ View Post
but cant hyper sensitivity just occur naturally, rather than being inflicted? Excuse my ignorance.
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swellhillcottage said:
Ignorance is Bliss ...
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When somebody says they don't know something and they ask to be enlightened and another person answers in a cryptic way without an answer, I always suspect that they don't know the answer either.


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I'm not a fan of McLain Ward, but the fact that I don't keep my fingers crossed for him doesn't prove that he has done anything.
 
I don't know Maclain Ward (or his father for that matter)...but the one thing that does strike me as a little strange is that the FEI chose to 'randomly' perform a hypersensitivity test :rolleyes: And more so, that that 'random' test happenned to show a positive result (for whatever reason). Random blood sampling i can understand, but a specific test for hypersensitivity would suggest to me that they either 'suspected' something...or were tipped off.

Or maybe i have gotten the completely wrong end of the stick :confused:
 
Criptic replies are necessary on here to keep some topics on board.If I saw Top Showjumper beat the **** out of his horse and put it up here, he would threaten to sue and the post would be closed down.Youtube is wonderful!As for the showjumping world, well guilty unless proven innocent is my personal experience.
 
I'm not the greatest fan of the way the FEI operates but if you go by people's reactions, they can't win for trying. As SJFAN said, if they'd let the horse jump and then revealed that they'd been waiting for tests, everyone would have screamed. But if they take the horse out on the grounds of immediate evidence without waiting for corroboration, then that's the wrong path, too.

SJers have their legs, tack etc inspected regularly (as do others, hence the "weighted boot" Olympic business) and I would HOPE the horse in question had a relatively cut and dried reaction in order for the FEI to proceed as they have.

As far as whether or not McLain would have been singled out, I can't say and I hope in the interests of fairness and proper procedure he would not. However, there are lots of situations (in life not just international equestrian competition) in which, if someone has been previously suspected/proved of a breach of the rules they are subject to more stringent testing in the future - testing alone does not imply guilt.
 
MistralS_shining said:
can someone please explain what hyper sensitivity is please.
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Pretty much what it says. They do a "touch" test on the front of the leg (I don't know if they still do it by hand or use a machine now) and if a horse shows extreme response it's deemed to be "hyper sensitive". Same if there is obvious redness/bruising/scurf etc. The assumption is it might show signs the horse has been treated with a sensitising substance, rapped, has had chips in its boots (what McClain got in trouble for last time) or similar. The further tests will be for a substance on the skin or something in the blood which could provide corroborating evidence.

I don't know how "sure" they need to be - there must be horses that are just really sensitive - but I'd guess they wouldn't remove a horse from competition without real suspicion.
 
The idea is to make the horse reluctant to touch a fence and, if it does have a "rub" then it won't want to have another one.
 
eahotson said:
Cryptic replies are necessary on here to keep some topics on board.If I saw Top Showjumper beat the **** out of his horse and put it up here, he would threaten to sue and the post would be closed down.Youtube is wonderful!As for the showjumping world, well guilty unless proven innocent is my personal experience.
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Your example I could understand and if he/she had answered "I can't answer that, without risking that the thread gets deleted", I have no problem with such answers. But some cryptic answers, I interpret as that they don't know the answer either.


Lila said:
glad I'm not the only one who wasn't sure but what does it do? sorry never heard of it before
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My very simple layman explanation to what the hyper-sensitivity we are talking about here does, is that when the nerves on e.g. a leg, have became much more sensitive than normal, it would make a show jumper even more careful about absolutely not touching any poles with their legs, while they are jumping. And as TarrSteps said, if it still accidentally would touch a fence, it is really not likely that they will touch any more fences...
 
TarrSteps said:
Pretty much what it says. They do a "touch" test on the front of the leg (I don't know if they still do it by hand or use a machine now) and if a horse shows extreme response it's deemed to be "hyper sensitive". Same if there is obvious redness/bruising/scurf etc. The assumption is it might show signs the horse has been treated with a sensitising substance, rapped, has had chips in its boots (what McClain got in trouble for last time) or similar. The further tests will be for a substance on the skin or something in the blood which could provide corroborating evidence.

I don't know how "sure" they need to be - there must be horses that are just really sensitive - but I'd guess they wouldn't remove a horse from competition without real suspicion.
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Ahhhhh i see, that must be hard to test for i imagine, so there must be alot of evidence to disqualify him.

I did think it would be something along those lines, but wasnt totally sure.
 
Ok this is the actual story, there is way too much ambiguity on this topic. Sapphire was thermographed before the class started and the result was not abnormal. She was declared fit to compete and went clear. After the class she was thermographed again, there was a small red dot that was there before that was fine. They decided to palpate it and poked the mares leg 57 times until she picked up her leg 7 times. There and then she was disquailified by the head of the ground jury. Mclain requested that she be jogged up, blood and hair samples be taken which was refused. The fei are no allowes refuse this. No appeal was allowed and dicussion closed. To reiterate the mare was tested before the class was approvwd, jumped clear was tested again and was disquailified. The bald facts right there!
 
No my friend is the groom that was there. The fei corraborates this story, their reason for the disqualification is that the mare picked up her leg 7 out of 57 times. Apparent hypersensivity!
 
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