Controversy strikes the World Cup Final; Show Jumping leader McClain Ward eliminated

For two days, McClain Ward and his Olympic medal winning mare, Sapphire, had been in the lead at the World cup final in show jumping. But after a vet check was performed, the mare was found to be hypersensitive in one of her legs and was disqualified from the competition after the team had won. The vets conducted a thermo-imaging scan of the mare's leg two times and deemed it to be normal, as well as testing her legs for any sign of pain, but after talking with eachother the vets decided that the scans were abnormal and that the team was to be disqualified.


McClain Ward and Sapphire

Hypersensitivy can be caused by normal things that a horse would expirence everyday, such as insect bites or inflammation of the skin due to irritants. However, riders can also make their horses legs hypersensitive on purpose to make them jump higher and be more careful not to hit the jumps, and it is becoming more and more popular in the world of show jumping, and in cases such as this you wonder if McClain was singled out because of his history with hypersensitivity in competition.

In 1999 McClain was suspended from competing for 8 months for having allegedly put plastic chips in his horses boots, in order to encourage hypersensitivity. He denied the accusation, but served the sentence anyway. Alex McLin, the secretary general of the Fédération Equestre Internationale, said that no horse was “singled out because of any incident in the past.”  McLin added, “There is no evidence of malpractice in this case, but it remains our duty to protect horses from competing if there is any level of abnormal sensitivity involved and in the event of doubt to err on the side of caution.”

Tiffany Foster and Victor

 Recently, in this years London Olympics, a canadian show jumper named Tiffany Foster was disqualified after a vet found a nick in the horses cornet band, which was "like a paper cut". The horse had been exercised and jumped that morning and was showing no signs of pain due to the "injury". The horse was deemed hypersensitive anyway.The vets did not check for any signs of lameness in the horses in these cases, and the riders are unable to appeal the cases due to the rules set by the FEI. She had broken her back before the 2008 olympics and was unable to ride. She was thrilled when she was asked to ride in this years olympic games, only to be disqualified.

Eric Lamaze, whose gold medal horse Hickstead collapsed from a heart attack and died at a World Cup show in Verona in 2011, said it was time to take a s"hard look at the FEI's rules on hypersensitivity in jumpers."How can five people poking at a horse's coronary band declare him unfit to compete? How can they ruin someone's Olympic dream?"

"Everything Happens for a Reason" Natasha Baker - Paraolympic Gold Medalist Dressage Rider

When Natasha Baker was only 10 years old, she told her mom that she was going to be an Olympic Gold Medalist. She had been riding horses her whole life, and with her mom being and eventer and her dad being a racecar driver, competition was a major part of her family life. However, no one was prepared for what happened when Natasha was only 14 years old. She contracted a rare virus which damages the tissue connecting the nerves in her spine to the rest of her body, leaving the lower half of her body disabled, and making it hard for Natasha to walk.

She started rehabilitation, and all she would talk about was horses. Her therapist thought that riding would be a good way to help her learn more muscle control and become more mobile. She started riding again and excelled, winning a national title on her favorite pony at her first competition. In the year 2000, she was watching the paraolympic games in Sydney, and the first ever para dressage competition was broadcasted. Natasha was mesmerized by how the horse and rider seemed to be dancing. That's when she decided that she was going to be an Olympic gold medalist in para olympic dressage.

In 2008 she qualified for the Bejing para olympics for expirence and was not in the running for the medals, though if she would have been she would have earned an individual bronze medal. She qualified for the 2012 para olympics in London, and recieved not one but two gold medals in  only 48 hours, one for her freestyle and another individual gold for her score of 82%, her personal best score. 'I have loads of superstitions,' Natasha said. 'I had a McDonalds on opening ceremony night, which was a bit cheeky, and it was before my first day of competing. It went so well on the first day that I have had one each other night before I competed, and it was the same meal each time - chicken mayo.' 


Congratulations to Natasha and her horse, well done!