An Open Letter To A Struggling Eventing Nation Guest Writer

The Carrot understands you are having difficulty with your usual publisher. The Carrot would be most pleased and truly honored to publish your fake interview with a fake eventer if John continues to be too chicken to post it, which means it must be really, really good. Or else he really got some terrible hate mail for the other ones.

Unlike John, we're not Big Time Industry Insiders with advertisers so we don't have to worry. Which brings us to our Code of Conduct for the Welfare of the Fake News:

The welfare of the fake news must be paramount and must never be subordinated to competitive or commercial influences.

Of course, we're just a tiny little underground comedy shop here and can't compete with his free Point Two Air Jackets and all that. But if we post it here, John should be brave enough to link to it, which means at least a few hundred people will manage to see it anyway. A good fake interview should never go to waste!

Love,

The Carrot

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Dressage People Have Impeccable Behavior

Except for some Germans there in Aachen

A while back the still-intrepid Karen Robinson wrote a bit about yellow cards in dressage and just around the same time I was thinking the very same thing about never having seen or heard of a yellow card being successfully awarded in FEI dressage competition. That's odd. "Muckrakers" must think alike. In eventing by comparison they seem to give them out like candy, although often for subjectively assessed dangerous riding which is an offense exclusive to eventing. In the other disciplines it's either abuse of horse or the oh-so-much-more-fun abuse of official. Or smoking in the stables.

The FEI website backs this up as there is not even a heading for dressage suggesting that indeed, no one in dressage has ever done anything wrong. That's funny. But not as funny as yesterday's post on Eventing Nation, Monday Fun With FEI Yellow Cards, by JER from the Chronicle bulletin board, who is a great writer and a true star of Internet-public. Since we here at The Carrot are not journalists, that makes us proud card-carrying members of Internet-public as well, and we feel it's important to recognize excellence when we see it. It was this very same gathering place of Internet-public that brought us the genius known as Rollkur Barbie.

As for poor behavior by Germans at Aachen, well, eurodressage is your go-to source anytime you feel the need to really vent about something, I mean really cut loose. If you didn't see the one about the WEG (and mainly some excellent responses) be sure to read that too. 

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It's That Time Of Year

It's finally April, and you know what that means...Badminton and Kentucky! The Carrot correspondents will be on the scene this year, so don't do anything stupid or we might write about it! They are combining British Eventing's Grassroots Festival with Badminton which sounds great, but might prove even scarier than your typical BE90, or slightly less so; take your pick either way you're in for a treat. And rumour has it snipers will be hiding out at Kentucky ready to take out any loose dogs lest there is a repeat of last year's incident. At least Badders has a crèche, perhaps they can get the Pooch Paddock to set up at Kentucky.

Maybe these events just need better signage:

PSA: Cinders, the mysophobic piglet, reminds everyone:











In some terrific news, you will be able to watch the Badminton cross country on Horse & Country TV. This site seems to have struggled getting off the ground but hopefully it is turning the corner. They are putting up some great content so be sure to check it out. If you want to know everything about what's happening at Kentucky, or even things we haven't seen anywhere else like write-ups of training sessions with American chef d'équipe Mark Phillips, be sure to visit Eventing Nation.
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FEI Resolves Eventing Safety Controversy

The rebranding fanatics at the FEI have been keeping busy as resolving major controversies in a single day's work is the new standard. First Clean Sport became Clean Sport: Now With NSAIDs! despite the idiocy of introducing such an over-the-top PR concept at the same time that you secretly redefine it, all while the non-equestrian media are still tuned in due to the manufactured Hong Kong "doping crisis" and you haven't even allowed the opposition at the table for discussion even though the FEI Statutes explicity require it.

Then rollkur/hyperflexion became LDR so that rollkur/hyperflexion could be banned to placate the masses (except the masses didn't buy it). And now rollkur/hyperflexion effectively no longer exists, because accomplished international riders have no need for force and anyhow, Dr. Hilary Clayton says it's biomechanically impossible.


Now the marketing types are on to Eventing.

iRollkur, Do uRollkur? There's A Gadget For That!

Fresh on the heels of their new FEI EquiTests, the FEI are happy to announce the launch of their first ever official mobile electronic device. The FEiRollkurBuddy^TM is guaranteed to detect any active video camera within a 50-metre radius, providing riders—and the FEI—with the peace of mind they so deserve.