{"id":31419,"date":"2017-01-18T10:16:47","date_gmt":"2017-01-17T23:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=31419"},"modified":"2017-01-18T10:16:47","modified_gmt":"2017-01-17T23:16:47","slug":"when-is-an-enquiry-not-an-enquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2017\/01\/when-is-an-enquiry-not-an-enquiry\/","title":{"rendered":"When is an enquiry not an enquiry?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, when it is an EA enquiry, it would seem. Back on the 2nd of September, EA (Federal) promised: In regard to the positive swab which was notified to us by the FEI in relation to the Rotterdam event, EA will be conducting a full investigation into the circumstances.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We hope you haven’t been holding your breath awaiting the outcome, and really hope you didn’t think the enquiry would actually cast any light on the matter because here it is:<\/p>\n

DRUM ROLL, TRUMPETS SOUND…<\/p>\n

EA convened an independent Review Panel chaired by Leigh Clifford AO and comprising Dr Derek Major, veterinarian and Georgia Widdup, Chair of the Eventing Selection Panel and lawyer.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Panel reviewed the circumstances surrounding the nomination of Sue Hearn to the AOC for selection for the Rio Olympic Games. The Panel concluded that, based on the information available to the Dressage Selection Panel at the relevant time, the nomination of Sue Hearn to the AOC was appropriate.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

EA regards the matter as concluded and does not propose to make further statements.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Normally enquiries set out to find the facts and make them public, and answer the questions raised. No, we must take the word of EA director, Leigh Clifford, and his daughter, and EA selector, Georgia, and vet, Derek Major, that everything was fine.<\/p>\n

It’s nice that the conclusion is qualified by the statement\u00a0‘based on the information available to the Dressage Selection Panel at the relevant time’<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0the action was appropriate – but one of the questions that the investigation should have addressed was how much did the dressage selectors know at the time??? It seems they were finding out on FaceBook, and then as a result of a post from my mate, Kenneth Braddick on his website, www.dressagenews.com. Ken just happens to spend at least part of his life reading obscure stuff on the FEI website, and it was he who broke the news of the positive test.<\/p>\n

The question was not what the selectors knew, but what Team Management – the chef, the high performance manager, and the team vets – knew and when, and whether they kept this vital information from the selectors.<\/p>\n

The other question is whether the selectors followed their own selection guidelines. Since Sue Hearn was disqualified, she did not have the score to qualify for the Australian team in front of Maree Tomkinson. This question again hinges on what happened to the Australian blood test that was taken at the same time as the FEI one that resulted in the disqualification.<\/p>\n

The AOC has confirmed in writing that despite Maree and Diamantina being named as reserves, and sent off to have the relevant inoculations and paperwork, they were never ever nominated, so they could not have been called into the team.<\/p>\n

The entire dressage selection process was a farce. The riders were promised two head-to-head contests, but team management was so out-of-touch that they did not realise that this could not happen at a Nations Cup competition. The decision to allow riders to not compete, but still get a score, was another crazy bit of non-thinking. The decision to bring horses to Europe without a vet check before they left was another no brainer, with obvious consequences.<\/p>\n

If EA thinks this matter is going to quietly go away as a result of their non-enquiry, they are sorely mistaken…<\/p>\n

– CH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, when it is an EA enquiry, it would seem. Back on the 2nd of September, EA (Federal) promised: In regard to the positive swab which was notified to us by the FEI in relation to the Rotterdam event, EA will be conducting a full investigation into the circumstances. We hope you haven’t been holding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":31416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[1508,1659],"class_list":["post-31419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","tag-dressage-selection","tag-rotterdam-positive"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31420,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31419\/revisions\/31420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}