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If Harveywetdog did Wikipedia

In April 2020 and in the interest of legacy I wrote a Wikipedia entry recording the thoughts and notable works of Harveywetdog. I admit I was ignorant of the rules concerning self promotion on Wikipedia and consequently my entry was correctly deleted and my account expunged from the system. As a result my original words and links were sadly lost but nevertheless here is a rewrite. Perhaps when I'm gone someone will be able to enter it onto Wikipedia as a fitting epitaph for my time on the Harveywetdog Project.  

My thought for the day - why this is important

 

So six years after Clare Salmon was driven out of British Equestrian for telling us the same, it transpires equestrian sport is elitist and classist and prone to bullying in its ranks - which in turn will come across as racism to some.

The equestrian life and the challenges it faces
©Harveywetdog

To be honest, once you accept you are basically an elitist clique, it’s almost inevitable that you are going to appear racist. For example, for me, attending an event like Bolesworth would be my idea of equestrian hell; the feeling of exclusion would be absolute.

 

So as well as social license and environmental sustainability, we know have to add equality, diversity and inclusion to our list of actions required to ensure equestrian sport is allowed to exist in future.

 

With the exception of social license, which is fundamentally the result of the equestrian world repeatedly shooting itself in the foot, environmental sustainability and equality are government driven mantras which we simply have to be seen to be acting on and complying with.

 

Why? Well, putting incredibly wealthy clients and hard work aside, top class equestrian sport (let’s not use the word elite in this context) is funded, not by a bunch of altruistic, philanthropic sponsors as our friends in marketing would have us believe, but by government controlled funding, either directly from the tax payer (BEF like to use the term “the exchequer” rather tax payer) or indirectly via the National Lottery. So I imagine it really is a case of comply or die.

 

I’m sure someone in BEF is now coming up with a series of Venn diagrams to demonstrate how the action required to address social license, sustainability and horses for all interact; they may even be coming to the conclusion that some are in fact mutually exclusive.

 

but no one ever said equestrian life was easy.

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