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I’m sure many young girls and boys have read, “The Girl On The Dancing Horse,” an autobiographical account by equestrian, Charlotte Dujardin. It ranks in the top ten best seller list on Amazon.

I have not read it. Nor would I.

As an Inspector for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals based in and around Birmingham from 1975 until the mid-eighties I attended numerous show jumping and dressage events involving horses and their often brattish, ego-based owners.

When a horse and rider had performed badly during such an event I made it my business to follow them back to the stabling at a discreet distance. I had occasion to caution a number of riders who took out their anger on the animal with the aid of a whip. I was generally a much hated figure at events like the Horse of the Year Show at Birmingham’s mammoth Equestrian Centre.

Of course, it was always the fault of the horse when things went awry, never the rider, but that was according to the riders. In fact, it’s untrue. More often than not the rider mistimes the approach to a jump, making it impossible for the animal to clear the jump successfully.

There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but in Britain the horsey community are in the main a snooty, pretentious, and somewhat unbearable group of mostly younger people from well-to-do families – known as the County Set.

There are many young children who dream of owning a pony and perhaps one day winning a gold cup in an event like the Horse of the Year Show, or even the Olympics. The reality is frequently very different from the dream.

Charlotte Dujardin won’t be competing with her horse, Valegro, at the Paris Olympics this year, as video has surfaced of her ill-treatment of a horse while coaching a young rider at her stables.

Dujardin has been provisionally suspended by the FEI (Fédération Équestre Internationale) and the BEF (British Equestrian Federation) pending further investigation of the alleged incident. As Dujardin has admitted to being the person in the video there seems little that is ‘alleged’.

Of course the ‘horsey’ mags are quick to her defence, This from Chevalmag:

“The commotion was sparked by a complaint filed by a 19-year-old through Dutch lawyer Stephan Wensing. The video, which is now circulating on social media , shows the British rider repeatedly touching her student’s horse with what appears to be a whip.” [Translated from French. My bold).

The video is quite clear, it IS a whip, not even a crop. As for TOUCHING, watch the video and judge for your self. The horse is patently up against the wall in an effort to avoid the whiplashes.

When faced with the video evidence she called it, “an error of judgement,” on her part. To use a long whip so skillfully proves she must have made this ‘error of judgement’ many times.

Unfortunately, smartphones and videos were not available during my years with the RSPCA. I wish they had been. There may have been a few more riders hauled over the legal coals had video evidence been available of what I saw well out of sight of the audiences, at the Horse of the Year Show, and other similar show-jumping events.

A dancing horse, or just to avoid the whip?

 

Okay, so now we’re headed into the murky world of retributions, conspiracy theories and wild distortions. Were there failings by Trump’s security team? Was the assassination attempt sanctioned by Joe Biden? (Hey, no-one likes to be told they’d be a loser on the golf course).

Thomas Matthew Crooks was a kid of twenty years. Presumably, he thought he’d go down in history as the hero who rid the world of Donald J Trump. He only managed to rid the planet of a tiny piece of Trump’s ear.

There followed the usual round of hypocritical outpourings. “My thoughts and prayers are with….” from virtually every politician on the planet. Perhaps a few unspoken cogitations of, “There but for the grace of God, go I.”

Aside from his brainwashed followers, to the world populace as a whole,  Donald Trump is possibly one of the most hated people on the planet. He’s made no secret of the vile things he’ll do to the world if he regains the Presidency of the United States.

Taking a page from the rulebook of China’s Xi Jinping, Trump is hellbent on ensuring the 2024 election will be the last that Americans vote for a President. He intends to be a king for life. He is also one of Vladimir Putin’s  greatest admirers. Escalation of the war in Europe will have his blessing, followed by the disbanding of NATO.

Quickly recovered from his ear piercing, Trump called out to Americans to, “Stand united!” It rang somewhat hollow given that the ex-president is responsible for a greater dis-uniting of the American people  than any other US President since the Civil War of 1861.

The outpourings of disgust, dismay, alarm, and various other sanctimonious utterings from around the world this morning, lead one to consider just how many on this planet secretly harbour some regret that Thomas Matthew Crooks was not a better shot?

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance adopted its working definition of antisemitism in 2016. The definition is, as follows:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

I was castigated recently by a woman who insisted I was dishonest by not writing equally in favour of Israel, which suffered the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7th, rather than my (to her) obvious bias towards the Palestinians and their suffering under the military onslaught of Israel.

I made the point that I had condemned those Hamas attacks in a number of posts HERE and HERE, oh, and HERE, but she was not to be mollified. Obviously I was anti-Semitic. I tried reason, only to find she had blocked my email address, preventing any further discussion.

I have no problem with someone who disagrees with my opinions, but I find it intolerable to be blocked from a discussion before it’s truly started, by someone who has simply stuck a label on me and slammed the door in my face.

I’m an atheist. My journey to atheism has been long and difficult. I arrived here through numerous religious and spiritual paths.  I now find the whole concept of religion through the ages to be no more than a clever means to control the populace of the time.

That control continues to this day, despite science having revealed the utter falseness of deities, angels, heavenly after-lives, and all the paraphernalia that surrounds them. Every year the Muslim Hajjes takes the lives of numerous pilgrims. 1,300 deaths is the figure stated for this year’s Hajj, with many more suffering acute illness from the intolerable heat. Meanwhile the Saudi government makes a fortune (around US$12 billion) from the Hajj every year.

Christianity is no better. Christians and Muslims have been at one another’s throats since before Pope Urban II started the first crusade against the Muslims in 1095. It continues to this day. Christians have even been fighting among themselves as Protestants and Catholics slugged it out intermittently throughout the Middle Ages.

Jews believe they are the chosen people of their God. Christians believe themselves the chosen people of their God, who happens to be remarkably similar to the God of the Jews. There’s an uneasy and very hypocritical peace that exists between both factions.

55% of Protestant American Christians firmly believe that they’re living in the ‘End Times’, as foretold in the Biblical Book of Revelations. That figure rises to 63% among US Evangelical Christians. They also believe that when their God (Jesus, the Christ) arrives at Armageddon,  he will take all the Christian believers to Heaven, but not the Jews unless they are prepared to convert to Christianity! The rest will be left to fend for themselves.

The Jewish religion has a slightly different interpretation (as one would expect). Before Armageddon (or, End of Days, as is the Jewish interpretation) all nations will come to acknowledge the God of Israel as the only true God (problematic for US Protestant Evangelicals). Two characters, Gog and Magog, play important roles before the commencement of the ‘End of Days’. There has to be a war between, on the one hand the evil Gog/Magog, and on the other the Jewish Messiah (probably not Jesus, the Christ) who will defeat them. Apparently, no-one has discovered who Gog and Magog actually are, which I suppose could cause problems for the Jewish Messiah, if he can’t recognize them.

If this were written as fiction, it would be considered too fantastic to be acceptable. According to the churches, it’s not fiction but the sacred word of their God. Down through the ages they’ve brainwashed their congregations, over many generations, into believing it to be truth.

If I appear a little flippant it’s simply because the whole religious concoction is so outrageously fictitious that it beggars belief. Is it not easier just to believe in Santa Claus, a fat guy in a bright red dressing gown who lives somewhere in Lapland and flies around the world once a year on a magic sleigh pulled by reindeer, delivering toys to little children?

To hark back to my label of ‘Anti-Semite’. I’m an atheist, but no-one accuses me of being, “Anti-religious”, or “Anti-Christian”, or even, “Anti-Hindu”. Why accuse me of antisemitism, (which is only a fancy word for ‘Anti-Jewish’) when I have already, on more than one occasion, made clear in my writing that I do not take sides. My concern in any conflict is it’s effects on the innocent, in this case both Palestinians and Israelis. I consider Vladimir Putin to be the most evil of men, but in no way do I hold the Russian people en masse responsible for Putin’s criminality in Ukraine.

I’m no Holocaust denier either. The extermination of people of Jewish origin by Eichmann and his murderers stands as possibly the worst known individual atrocity in human history. They were innocents being cold-bloodedly slaughtered in the most appalling manner.

Atrocities have been an ongoing saga of the human species since we came into existence. Always there are atrocities being perpetrated by humans against other humans in the world. Today: Palestine/Israel; Russia/ Ukraine; the Sudanese civil war; Ethiopia; Central African Republic; DRC… the list goes on and on.

The Holocaust was an abomination, but in terms of human life, if all the present day and recent history atrocities in the world were added together, the figure of six million would possibly pale into insignificance.

Adolf Eichmann was an anti-Semite. He hated the Jewish people and wished to destroy them all. I do not hate anyone, but I despise any individual, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Atheist responsible for the brutal and cold-blooded killing, maiming, raping, torturing, of innocent human beings who just want to live their lives in peace and harmony.

Does that make me anti-Semitic?  You decide.