I am so upset right now that I am almost incoherent. I don’t know who made Tiffany attend that press conference, but making her sit there, beside the FEI President, and the FEI Foreign Vet who was part of Victor’s disqualification was nearly as wrong as the disqualification itself. To the Person(s) who made the decision to force Tiffany to be there, I find you to be a heartless, cold being. Whoever you are, I hope you lose some sleep over forcing Tiffany to speak through inconsolable tears in front of us. I was far from the only person to weep in commiseration with Tiffany. My own emotion was an even mixture of sympathy and anger.

Tomorrow I will have digested the many, many things Eric said at the press conference. “Miscarriage of justice” and “I’m ashamed for our sport”, both of which he said several times, capture the essence of his message. Once again I find myself shaking my head at the FEI.

I’m going to go have a stiff drink now.

Before I go do that I must mention that the FEI Foreign Vet is a man named Kent Allen. I asked him to answer one question: I asked him if he’s a rider and if so, if he found his horse with such a small cut on the coronet band (I’m going to try and get a photo of the cut and if I do I’ll post it tomorrow) whether he would ride it that day. I’m not sure which part of his answer shocked me more, but there were three items that made my very straight, limp hair begin to curl:

1. he’s a reiner

2. he said he would immediately have put the horse on antibiotics

3. he made a veiled criticism of Canadian Team vet Sylvie Surprenant for not, oh I don’t know, withdrawing Victor for a cut so small that it would have gone completely undetected if the horse had been presented for the jog with it

Tiffany and Eric, who shook his head through most of Haya's statement

The reiner and the princess

Eric, handling the questions with poise and utter indignation