The Facts Behind The Dancing Horse [Rafalca]

[Larkspur]

The Facts Behind The Dancing Horse
Though I enjoy watching equestrian events, I don’t go out of my way to find them. It was a pleasant surprise this morning to find coverage of the individual dressage event on MSNBC. It also turned into one of those mornings when I wanted to take the entire American media to the woodshed for a good whipping.

SNIP

When Mrs. Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, it was recommended that she try dressage as a therapy. She went to trainer Jan Ebering for that purpose. Dressage involves a great deal of muscle control on the part of the rider. Commands are conveyed to the horse through minute pressures applied through the feet, calves and thighs of the rider, as well as tiny adjustments in the reins. It is a very good way to exercise fine motor control, as opposed to the gross motor exercise of most physical fitness programs. The event commentators used the term “remission” to describe Mrs. Romney’s condition, but a more accurate version might be that she has the form of MS called “benign” – the least damaging of the four forms and the one with the longest periods of stability between bouts of deterioration.

SNIP

Mrs. Romney does not train Rafalca to compete or ride her in competition. Her riding of this or any other horse that Ebering trains was for her benefit, not the horse’s. Using a competition horse for therapy poses some risks to the horse. Competition training involves teaching the horse to respond properly to very slight commands. Allowing an amateur to ride the horse risks confusing it with clumsy commands. Where race horses peak before the age of four, dressage horses aren’t ready for competition until they are usually over 10 years old. The horses at the Olympics are between 14 and 19 years old. There is a point in dressage training where the only person who mounts that horse is the person who will ride it in competition. They must work as a flawless team to reach competition level.

The facts behind Ann Romney and the horse are not what the media has portrayed. Mrs. Romney did not use the horse for therapy, she used the expertise of Jan Ebering. She does not “own” the horse, she is a shareholder in the horse. Unlike racehorses, who have a long-shot potential of making back the investment, equestrian horses are money pits. Even the Olympic honorarium of $25,000 for a gold medalist doesn’t come close to the cost of keeping up the horse. From a business perspective, a dressage horse is a tax deduction, in Rafalca’s case, a $78,000 a year tax deduction on a quarter-share. It’s a net-loss investment, what the rest of us refer to as a “tax write-off.”

SNIP

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. If equestrian horses stand no chance of profit then they are not a business.

Thus, no fucking tax deduction.

[hack89]

4. There is a chance of profit though - stud fees for champions can be pretty high.

in any case, they got a $50 tax deduction because they had no related income to write off against the expense. Is $50 that big a deal?

[SoCalDem]

2. A hobby-horse

Hobbies are not deductible..

For the WRITE OFF to be $77K, the original outlay is HUGE. I'd be interested in that cost.

Ebeling "owns" the horse and the farm when they both live in CALIFORNIA..

Ann "visits" the horse when she's there (which is not all that often)..

For the amount of money they launder through Ebeling, it's understandable that she would take some lessons and ride the horse.

The "therapy" angle was a sympathy ploy proffered by MITTENS & Ann..

He has referred to the horse thing as:
hobby
interest
therapy
business investment

[nykym]

3. Makes me wonder if

in addition to the $78k deduction for Dressage, whether they are also taking a medical deduction for the "Therapeutic Benefits".

[1-Old-Man]

5. so what you are basically saying is that Ann Romney's hobbies are bought at taxpayer expense

Did I get that right? Here and three other people get to have this horse at our expense, its not for therapy (first I've heard of that) its just a tax dodge.

[Igel]

6. But she did train for competition. Don't have a clue if she does now.

From Wiki, not always reliable but probably so in this case.

Speaking of Ann Romney--

"She has received recognition in dressage as an adult amateur at the national level,[25] including earning her 2006 Gold Medal[37][35] and 2005 Silver Medal at the Grand Prix level from the United States Dressage Federation.[24][35] She also sometimes competes in professional dressage events and has broken the 60% level at Grand Prix. Romney works with California trainer Jan Ebeling,[38] who schools her and her horses in dressage and works with her importing new stock from Europe.[36] The pair qualified for the Pan-Am games in 2004."

No idea if Rafalca is the horse she usually rides.

Sentences like "Mrs. Romney did not use the horse for therapy, she used the expertise of Jan Ebering" are incoherent. If she used the guy's expertise while being trained to ride the horse, how is it that she didn't actually use the horse for therapy? Is therapy just being close to the horse and touching it? But that view's contradict this with "it was recommended that she try dressage as a therapy." Distinguishing between "being trained in dressage" and "using a horse in being trained in dressage" is a bit too fine a hair for me to see.

It turns out that her MS is relatively quiescent. But apparently that foresight wasn't know to everybody in 1998 when she was undergoing a bout of it. The "foresight" available in 2012 would have been greatly helpful in 1998. It's strange that we build up and exaggerate an opponent's words in order to say that their disease really is quite trivial. Then again, no it isn't. We're linguistically gifted primates.