Re: In Rarefied Sport, a View of the Romneys’ World

LEW, what is your point

and Kerry is married to the Heiz ketchup heir

Rockefellers were both PUBS and DEMS

On 5/27/12, lew <lewcoop@aol.com> wrote:
> This is a carbon copy of "Surf-Boarder," John Kerry when heran in
> 2004??
>
> Kerry's wealth is about the same as Romney's
>
> On May 27, 8:57 am, Leader of 71 <lesjul...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&opzn&page=www...>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> May 26, 2012
>> In Rarefied Sport, a View of the Romneys' WorldBy TRIP
>> GABRIEL<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/trip_gab...>
>>
>> As Ann Romney immersed herself in the elite world of riding over the last
>> dozen years, she relied on Jan Ebeling as a trusted tutor and horse
>> scout.
>> In her, he found a deep-pocketed patron.
>>
>> A German-born trainer and top-ranked equestrian, Mr. Ebeling was at ease
>> with the wealthy women drawn to the sport of dressage, in which horses
>> costing up to seven figures execute pirouettes and other dancelike
>> moves<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KojrAsNF2c> for
>> riders wearing tails and top hats.
>>
>> A taskmaster, Mr. Ebeling pushed Mrs. Romney to excel in high-level
>> amateur
>> shows. He escorted her on horse-buying expeditions to Europe. She shares
>> ownership of the Oldenburg mare he dreams of riding in the Olympic Games
>> this summer. Mrs. Romney and her husband, Mitt, even floated a loan —
>> $250,000 to $500,000, according to financial records — to Mr. Ebeling and
>> his wife for the horse farm they run in California, where the Romneys use
>> a
>> Mediterranean-style guesthouse as a getaway.
>>
>> "He came over here with two empty hands," Anne Gribbons, technical
>> adviser
>> of the United States dressage team, said of Mr. Ebeling. "He had a lucky
>> break to get to know the Romneys."
>>
>> The relationship has given the Romneys "the ability to enjoy the horses
>> in
>> a very safe and private haven, along with enjoying the people who provide
>> them the service," said Robert Dover, who knows the Romneys and Mr.
>> Ebeling
>> and his wife, Amy. "That friendship has stood the test of time." It also
>> offers a glimpse into the Romneys' way of life, which they have generally
>> shielded from view.
>>
>> Protective of their privacy, they may also have been wary of the kind of
>> fallout that came after Mr. Romney's mention of the "couple of Cadillacs"
>> his wife owned and the disclosure of plans for a car elevator in the
>> family's $9 million beach house in California, which prompted criticism
>> that Mr. Romney was out of touch with average Americans.
>>
>> Mrs. Romney took up dressage at age 50 as a therapy for multiple
>> sclerosis,
>> but it soon became her passion. Riding, she has said, "sings to my soul."
>>
>> Mr. Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was also
>> drawn
>> in. He chose the music that Mr. Ebeling has ridden to in competitions,
>> from
>> the movie <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5qlWLXbfL4> "The Mission." He
>> also took up trail riding. In a recent
>> conversation<http://gawker.com/5900710/announcing-our-newest-hire-a-current-fox-ne...>
>> with
>> Sean Hannity of Fox News not meant for broadcast but leaked to the
>> Internet, Mr. Romney showed a familiarity with expensive, esoteric
>> breeds,
>> mentioning his wife's Austrian Warmbloods and his own Missouri Fox
>> Trotter
>> — "like a quarter horse, but just a much better gait."
>>
>> The couple's ties to Mr. Ebeling, 53, have also led to a legal
>> entanglement. In 2010, a San Diego woman sued the trainer, his wife and
>> Mrs. Romney for fraud, claiming that the severity of a foot defect in a
>> horse she bought from Mrs. Romney for $125,000 had been concealed. The
>> case
>> raised questions about whether the Ebelings, who acted as sales agents,
>> intentionally covered up the animal's condition, and if so, whether Mrs.
>> Romney, a largely absentee owner, knew.
>>
>> Lawyers for Mrs. Romney and the Ebelings argued that the buyer was aware
>> of
>> the defect, a condition disclosed by a veterinarian who conducted a
>> prepurchase exam, and denied any effort to deceive her. They pointed out
>> that she continued to ride the horse, named Super Hit, for more than a
>> year
>> after the purchase in 2008.
>>
>> Last September, on the eve of a jury trial, Mrs. Romney was dropped from
>> the lawsuit before it was settled out of court, according to the Romney
>> campaign. "The lawsuit was frivolous," said Gail Gitcho, a Romney
>> spokeswoman. Lawyers for the Ebelings did not return calls.
>>
>> One thing is certain: the suit has done nothing to shake Mrs. Romney's
>> faith in Mr. Ebeling, who continues to enjoy her support as he has
>> competed
>> in international dressage competitions this spring and prepares for the
>> United States Olympic selection trials beginning on June 8 in Gladstone,
>> N.J.
>>
>> Should he win one of the three spots and ride at the London Games this
>> summer, Mrs. Romney has said she would like to cheer him on from the
>> stands.
>>
>> *Turning to Riding*
>>
>> Mrs. Romney, who declined to be interviewed for this article, returned to
>> horseback riding, a sport she loved as a girl, after receiving a
>> diagnosis
>> of multiple sclerosis in 1998.
>>
>> The Romneys were then living in Utah, where Mr. Romney had been recruited
>> to organize the 2002 Olympics. At first Mrs. Romney could not stay on a
>> horse for more than a few minutes without tiring, but it made her "joyful
>> and exhilarated," she once recalled. "I'd sit on a horse and forget I was
>> even sick."
>>
>> She met Mr. Ebeling, currently ranked No. 9 among American dressage
>> riders,
>> when he visited Utah to offer clinics. Mr. Ebeling, who did not respond
>> to
>> requests to comment for this article, recalled in a 2007 interview with
>> The
>> New York Times that Mrs. Romney overcame her fatigue by sheer force of
>> will. "Boy, she was determined," he said.
>>
>> As her disease went into remission, she began regularly traveling to Mr.
>> Ebeling's stables in Moorpark, Calif., an hour northwest of Los Angeles.
>> Friends and acquaintances described the trainer as patient and low-key
>> but
>> capable of driving students hard. Asked if she was ever unhappy with Mr.
>> Ebeling's instruction, Mrs. Romney said in a deposition in the lawsuit,
>> "I
>> think that is not a fair question because we all get upset at certain
>> times
>> with anybody that is — you know, especially a German."
>>
>> She said she was grateful for his rigor, which helped her win gold and
>> silver medals in the show ring. "He pushes me harder than I would ever
>> push
>> myself."
>>
>> Mr. Ebeling trained in dressage as a young man in Germany, a world leader
>> in the sport, and immigrated in 1984 to pursue his career in the United
>> States.
>>
>> A brief first marriage ended in divorce when his wife, Lisa Wilcox, an
>> American-born Olympic rider, wanted to live in Germany to train and he
>> preferred to stay in California. He later married Amy Roberts, who hired
>> him as a trainer in 1995 at the stables she called the Acres, which she
>> had
>> bought a few years earlier and is now assessed at $1.6 million.
>>
>> The Ebelings built the property, amid avocado and lemon groves, into a
>> premier dressage barn with stalls for 40 horses. Besides Mrs. Romney, it
>> has drawn other wealthy clients, including the daughter of William
>> Harlan,
>> the founder of Harlan Estate <http://www.harlanestate.com/>, a boutique
>> California winery. Mr. Dover, a former Olympic rider, recalled Mr.
>> Ebeling's offering him a glass of a Harlan red one night: "As I was about
>> to take my first sip, he said, 'That's like a $4,000 bottle.' "
>>
>> *A Powerful Supporter*
>>
>> Mr. Ebeling denied in his deposition in the lawsuit that Mrs. Romney was
>> his financial sponsor. "Not really," he said.
>>
>> But Mrs. Romney was clear on the matter: she supports him in his
>> competitive career. "It gives Jan an opportunity for him to present my
>> horses at upper-level dressage," she said.
>>
>> On the Romneys' 2010 tax returns, they reported a loss of $77,000 for
>> their
>> share of the partnership that owns Mr. Ebeling's top mount, Rafalca. Mrs.
>> Romney owns the horse with Ms. Ebeling and a Romney friend, Beth Meyers.
>> Sponsorship arrangements are not unusual in dressage, where riders who
>> want
>> to climb to the top look to wealthy backers.
>>
>> "Having people like that is very important to the success of this sport
>> and
>> our country being represented," said Mary Phelps, the publisher of an
>> online
>> dressage news site <http://www.dressagedaily.com/>, who estimated that
>> the
>> costs of exhibiting a horse on the international circuit could run to
>> $200,000 a year.
>>
>> Mr. Dover, who during visits to the Acres has helped coach Mr. Ebeling
>> for
>> international dressage, often with Mrs. Romney looking on, recalled a
>> meeting to plan Mr. Ebeling's European season. "She was very attentive to
>> what he said, and what I thought, and had her own remarks and really
>> wanted
>> to be a part of the decision-making," Mr. Dover said of Mrs. Romney.
>>
>> Mr. Ebeling has been Mrs. Romney's guide on trips to Germany since 2000
>> to
>> buy horses for upper-level competition, known as Grand Prix. Over the
>> years, she acquired nearly a dozen, both for herself and Mr. Ebeling.
>> Although a champion horse can cost seven figures, Mr. Ebeling, like most
>> competitors, sought younger, less expensive horses and invested years to
>> train them to respond to the rider's subtle squeezes and weight shifts in
>> the show ring, where using one's voice draws a penalty.
>>
>> Although Mrs. Romney once stabled horses near her homes in Massachusetts
>> and New Hampshire, all are now at the Acres. She spent most of the winter
>> of 2005-6 there, riding Baron, one of her early purchases, in amateur
>> classes at the Grand Prix level.
>>
>> Mr. Ebeling praised her drive. "People who start dressage later in their
>> life," he said in 2007, "you don't get to Grand Prix. You just don't get
>> there. It's extremely difficult in that short time."
>>
>> Super Hit, the horse that became the subject of the lawsuit, was bought
>> in
>> Germany in 2003 for about $100,000. At the time, X-rays showed that he
>> had
>> a small abnormality in his left front coffin joint. Mrs. Romney consulted
>> three veterinarians and was told it was "not significant," according to
>> her
>> deposition in the suit, which was previously reported by The Washington
>> Post.
>>
>> With Mr. Ebeling training Super Hit and riding him in competitions, he
>> progressed and did well at shows. The horse also regularly received
>> injections of anti-inflammatory drugs to prevent any problems with his
>> coffin joint, which is where the hoof attaches to the lower leg.
>> Veterinary
>> experts say the drugs are commonly given to top-level sport horses.
>>
>> *Selling the Horse*
>>
>> Though Mrs. Romney loved the horse, calling him "Soupy," she decided to
>> sell him in late 2007. Riding him, though meant to soothe her multiple
>> sclerosis, had in fact become painful. "I frequently was getting back
>> spasms when I rode Soupy," she said.
>>
>> The eventual buyer was a horsewoman named Catherine Norris, who lived
>> near
>> Seattle at the time. Mr. Ebeling, she later said, called Super Hit "the
>> soundest horse in the barn."
>>
>> Before writing a check, Ms. Norris sought a standard prepurchase exam.
>> The
>> Ebelings recommended a veterinarian they knew, Dr. Doug Herthel, who
>> identified the joint abnormality on an X-ray. He informed Ms. Norris of
>> it
>> but assured her it would not bar him from the upper-level show ring.
>>
>> But Dr. Herthel apparently did not mention that a toxicology test
>> reported
>> four tranquilizers in Super Hit's blood at the time of the exam. His
>> records showed that he injected two of the drugs — to steady Super Hit
>> during X-rays, he testified — but there was no documentation of the other
>> two tranquilizers.
>>
>> Dr. Herthel sent an e-mail to Ms. Ebeling asking if the horse had been
>> sedated before the exam; she replied that he had not. How the additional
>> tranquilizers got into the animal was never fully established. A lawyer
>> for
>> Dr. Herthel, Steve Schwartz, said the drug laboratory's tests were not
>> definitive.
>>
>> But veterinary experts unconnected with the case questioned the
>> circumstances. "The presence of all those medications makes
>> interpretation
>> of the exam null and void," said Dr. Carolyn Weinberg, a board member of
>> the American Association of Equine Practitioners. She and others said
>> tranquilizers could mask problems.
>>
>> "They can affect the gait of the horse," said Dr. Harry Werner, the
>> chairman of animal welfare for the equine association. "They have the
>> potential to obscure a subtle lameness."
>>
>> Ms. Norris, who could not be reached for comment for this article,
>> continued to board Super Hit at the Acres, paying some $2,400 a month.
>> But
>> she was soon complaining that "he looks funny on his left front," she
>> testified in a deposition. According to her, Mr. Ebeling replied, "It's
>> your riding."
>>
>> When she moved Super Hit to a stable near San Diego in April 2009, a new
>> veterinarian reviewed the X-rays Dr. Herthel had taken and diagnosed
>> lameness, and Super Hit subsequently became "a pasture horse" unfit for
>> riding, Ms. Norris said.
>>
>> Jontelle Forbus, a trainer who had gone to work for the Ebelings shortly
>> after Super Hit's sale and rode him at the Acres, said in court records
>> that she, too, thought he had an irregular step and told this to Mr.
>> Ebeling.
>>
>> "It was a horse sale where the seller wasn't honest about the product
>> they
>> were selling, and the buyer wasn't smart about looking into the whole
>> picture," Ms. Forbus said in an interview recently.
>>
>> In testimony, she said she quit working at the Acres in part because she
>> perceived "a feeling of general dishonesty" between the Ebelings and
>> their
>> clients largely over a failure to openly communicate.
>>
>> In interviews, other dressage clients of Mr. Ebeling's vouched that they
>> trusted him. There is no record of other lawsuits filed against him or
>> his
>> wife in state or federal courts.
>>
>> A spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, Amanda Henneberg, said, "Mrs.
>> Romney
>> has, and always had, full trust and confidence in Jan and Amy Ebeling."
>>
>> Nine days after ending her case against Mrs. Romney and the Ebelings, Ms.
>> Norris settled with Dr. Herthel. The veterinarian's lawyer, Mr. Schwartz,
>> said his client paid no money. "They did not have a viable case and they
>> quit," he said.
>>
>> Before it ended, Ms. Norris's lawyers accused Dr. Herthel of being more
>> interested in gaining favor with Super Hit's famous seller, at a time
>> when
>> Mr. Romney was making his first bid for the presidency, than in
>> protecting
>> Ms. Norris's interests.
>>
>> On the day Ms. Ebeling had made the appointment for the prepurchase exam,
>> Dr. Herthel confirmed it in an e-mail. It was Feb. 5, 2008: Super
>> Tuesday,
>> when California was holding its Republican primary. "We are telling
>> everybody to vote Romney today," the vet wrote.
>>
>> Jodi Kantor and Stephanie Saul contributed reporting.
>>
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>> Close
>
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