Media Punchup: Deadspin vs. Dressage-News

When Gawker-owned sports website Deadspin.com contacted Dressage-News.com proprietor Ken Braddick about using a Rafalca photo, it got an earful.

The email exchanged went something like this.

Yikes, Ken. Not exactly doing any favors for the “official sport of the summer” there, buddy.

So there was some name-calling, and there were some emails sent to Braddick from miffed Deadspin readers, and then the opposing parties kissed and made up, sort of.

Kids, the moral of the story is this: By participating in equestrian sport, whether as a rider or a trainer or a website editor or whatever, you automatically become an ambassador of equestrian sport. Like it or not, you are an individual who is representative of a whole. And you can use that as an opportunity to lift your sport up, or you can use it to make the rest of us look like, to quote Deadspin, “snooty a-holes.” Choose wisely.