That’s boom as in the noise a bomb makes. Also as in the expression, ‘lowering the boom’.
If you are a member of the Canadian equestrian community, I have very bad and very ominous news for you: Amie O’Shaughnessy, former Director par excellence of EC’s Para Department, and more latterly EC’s first ever Director of High Performance, is no longer warming a swiveling chair at the offices of EC. How do I know? Well certainly not thanks to anything like damage control-style proactive communication that EC is a world champion at not using. I found out only by chance. On Thursday I sent Amie an email to follow up on some of the Eventing ‘situations’ that I recently wrote about in Horse Sport (and on this blog). In response to my message, I received the following automatic reply:
“Unfortunately, I am no longer with Equine Canada. Please contact Eva Havaris for further assistance at ehavaris@equinecanada.ca.” Boom.
This is potentially a bigger deal than any termination/departure from EC since Akaash Maharaj departed at the beginning of 2012. In terms of value, of performance, of skills and ability directly relevant to the task at hand, Amie has been a stand-out in an organization riddled with all manner of ineptitude for as long as anyone can remember. That’s not to say there aren’t others worth their salt – not at all. But Amie? Gone? In a flash like this? I’m still trying to un-dislocate my jaw.
I expect that this post is breaking news to at least 90% of my readers. I hereby pledge to get to the bottom of it, fully recognizing it might be a long trip down. The fact that EC did not issue any kind of statement in the day or two following Amie’s exit is enough reason for me to hold deep suspicion this unwelcome news augurs some ill winds fluttering the flag atop EC’s Ottawa headquarters.
Watch this space. You can be assured I will not stop until I learn exactly WTF happened.
