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Friday, March 29, 2024

Letter to the Editor concerning Leslie Wylie

The writer of this story requested that her name not be used.

Letter to the Editor,

Plantation Field A competitor at Plantation FieldI decided to write you and share some background information about Leslie Wylie.

I’ve read everything else you have written so far on this situation, and I want to thank you for being one of only a few voices in equestrian media standing up against this sort of politically driven insanity and nonsense that is truly harming the sport, equestrian professionals of all sorts who are part of the sport and trying to make a living, and generous sponsors of the sport, such as Cuyler Walker. He clearly got unfairly swept up into this contrived controversy.

This situation is beyond belief - the harm so many people are experiencing as a result of left wing political activism, that was enabled and treated as though it were appropriate and justified by leadership with both the USEF and USEA.

 

THE  “POWERS that be” at the governing bodies clearly bent over backwards to pacify the concerns and agenda of folks at the heart of an influential social media platform (Eventing Nation), without doing even a minimal amount of research with respect to the background and credibility of the “editor in Chief” of this platform - Leslie Wylie.

She is the person who brought the “issue“ of the name of this venue to USEF and USEA in late June.

Jenni Autry, Managing Director of Eventing at USEF, actually worked for Leslie Wylie at Eventing Nation right up until 2019.

If Leslie’s first point of contact at USEF was Jenni, that merits some scrutiny.

Leslie was taking on the role of “activist” in this situation.

She was not acting as a responsible editor of a media outlet, bound by commonly accepted principals of journalistic ethics.
She was consciously... by her own admission in the September 16th editorial (The Problem With Plantation)... CREATING this controversy.

No athlete had reached out at that time to the editorial team at Eventing Nation about a problem with this venue or its name.

The “story” came to be, because the team at Eventing Nation created it to get more clicks on their blog to increase advertising.

They published “The Problem with Plantation” on Sept. 16, bemoaning the name, and the fact that key folks associated with the venue were unwilling to accept the “change” that Eventing Nation felt was needed if the sport was to be a welcoming sport for BIPOC.

I’m sure they got lots of clicks and associated revenue in the process.

Every single dues paying USEF member in and around the Unionville, Pa., area who has enjoyed participating in unrecognized and recognized competition at this venue was harmed by the mismanagement of the situation by leadership at the governing bodies.

The venue has been lost. Leadership clearly mismanaged this situation.

Ms. Wylie participated in a podcast with Major League Eventing in early August of 2020 in which she revealed that Covid restrictions had impacted their revenue, and it was way down.

When coupled with the fact that at the same time (early August), Ms. Wylie and Mr. Thier were actively pushing this name change agenda with respect to Plantation Field, it does make me wonder if there was not in fact some intent to boost revenue via increased website traffic all along, as a result of this contrived controversy, and heightened public coverage of all stories pertaining to issues of race and racial injustice given the intensity of the Black Lives Matter protests lately.

 

THIS IS NOT the first time that Leslie Wiley and Eventing Nation have published an editorial about a very “hot button” issue du jour, but were active subjects of the editorial itself.

They did something similar in December of 2017 with respect to the MeToo movement, and the issue of sexual abuse of minor athletes, and sexual harassment of some athletes by other more powerful figures in sport.

Ms. Wiley’s editorial recounts that she was abused by her coach as a junior, and grew emotionally distraught as a result.

She goes on to speak about how her emotional distress and desire to “escape” the situation overwhelmed her, and she began regularly fantasizing about driving her vehicle off the road to escape the abuse, and then tragically one evening, on the drive to or from the barn, she followed through on that, but survived the resulting crash. It’s a very startling and sad story. You can read the editorial for yourself... I included a link to it.

https://eventingnation.com/metoo-a-letter-to-myself-as-a-young-rider/

Then in 2013, in an article in By The Northern Virginia Daily, Sep 9, 2013 Updated Nov 14, 2018, it is related how Ms. Wiley caused a fatal accident.

By Joe Beck

WINCHESTER — A Tennessee woman received three years probation Tuesday in Winchester Circuit Court for her role in a two-vehicle accident that killed a sixth-grade teacher.
Winchester Commonwealth’s Attorney Alexander Iden said a long-term psychological condition that made the defendant, Leslie Wylie, fearful of needles caused her to faint while behind the wheel of her pickup truck and strike a minivan driven by Amber Lucchiani in the July 2012 crash on Jubal Early Drive.
Iden said in an interview hours after the hearing that Wylie fainted while thinking about needles used to pierce her skin during a Botox treatment she underwent minutes before at the doctor’s office.
Wylie, 34, of Knoxville, Tenn., pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter under a plea agreement in which Iden agreed to drop a charge of reckless driving. The plea agreement includes a suspended prison sentence of three years. As a condition of her probation, Circuit Judge John E. Wetsel Jr. also ordered Wylie to take someone with her on future visits to doctors’ offices.
Iden said medical records obtained during the investigation revealed that Wylie had a history of fainting spells involving use of needles by doctors going back to at least 2002 – the same condition that overcame her on the day of the fatal accident.
“What she told police is that just after she left the doctor’s office, she began to think about the procedure she had just been through, which is cosmetic Botox,” Iden said.
Iden said the procedure involved needles injected into crow’s feet on Wylie’s face.
“She got to thinking about needles being in her face, and as she started to think about it, she started to blackout,” Iden said.
Wylie’s eastbound 2004 Ford pickup crossed the grassy median strip on Jubal Early Drive and hit a 2008 Nissan minivan driven by Lucchiani, which was headed west. Lucchiani, 38, was a teacher at Robert E. Aylor Middle School in Stephens City. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Iden said Wylie could have prevented the accident had she told the doctor of her history of fainting spells over needles or taken someone along to drive her back from the doctor’s office.
Iden said the doctor who performed the Botox procedure on Wylie told him he would not have done so had she spoken about her adverse reaction to needles.
Iden called the circumstances of the case “very unusual” for a case of involuntary manslaughter.
“It’s not like somebody stabbed somebody,” Iden said. “It’s much more complicated than that.”

Friends contacted me about it, and pointed out the BIZARRE pattern of conduct and coincidences when it comes to Ms. Wylie.
There are now two editorials that she is involved in, tied to a political and cultural hot button issue, that she also took on the role of an actual subject of the story herself in.

 

YOU AND the Chronicle are the only outlets doing legitimate and fair reporting on all this.

But someone needs to give voice to this unethical nonsense going on with this editor of this sport related blog.

She’s obviously got some considerable emotional issues going on.

If the leadership with the governing bodies continue to cater to this person’s whims or agenda... what/who is going to be next?

People and the sport in general are being harmed.

Mr. Glaccum and Mr. Walker did not deserve to be smeared in the New York Times.

Ms. Wylie might never really be held accountable for this, but leadership within the governing bodies should have a plan in place to deal with her and Eventing Nation carefully from here on out, and be much more careful, lest more innocent people involved in the sport get caught up in one of this person’s plots to write editorials for attention and relevance, that somehow result in innocent folks getting indirectly smeared .

Rob Burk and the USEA Board should NEVER have attempted to pacify her.

They should have supported Denis Glaccum and Cuyler Walker.

Sincerely,

A troubled member of the area II eventing community

The Horse of Delaware Valley

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