Whispers of Sexual Abuse Tailed an Equestrian Legend for Decades. At 81, He Was Barred for Life.

Why can’t people come by their wealth and fame honestly? First Jimmy Williams, using his influence to get young girls and now George Morris preying the same way on young boys. What is wrong with people? 10,000 partners and bragging about it? That’s plain gross. I don’t even know 10,000 people. So disgusted.

Thank you for your article. Taking on a man who holds icon status is not for the faint hearted. Too bad that people can't grasp the idea that someone can be an excellent instructor (although I found his teaching style to be abusive) and a sexual predator. Even the people who spoke out against Jimmy Williams say in the next breath how talented he was. Your next article needs to be about unbelievable power of denial and how it can blind people to the truth. I think that in the case of GM, people are afraid that if they admit he has feet of clay, it will somehow reflect badly on them. That it will pinpoint how they were tricked or highlight how they didn't protect/believe their own child in a situation like that. It also would help to have an article on the SafeSport process. People are appalled that GM was banned because of a complaint "50 years ago". There is a stubborn resistance to accepting that there is a rigorous investigation and a process that SS uses before banning someone and most definitely when it involves a man who is as idolized as GM.

As is clear from the stories of George Morris, Jimmy Williams, Rob Gage, and other equestrian and non-equestrian coaches, sports communities have not and cannot police themselves. SafeSport is needed. In the case of Morris, and far too many others, there were rumors and stories that followed and often preceded them. The coach’s reputation was big enough they could hide in plain sight. The sport’s community wasn’t lifting the rock to see what was really under there in the shadows. SafeSport is doing the hard work that others put off for too long. I hope the SafeSport process is absolutely rock-solid in the evidence before making a determination, and with that done: clean house and scrub it to the last inch.

There is no question that George has been a grest teacher, trainer, rider. I hesitate to say 'great horseman' because that would imply a level of care and respect for the horse that I am not sure was always there. George also clearly put making money first for many years. It is also well-known that he could be extremely nasty, but nevertheless I have had friends who were great devotees of his clinics. I never rode with him, but I learned so much from his Practical Horseman column, not just about riding but about how to evaluate riding from photos. But you did not have to get very close to hear the stories. Stories, not rumors. I would not say I ever heard anything specifically saying that the little protoges he had trailing around with him were underage, but that they might have been is not a stretch from what I did hear. The lack of transparency with SafeSport is unsatisfying. I think that when somebody of George's prominence is accused we need a more public process. For such a towering figure settling what did or did not happen matters for the whole sport. With the horse-killing scandal we got truth because they were prosecuted, and the Times exposed Jimmy Williams. And George? And without any disregard for the victims, spare a thought for the tragedy of it all. This is a man of real distinction and accomplishment, apparently done down by the frailty of a taste for young men. Not the first or the last, but still a tragedy.

Sexual abuse with minors was abundant in the riding circles when I grew up. There were only a few trainers that didn't pick out young girls. It was well known. My mother protected my sister and me. She left the trainer we had been with for a few years as soon as she found out. The truth is that pedophilia is found in ANY situation where adults are left unsupervised with children. It doesn't matter if it is riding, ice skating, dog showing, gymnastics, or any other sport. Parents need to be aware.

So pleased I never cared for his advice on riding or turnout. Always found the tenor of his advice to be nasty, elite, and trite.

I've been riding non-competitively since I was 7 years old. Riding is a feast for the senses, but it's not sexual. We've come a long way since the days when accusers would be demonized in defense of an alleged abuser (and certainly the fact that there is more than one weighs in their favor). To ride properly, the entire body must be engaged - but not the genitalia. I can't imagine a circumstance when that line should have ever been crossed.

There were plenty of rumors about George back in the day but he was so important and there was so much pressure to win that many young people who had qualified for the "Finals" at Madison Square Garden went east to ride with George to give them a better chance of getting a top horse to ride and more attention from the judges. Happened to a young friend of my daughters who spent the summer at George's farm when he was fifteen or sixteen. For girls who rode with him in clinics, he could be vicious and was even known to hit them if they disappointed. Been there, seen that. Glad he is finally getting his comeuppance.

I know Morris was a prominent trainer, but who would send a teenager to live with him thousands of miles away with no third party supervision? They weren’t sending their child to a well respected boarding school with a top notch riding program? What happened in the past can be prevented if the victim feels his or her complaints are being taken seriously and the perpetrator faces career ending sanction for abuse.

The link to the Vanity Fair article ('faked being a plastic surgeon') is absolutely fascinating. The lives of many of the players in this story don't lend themselves to a black and white analysis at all. He's a good person, no wait, he's a bad person- it's such a muddy mix of admirable qualities: loyalty, pursuit of excellence, perseverance- and abominable ones- exploitation, deceit, manslaughter... and list goes on. It's hard to know what to think.

In the old days, we’d judge the accusers — and it would be easy to smear this group of men; jail time, drug use, child pornography, it’s terrible. But we’ve become wise to looking at patterns, and commonalities, and causes — and the thing all these poor men have in common is George Morris. This guy was and is bad news. And we need to know more.

Many of us in the horse and legal worlds heard the rumors for decades. No surprise. But now the victims are being attacked by his supporters. The wheels of justice failed young boys for too long

Joseph Degregorio is serving life without parole in FL for sexual abuse of minors under the age of 12. A multimillionaire, he was well known as a pedophile for years in Sarasota; however his staff of in-house lawyers sued anyone and everyone who crossed him, no matter how trivial the issue. He was untouchable. Many boys sought help from law enforcement but were rejected because they had become addicts, street hustlers, or criminals of one sort or another. Degregorio was finally apprehended when the FBI raided his offices in regard to Medicare fraud. They found rafts of child porn on his computers and then his victims were believed. Why is anyone shocked that a victim of extensive sexual abuse becomes a less than stellar citizen? Why are they less believable when there are so many ways of confirming an allegation? There is usually much more than one person's word against another. I remember the 60's and 70's quite well, when an allegation of abuse was met with fear and scorn - "why are you telling me this?" "This sounds like a personal problem." "What did you do to encourage him?" "I don't want to get involved." And has it ever occurred to anyone that predators look for the most vulnerable victim, the one least likely to be believed, and then undermine their veracity at every turn?

How to score a hunter ride from those days (and maybe still now): -- who is the trainer -- who is the horse (frequently translates to how expensive) -- turnout of rider -- quality of the ride It seemed pretty pointless to ride in a hunter show for most competitors who would fail the first two important points-- you'd need to be a superstar on a nag or have everyone else suffer epic fails (or scratch). Add some youthful impetuous groupie behavior and you get the expected results from the self aggrandizing adults.

So many children damaged, so many adults incurring no punishment for damaging them. Predators know who to groom, how to do it, how to use power over to get what they want. The power over part is the real thrill. For this man to brag about having 10,000+ sexual partners makes me sick to my stomach. How many of them were kids? They were victims, not partners. Sick. Sick. Sick. And I'm sure all the parents were a lot more trusting back then. I hope to god they are not now and no more children are victimized, robbing them of their lives.

“Does it really matter what these affectionate people do — so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses?” --- Mrs. Patrick Campbell, famed British actress, (1865-1940) Yes George, it really does matter.

What really boggles the mind is that people knew of his pedophilia and said nothing. I do not understand how anyone can justify this behavior by saying times were different then--when was it OK for an adult to sexually abuse a minor?

Why does the NYT insist on downplaying issues like this? "Relationships with minors" is a very forgiving way of putting something far more ugly. They are guilty of doing it with Epstein too.

As a young rider I was never a part of the elite equestrian scene but even at the very local horsey level where my friends and I competed there were rumors about Mr. Morris and other trainers and owners whose sexual proclivities included taking advantage of workers and students some of whom were very young. Some were much worse than those about Mr Morris. We all dreamed about getting our hands on that diamond in the rough, that great horse which could take us to the top. I could completely understand how a talented working class kid could be completely bedazzled by a superstar coach who could get them access to the sort of horse and who could teach them to get the most out of him. Indeed it was to some level understood that this was the way things were and sleeping your way to success was one way to get ahead of the competition. This may have been shocking to us middle class mostly Catholic kids but understood that the rich after all are different and that even then the show jumping world was changing. If you wanted to play you had to pay. Today money rules even more than it did back then. While on some level it’s sad to see George Morris brought down he and people like him did take advantage of young athletes and some I’m sure are still doing it. This should serve as a warning to others.

My minor daughter is a competitive equestrian. I’m happy that there’s an organization like SafeSport working with the intention to protect kids in these high-level sports. However, I do not understand how Safesport’s rulings are determined and the lack of transparency makes it difficult to trust their process. For example, I know of a trainer with a criminal conviction from the 80s for having sex with a minor who was a student of his at an elite boarding school. The court records are available online for anyone to read. He’s a registered sex offender. But somehow after a short probation, he is now cleared by SafeSport and back to work. What gives?

Horses are wonderful animals. And many of the people in the world of equestrian competition are wonderful as well. The sport at it's best can teach young people so much about animals and how they should be treated. The benefits of discipline and hard work can be life altering in a very positive way. But there is also a very dark side of the activity. Horses are often abused in training and asked to perform in ways that make my skin crawl. And some - just some - of the people who live in this world leave behind normal human relationships as they are drawn into a whirlwind of super intense competition. They can lose themselves and often lose their sense appropriate behavior. In this environment, the likes of a George Morris become powerful beyond most peoples comprehension. May he rot in a hereafter where he has only one activity: mucking his own stall.