The Violent Feud That Shocked the Horse World

Ian Parker does not hold back in painting the egos of the characters in this horse‑world scandal, clearly growing tired at times of the pomposity of Michael Barisone, a U.S. dressage trainer and former Olympian who shot his student, Lauren Kanarek, after an escalating feud. Claiming that Kanarek’s online taunts and complaints drove him insane, Barisone was eventually found not guilty, though later banned from his sport by the U.S. Center for SafeSport. Tread carefully as you enter this arena; narcissism lurks everywhere.

The first time I called him, he said, of the case, “You’re going to find it is a John Grisham novel combined with ‘Fatal Attraction’ combined with ‘Yellowstone.’ ” Barisone’s story has its evident hero, and its villain is Kanarek, his victim. In this presentation of events—a “scum of the earth” client, in his words, and a terrific guy who snapped, as anyone would have—Barisone has enjoyed near-universal support from the dressage community, and beyond. In much of the online discussion about the case, including in the forums of The Chronicle of the Horse, a long-established magazine, commenters have identified two victims, not one, and have almost always found Barisone’s victimhood the more compelling. A woman was shot, but a man was driven to shoot her, because she was annoying, and at times belligerent, in person and on social media. Kanarek has been widely scorned as a dressage interloper and as an embodiment of contemporary ills: a bullshitter, an entitled troll.