2022 Maryland 5* at Fair Hill

[Darkwave]

@Blugal

If you watch top level SJ, they always get their horse in the ring, look at a fence, stop, let their horse poop (for which they put up a hand so that the judge waits to ring the bell) and/or back up before they start. There’s no doubt about hearing the bell.

In show-jumping, if they have already rung the bell and your horse starts to poop, if you raise your hand they pause the countdown clock, and then give another tone to restart it.

Which makes what happened here even more perplexing to me.

[Willesdon]

Tim Price has now won five 5* competitions on five different horses. Good, eh?

[Jealoushe]

I’m curious if it keeps the horses bit steady in their mouth?

[Jealoushe]

They do? Wow. Ok. Eventing has some work to do.

[Jealoushe]

*Opinion* Mark Phillips: Maryland proves five-star eventing is here to stay

[charger75]

I hope this isn’t off-topic, but did anyone else have a problem with playing “We Will Rock You” as Tim Price came into the ring for his show-jumping around? The atmosphere was very tense, everyone was holding their breath, and Jenni Brannigan had already signaled the crowd to be quiet during her round… So the amped-up stomping/clapping of that particular song seemed extremely jarring and invasive.
This is just my opinion, and I’m sure some people liked the fact that it is the intro to “We Are the Champions.” I get it. But I don’t understand why music is played during show-jumping rounds at all – I can’t think of another sport that plays music during the competition itself. (I’m not talking about timeouts or halftime.) What if a golfer were lining up the final putt on the 18th green and the PA started blasting?
It just seems weird to play loud, thumping music around highly sensitive animals at a crucial point in the competition. If they have to play music, please, choose something less distracting.

[wsmoak]

@charger75

I don’t understand why music is played during show-jumping rounds at all – I can’t think of another sport that plays music during the competition itself. (I’m not talking about timeouts or halftime.) What if a golfer were lining up the final putt on the 18th green and the PA started blasting?

We used to go to Galway Downs in Temecula CA and the announcer / music people seemed to have curated songs for each rider. It was kind of neat. But it wasn’t playing loud enough to be disruptive.

[Gardenhorse]

Yes, I also thought it was odd and way too loud. I didn’t actually remember hearing the music for any of the other rides, but couldn’t tell if they had turned the volume up or if the crowd was just being that quiet.

[Rnichols]

While it’s true she knows where she would’ve placed, the prize money difference is substantial. So IMO more than just a blip on her record. If I did the math correctly (always questionable), it looked like a $12.4k difference in $$. Maybe that’s not a huge amount to some owners/connections, but I know I’d be livid to lose out on that because someone didn’t know the rules.

[grzywinskia]

I was there and I thought the music was awesome. I actually thought to myself when Tim went in, “finally something to get the non event riders excited about our sport” and I think the pictures of the security guy that are going viral proves it. I am very sad that after a safe day of XC sport and a nail biting finish, that we choose instead to harp on things like music selections.

[Mander]

We always had music in the background at gymnastics meets when someone wasn’t in the middle of a floor routine (in which case, we just had their floor music playing). I’m fairly certain it’s not that uncommon in other events either - I seem to recall soccer matches having “background music”. Rock climbing competitions always have music cranking too. Lots of music playing at the Capital Challenge horse show last week. I’m sure there are others, those are just the sports I’ve got experience with.

I feel like, broadly speaking, music in the background of such a big environment is actually somewhat helpful for the horses. Firstly, it’s not like music itself is “new” to them - most barns have a radio playing in the background on a regular basis. But also, I think it helps dampen any unusual sounds. Someone accidentally knocking something over on metal bleachers is going to sound like an earthquake in a silent arena and be ENORMOUSLY distracting, but with music playing, it would more easily blend into the background a bit and be less likely to surprise a horse. To each their own, but I’d much rather ride in a ring with music playing than in a silent one. I thought the We Will Rock You was a bit unusual, but not really that distracting or overly loud. If I had been the one competing, I’m not even sure if I could have told you what song it was with how focused I’d be.

[Groom_amp_Taxi]

While I certainly can’t speak to how much the difference in prize money might have made to Lauren personally, I’d guess the difference is literally only a drop in the financial bucket of the horse’s owner (Mars).

[imbassetma]

I thought it was a bit odd and loud for Tim. A bit of, oh yeah, we’re at an American 5* for sure. Day 1 of dressage, the music was on repeat and some of the songs a bit screamy as well. If I heard Mad World one more time…

[endlessclimb]

@grzywinskia

“finally something to get the non event riders excited about our sport”

Or non-riders, period. I think it’s great, so long as they respect when a rider asks for a more hush environment. I love the security guy!

[Marigold]

A few thoughts on this year’s Maryland:

@Texarkana

I feel like every major event we are all screaming at the screen saying “why aren’t you showing so and so’s ride!?!”

Except Burghley. My god was Burghley TV well-produced. I didn’t have a single note. I would pay pretty much whatever I have to to get all top level events produced by that team. Pratoni was such a rude awakening right after that. Maryland was quite good, but Burghley TV is a luxury experience to be sure.

@FitToBeTied

I was hoping that XC would be properly influential like in other 5*'s but it wasn’t. More than half the field went double clear. Only two eliminations and four completes with jump faults. At that level it was a canter through the park.

Agreed. The time was much too attainable. I liked the design, and I really liked how safe it turned out to be, but no one should be making the time with a stop or a long route. Horses that are not known for their speed were there or thereabouts. It does not keep cross-country at the centre of our sport.

@Abigor

The problem is (or at least this is the impression I’ve got from the HHO article and Harry’s interviews) that he was told that his warmup routine could be accommodated then this was either not communicated to the warm-up stewards etc or someone changed their minds so once he’d started to warm up was told he couldn’t follow the routine agreed. In this case I think that’s deeply unfair to him, and obviously disadvantaged his dressage score.

@DogWithBigEars

I think the biggest problem with this is that, according to Lauren’s account, the head of the ground jury admitted to not knowing they were allowed to ring the bell twice, then failed to remove the time penalties.

We somehow had two major examples of officials coming down on the wrong side of things in a 25 rider field. This is by far the biggest issue of the weekend IMO. Harry should not have been promised something they would not or could not deliver. Lauren should have been shown a bare minimum of grace, as she was making it abundantly apparent she was trying to do the right thing (saluting over and over again) and yet no one would help her do it (it was within their rights to ring the bell again, but they did not, apparently because they did not know).

I’m not sure what needs to be done to fix this, but officials need to be treating our riders with fairness whenever possible or we won’t have any left to participate.

This summed it up nicely:

@Rallycairn

With Lauren’s absurd penalty, Harry’s mixed rulings, and the reports from dressage day of the bell ringing even before a finishing rider had left the ring (!) – what in the world? Seriously. This is supposed to be a competition at the highest level of the sport, not a wishy-washy clusterf*ck of people who don’t know the rules or even have a sense of fair play. Because changing a judgement at the last minute (Harry) or failing to respond to a competitor ready to go but needing clarification of when to start is not fair play. For me, it is deeply troubling.

[Willesdon]

Only the second year. There was a lot of earlier comment about how the organisers had listened to feedback from last year and made many improvements so let’s hope the 2023 edition will be better still.

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

If the organizers are listening, I really hope they don’t get hung up on the few complaining the course was too easy.

I’m so glad we didn’t need to add to the fatality thread thanks to this event. There was a great three days of watching eventing (online as well as in person), despite the unfortunate issues with the timer/warmup, and even the riders who did have “rideability” issues still made it through, and can take home the lessons for schooling and ride (hopefully) a better day soon in the future.

[Jealoushe]

Found the bit Elisa has, citation bit. Sounds super harsh.

Bit Bank Australia- For Horse Bits

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

Wow, that looks way harsher out of the horse’s mouth than one might suspect!

[Texarkana]

@Jealoushe

Found the bit Elisa has, citation bit. Sounds super harsh.

https://www.facebook.com/bitbankaustralia/posts/ok-bit-of-the-week-the-norton-citation-not-a-bit-very-commonly-seen-and-certainl/792680064080402/

In racing, I always just called that a Norton. I’ve never seen a TB use it with a strap (though people do use shur wins), but STBs have a Norton strap that I guess is what she was trying to accomplish with the flash.