I hope it isn’t as simple as the rider’s perspective, because if so that seems pretty problematic. But, I do also appreciate the FEI trying to intervene early with a horse/rider pair who may just not be on their game enough.
Did anyone see his round on the livestream?
I’ve heard from others who did and said it was pretty messy the whole way around.
FEI isn’t about to display that at the Olympics…
I don’t know. I watched the videos on his FB (linked below) and nothing about it said dangerous riding to me. At the very least, I’ve seen Boyd, WFP, Ros, and plenty of others have far worse blips and not get pulled up for DR. That said, those were only two combinations shown and there could have been moments in between the GJ saw that made them think “we’re only a few fences in and this isn’t getting better.” The point may have been that a more experienced rider would have retired at that point.
This is one of the biggest problems with our sport (and life) in general. We want our cake and want to eat it too. How many times have I heard mutterings about riders who should be pulled up and weren’t. In this case an educated group of officials made a very difficult decision for the safety of this horse and rider. I don’t give two monkeys about the Olympics. Safety is first. I’d rather they pull him up 30 seconds to early than even a second too late. We could be having a much different conversation. I support the officials.
I watched it and cringed quite a lot. The description I’d give is a “series of bad jumps” and he absolutely should’ve been pulled up for the horse’s welfare.
Iirc, there was more than the single issue at the coffin, I think possibly some sketchy stuff through the water? I’ve seen the pair before and they didn’t look like that at all. Completely the right decision to pull them up IMO.
From that very short Facebook clip, the rider currently lacks sufficient technique or experience to ride safely at 4* level. Good decision.
The FEI hardly has control over any horse and rider’s performance at the Olympics.
I was watching the horse&country livestream and agree with previous posters that it was not nice to watch the round. IMO they never really looked like they got going properly with any sort of flow.
Lithuania is such an undeveloped country when it comes to animal welfare,so its not surprising,that the rider and the LF don’t get the message regarding “dangerous riding”,- hopefully this will be food for thought and hopefully re-evaluation of their understanding of the
concept of animal safety.
oh sure they do, those are FEI officials who gave him the DR.
I’m not saying they did it specifically to stop him from going but they stopped it before it could be seen….
I said “at the Olympics”, not before.
I mean FEI officials will be there and will certainly have a say on rides if they don’t see something they like.
By my understanding, the FEI provides the experts and specialists who then work with/in/alongside both the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Olympic Delivery Authority of the nation selected to run the Olympic competition. The IOC has very little to no equestrian knowledge, and similarly for all the other participating sports, so it relies on the various international sport governing bodies to arrange the actual events during the Olympic competition. The IOC accredited equestrian officials are usually rebadged FEI.
To volunteer at London 2012, we Eventing people were given a secret code to insert into our application form. This ensured only those with the correct experience were offered specialist roles across “the field of play”. Greenwich Park felt very similar to a normal British Eventing competition, with a few extras.
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