JER- isn’t the goal of eventers to have a horse that’s good at all 3 phases?
Help me understand how making a passing combined dressage /SJ score would cause people to buy unsuitable horses?
I’d think it’d be the opposite. If your rides are good enough to move you to the CC phase, wouldn’t you want to have a horse you know would excel & make everything worthwhile.
My thinking is, if you can’t “pass” the dressage/SJ tests, it’s probably not safe to be galloping at solid fences & jumping down ditches into water.
Thank you Livie. The course designers and professional fence decorators I have assisted both here and at the WEG work quite hard at making the fences more readable and jumpable. Perhaps more understanding of how horses see needs to be incorporated, however having jumped the same obstacles both decorated heavily and not decorated heavily they do jump better having a bit more. The same person I have volunteered for introduced me to the “Chromatic Vision Simulator” app that helps you understand how a horse may see an obstacle. Bright red is a color horses don’t register well by the way.
Yeah, and what I find equally as appalling, is they just took the table off the course after she died, and continued on with the Intermediate division. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtqRgZej11s
What in the ACTUAL is going on here. ONLY in eventing do we cart away dead bodies, remove the culprit and carry on (ugh hard to type that considering) like nothing has happened. Where is the investigation? Why is the day not stopped? If this was not at an event, police would come and block off the area and do what they should. Why isn’t there someone out there, looking at the fence, at the footing, at the lighting, etc etc.
At the VERY VERY least can we make it a rule that if someone dies at an event the event is DONE for that day. Please.
No one has a right to come after anyone for questioning things if they don’t question why the event was not stopped.
Excuse me? I ride with a GP showjumper and jump clear nearly every outing. But thanks. Sorry, eventing has changed and so have the fences. A ground line on some of these fences could have saved lives.
The horse that can makeup for mistakes in Dressage with a rider who is more comfortable SJ is not necessarily the one you want to take XC.
I myself didn’t start out eventing. So let’s say this is a thing and I REALLY want to compete and I’m coming over from H/J land. I can compete just fine in a groomed ring jumping 3’6” on my made hunter. Let’s say the same horse is proficient in dressage and has the movement to make up for any small errors. Do you think that would automatically make me a safe rider on XC who makes good decisions that doesn’t cause injury or death to myself or my horse? I mean I can find eight jumps like a champ in a groomed ring, I can put down a good 1st level test. Clearly that means I can gallop at fences.
Or is the suggestion not for all levels just the UL? What if I have all the money in the world and find the upper level jumper who has schooled to 4th level in dressage. I’m totally safe running at solid fences right?
Trying to find that study, in the meantime I found this one; says fatal injuries at 1/17,000. It also has a table at the bottom with all the deaths until 2015 and the fences involved and what happened.
Attitude to risk-taking was the only factor predicting an athlete becoming injured (p = 0.023), and qualification level was the only risk factor for additional injuries among injured riders (p = 0.003). Our results suggest that injury prevention programs in eventing should also give attention to overuse injuries and that care should be taken when eventing athletes are licensed into higher qualification groups.
I will say - at CHP, a lot of the cost is born by the volunteers. Yes the CIC has a larger budget, but the volunteers who do the course for the rest of the year scrimp and save and bargin hunt because they love to do it. Not sure about other facilities, but the women who do it here are passionate as heck.
Gnep’s suggestion of learn to ride might be at play here. It could be that tables are causing these huge problems because people are rushing up the levels. So it’s not the tables themselves necessarily, but the holes in the training. Obviously not for everyone but in this case.
Is there a way to get someone to manufacture the EXO again?
I can name a half dozen horses who freak out in the dressage ring, but beast around Kentucky 5*. My previous horse would have excelled in combined tests, and I probably would have died out in xtry. Personally, as I am learning and getting more comfortable with xctry, I could care less what the horse does in the dressage ring. I want something brave, sensible and safe in xtry.
Yes you need basically and ridability. But you need that in all 3 phases.
Denali, Yes, I understand some what what you are saying. Sure, some people might fight thru the cracks & go purchase a horse better in dressage or SJ, just to get to the CC portion.
However, isnt eventing about being Good at all 3? To pass the combine dressage/SJ test shouldn’t be that difficult for most people, if they are at the correct level.
As it is now, anyone can go to the CC phase. At least with the pass/fail combined score, it would set some safety parameters .
If dressage/SJ aren’t important, why even have them as part of your sport?
One potential way to make eventing safer is to either get rid of the dressage entirely or make it a pass/fail third phase.
If that happened, then there’d be little value to a horse who had good dressage but was iffy on XC. You’d seek out the excellent, safe XC horse first and worry about his collected gaits after, if at all.
A blogger for CoTH has a horse that just does not like dressage but eats up XC. She routinely blogs about it. My horse isn’t as bad but she definitely prefers jumping to dressage.
My previous mare was an absolute nightmare in a ring. I never knew what I was going to get. Absolute grumpy mare who kicks out and refuses to walk because she doesn’t want to play that day, fine but I’m still not going to be happy, or okay just this one time. Amazing dressage tests in a field. Put her in a ring, and who knows. On XC she was a machine who took care of her rider.
ETA: a tag for @Alterforme I just saw your question.
