Fine. I watched them.
Her stadium round. What people don’t post is that she had a bad spot on fence two. Hwin takes a long spot and if you stopped the video at 1 minute you’d see it. Who hasn’t and who has not had it work. she face plants the fence but remains up.
Let’s pause for a moment. You’re riding prelim stadium, you fuck up a spot on fence two and somehow after a face plant are still, what would you do? Not a rhetorical question. What would you do? Stop right there and end the round? You’re still on. horse is not hurt. you face three and jump it. Do you stop now, because of the fuck up at 2? Please Ford…at what point should she have stopped?
After that they complete a round and since that has been up for over a year, to pull it out now and say “ZOMG she’s a witch” is disingenuous. What I noticed was even after that mess at 2, Hwin had her ears forward. Tim Roake dropped four rails at Rolex and folks said “Well his horse does not like verticals”. Ummm, Ingrid got 16 penalties and stunk up Badminton with her round please let us vilify her. Hwin cleared a triple no issue, but couldn’t figure out combinations. I have seen worse, at Badminton, first round stadium. What I saw was a horse still willing, but not ready for Prelim. I’d love to take her on cross country once I got to know her, and her me.
So lets’ talk about the cc video. Hwin jumps the first two nice and her ears are up forward and she looks like she’s enjoying her run. At 30 secs she is presented with a Prelim brush which means it is a 3’6" solid with brush to almost 4’ (6" max). At 27 secs Hwin says “No fucking way” Elisa says you will do this. At 28 secs they straighten and Hwin jumps, not the center but the left side which means she jumped over 4’. having ridden a horse that will not touch green since it never schooled brush, I could see Hwin questioning Elisa, I could see Elisa saying you will do this and she did. Sterling was presented with a 2’11 solid and 3’5" brush top. He never had seen that before He questioned, I said we will do this and he did. At 33 secs we see her jumping the second brush, still not brushing so much but less hesitation, Stop the video at 44 secs as they go over a massive log. Oh my, ears pricked looking at the next element, which was water.
At 48 secs you can see both legs starting up, the left lagging. Still within 48 secs we then see the right over but not the left which might mean a rider error, because clearly Hwin was willing to do the in the water question. At 49 secs we see that Elisa, completely slipping the reins stays on the horse and by 50 secs, Hwin’s ears are forward again. At 53 she gives a slap encouragement to the horse as they move out. At 1 min they take a open rail fence with out any problem.
So, I watched the videos. Please feel free to tell us what you see. After this event Elisa took Hwin off competition for a year and stepped her back to training so yeah, she fucked up at badminton with her 4* horse, because the nature of the sport requires her to make choices, sometimes one’s that don’t turn out. She had a shitting round with a Mustang that no one paid any attention, didn’t note she backed off, didn’t note that she dropped to training, but were happy to bring it up a year later to show what a shit she is with horses.
I posted a record because I didn’t need to see a video, because I’ve seen horses pushed up the levels so fast that they are burnt out by the time they get to upper levels and we say it’s the horse’s fault, not the rider. In the case of Hwin, she was not pushed up, she was tested, found wanting and pulled back. Elisa mad a bad decision. She’ll pay for it, but in the scheme of things, she does not rate such vitriol unless she repeats.
As to the rest. We can take it off line after this if you wish, but I’ll say this. I’ve ridden for 10 years which is not a long time by some. But in those ten years I’ve been trained by some of the best, I’ve listened to their commentary, I’ve challenged their views and have been schooled. I’ve ridden a tired horse, I’ve ridden a horse that will give you the moon if you don’t manage. I’ve been broken by a horse, lifted to the top by horse, but never have thought to put myself or my personal gains in front of the horse’s welfare. I’ve taken the blame and when the horse said no, I worked with folks to help me get the horse to say yes willingly or we don’t do it. The fact that you’d measure comments by the “experience” or time in saddle is what narrows your view for even a child can school an adult if they step outside their ego.
