Holy crap. Watched those videos. That horse does not belong at that level. With how that stadium round was going I can’t believe she didn’t pull up. All I saw was a green horse being pushed over jumps she was not ready for at all.
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I can agree with that. If you listen to the commentators they say they have not have missed a Badminton since they were like 10 (spectating). So maybe they are a bit more used to seeing it.
I agree with Amandas blog post about the hanging legs. These horses are amazing jumpers, yet almost all of them hit the fences or hung a leg. It is concerning.
I think possibly the WORST thing I have seen this week, was EW commenting on her post, how the GJ said after the fall that they saw her at the gates and thought she was “jumping well” and that’s why they didn’t pull her up.
Ground Jury also needs to have a little dirt thrown their way. Zara and Scotty both commented how it was dumb she took those gates angled, yet the GJ seemed to think it was fine? The horse was already clearly exhausted at this point. It seems the riders, CD, and GJ are all on the same page, and we, are in fact the exception.
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What I said was not nasty. I would think that any decent human being doing a job, maybe even quite well, where a horrific injury and a death were the result of the work, would feel deeply about them. To suggest otherwise is even nastier; that’s suggesting that a general during war doesn’t feel for the soldiers that die; that the dead soldiers are no more than chess pieces to him.
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But seriously, did they do enough thinking and acting to ensure that such did NOT happen? I think that’s really the question here. If, for one example, Winter (as he said) designed the bank out of the water exit thinking it would be better for the horses – did he actually test that out? You can’t just try something like that out for the first time in competition! – was it tested first? In either event, there seems there is a collective nodding of the head that because Winter thought that would be an improvement, we can let go the fact that it worked out quite the opposite in the competition field.
Was enough done to assess the overall effect of the course, some of the technicality near the end, etc.?
I don’t think the point is that Winter tried to maim or kill, but that perhaps he did not do enough homework to try to ensure he didn’t. But that’s not to try to focus only on course design as the single problematic factor – but as one of several factors.
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I never said the US riders deserve to finish clear if their riding or training isn’t up to the standard (which is, I assume, what you meant by molly coddling). They don’t deserve that, and designing something that would allow them to do so only hurts them on a world stage. And yes, many do have some catching up to do to compete with the Europeans - no one is saying otherwise.
BUT I will say this until I am blue in the face: mistakes should not be paid for with blood. It is not molly coddling to ensure that horses and riders that make errors remain alive to come home. Everyone is a 4* rookie some time, and even Michael Jung makes mistakes. If the margin for error is so small that the options are perfection or else significant risk of permanent injury or death to horse/rider, that is not an acceptable punishment for not being “top class” enough. Stop using gore to prove how tough you are - that is why we have jumping penalties.
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Of course not you silly goose. What they or he did was make decisions. The decision could go one way or another. That blog post was a good viewpoint regarding the number of hung legs alone, most who got through. Some that hung did not. Eric made decisions that created the potential for those hung legs, those rotationals, those falls, because he designed a course that punished a mistake and no ride is perfect. The master himself pointed that out.
At the moment I am not using the word “blame”, but what I see lacking from the FEI is accountability. We had a horse fall that contributed to its eventual death (yes, not the fall, but the fact that it did and where does factor in). That was one of 7 and I don’t think it unreasonable that an inquiry into the design would be appropriate. We get cops to investigate fender benders, the NTSB investigates every transportation accident large or small to some degree and sports like NASCAR investigate and make visible changes to the sport, not to blame, but to reduce the risk of greater harm.
We have the technology today to capture every fence jump entry and exit, we have the technology to monitor a random selection of horses on course to truly measure the impact of a course on their physiology. The only thing we seem to lack is the will to make it happen, because…what the hell, it’s only a horse (thus spake the FEI).
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I know exactly what you were implying. I mean, he “produced” the badminton that produced those results, right. Of course he may very likely be feeling like everyone else. To suggest it was his fault (which you will not be able to convince me otherwise) is nasty.
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Fault? Blame? Where do you find that in my post?
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True, very true. Which makes me think… how many times have horses running at U.S. FEI events been pulled up b/c of fatigue? (Genuinely curious, as I honestly can’t think of any that were at least discussed here on the forums. I know there were a few at the bigger UK events in past years…) If riders are automatically given a YC if their horse is pulled up by the GJ, then that’s easier to track, but then again the FEI spreadsheet only goes back a year.
Also – I don’t think Elisa walked away from her horse “in disgust” in the sense that she was mad she didn’t make it around. Not everyone bounces right back up after a fall. She may have gotten her bell rung, she may have had the wind knocked out of her, but I honestly do NOT think it’s fair for people to vilify her and jump to conclusions that she “considers her horse a vehicle,” as FCF said, simply because she didn’t leap to her feet in 0.2 seconds and run over to her horse. I may not agree with her poor judgment prior to the fall, but I’m sure as hell not going to sit here and rake her over the coals from only seeing 20 seconds of post-fall video.
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Well since you quoted me about jumping to a conclusion, I’ll just reply that actions speak louder than words and her picking herself up and walking away from her horse in that context was very poor horsemanship, particularly in light of the ride she’d just given him. Even she has acknowledged this. You can rationalize, justify it however you please, but on it’s face, it’s still poor horsemanship in my book. If it makes me a bad person for feeling that way, I’m completely okay with that. 
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Two things -
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I have a real problem with attributing Shanghai Joe’s fall, injury, and subsequent euthanasia to eventing - as in adding him to the litany of horses lost in falls over jumps, collapsing on course, etc. Nugget parted company with his rider, ran around like a maniac as many horses do in those situations, skidded, fell and hurt himself catastrophically. Tragic, yes. Eventing related only in the sense that he was competing in an event. I have seen similar things happen at cross country schoolings, on trail rides, and shows at every level from 4-H on up - things like this happen ALL the time with horses although most thankfully without catastrophic injury. Don’t blame eventing for that one - that one was horses.
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I have been struck in the past - at the completion of some of these events - by well known riders who have had great runs - coming through the finish flags and not giving the horse much more attention than a pat on the neck as they are puling up. The team runs up and grabs the horse, the rider un-tethers and hops off, and then walks off to grab a bottle of water and do the interview without so much as a backward glance. That has struck me as callous as in “hey, I think if that was me, I’d be sticking with my horse.” But that’s why riders have teams there, and the teams take over. In Elisa’s case, we will never know what was in her mind - unless she can tell us, and it’s possible it may all be a blur.
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Hey, I never said you were a bad person, I just said it’s unfair to assume she was walking away because she didn’t get the result she wanted and thus label her someone who only views her horse as a machine. I think the gravity of the situation (no pun intended) had also hit her at that point and she was ashamed at her judgment to the point of not being able to look at her horse – at least that’s how I would feel. And as G&T says, we will never know what was in her mind at the time. I know I’ve been in situations – not necessarily falls, but other “traumatic” events – where I was borderline in shock from the high of “go-go-go”/tunnel vision and subsequent slamming of the brakes of my sympathetic nervous system. (At least that’s what I think it’s called… :winkgrin:)
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I am not condemning the course design outright. I am not ready to say outright that ‘course design caused 7 horse falls’.
The course was rideable - very much so - by the right pair. That was proven by any number of good trips - not just clean trips, but smoothly-navigated, no-stumbles trips. Some closer to the time than others.
Objectively looking at the top performances against the carnage in the rest of the field, I’d have to say that too many riders are running Badminton who should not be. It’s not the course, it IS the riders … but not all of the riders, just some of the riders - the ones who shouldn’t be there at all.
There needs to be a much finer filter applied to the qualifications and many fewer entries in both Badminton and Burghley. Cut it down to those who are truly able to handle the course, and the stats are perfectly ok.
Leaving the qualifications wider open and letting the riders decide if they are truly up to it is not working, year after year after year. It will never work. The competitive spirit, the need to say BTDT, is too great of a cloud over good judgment.
AN, MJ, WFP etc. will have an accident from time to time, there is no way to guarantee against all accidents. But the percentage likelihood of the accident is far lower for riders at the top level than it is for the others. And that’s at the core of safety in a risk sport. 4* is an elevated level of skill as well as raw talent and ability, and the criteria to enter needs to close out some of those who are getting in now. Not just to reduce the horse falls, but also to reduce the other scrapes and stumbles that so easily lead to a serious accident.
There have been very few human deaths at the 4* level, even looking back at history. 4* riding doesn’t kill people.
If that was directed at my post immediately preceding yours, I’m not sure what is the point of your remark. I wasn’t talking about deaths.
umm… these aren’t all 4*, but lots are…and many were trying to get there
Santiago Zone ARG Oct 16
Nikita Sotskov BLR Sept 16
Philippa Humphreys USA May 16 (Jersey Fresh)
*Caitlyn Fischer AUS April 16
*Olivia Inglis AUS March 16
*Guillaume Pucci FRA June 15
*Sabrina Manganaro ITA Apr 15
*Francisco Seabra POR/ESP Feb 15
*Benjamin Winter Ger Jun 14
*Jordan McDonald Can/GB Jun 14
*Cathal O’Malley² Ire Apr 14
*Tom Gadsby NZ/UK Aug 13
*Bruno Bouvier Fra/Por Mar 13
*Jo Rugman¹ GB Mar 11
*Sebastian Steiner Aut/Ita Sep 10
*Robin Donaldson GB Aug 10
- Elena Timonina RU May 10
*Dirk Grouwels Bel Mar 10
*Ian Olding Ire/GB Apr 09
*Jade South GB Oct 08
*Emma Jonathan GB Aug 08
*Stephen Moore IRE Aug 08
*Karen Rodgers IRE Apr 08
*Franz Graf AUT Apr 08
*Shannon Bloomfield GB Jan 08
*Eleanor Brennan GB/USA Nov 07
*Maia Boutanos FRA Sep 07
*Tina Richter-Vietor GER Aug 07
*Anke Wolfe GER Aug 07
*Elin Stalberg SWE Jul 07
*Julie Silly FRA May 07
*Jo-Anne Williams GB Apr 07
*Amelie Cohen FRA Mar 07
*Amanda Bader US Feb 07
*Kim Hyung Chil KOR/UAE Dec 06
*Mia Eriksson USA Nov 06
*Sherelle Duke IRE/GB Aug 06
*Caroline Pratt GB Sep 04
*William Booth USA Sep 04
*Cindy Burge USA Jun 04
*Samantha Hudson GB Aug 03
*Rhonda Mason 00
*Mark Myers Aus Apr 00
*Jemima Johnson GB Apr 00
*Peter McLean GB Sep 99
*Simon Long GB Sep 99
*Polly Phillips GB Aug 99
*Robert Slade Aus/GB Jun 99
*Peta Beckett GB May 99
*Keith Taylor USA Jun 98
*David Foster IRE Apr 98
*Tasha Khouzam AUS Mar 98
*Roberta Scoccia US 98
*Linda Riddle US 98
*Amanda Warrington USA Sep 97
*Sam Moore Ire/GB Sep 97
*Anna Savage AUS May 97
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To what measurement then is applied this qualification? There was a girl last year that had ridden and completed every 4* but Badder. Certainly she seemed qualified, but she got 60 at the lake jump and retired. HSB got 20 and retired?
The underlying point throughout has been that a course should not punish a mistake to the point where physical damage may result. Derek did it well at Rolex, Eric did it poorly at Badder. I’ll rephrase that his course created the potential to 7 horse falls. Could have been more, less, but it existed, because he created it so.
Sadly, the ones who really should be having this discussion are the ones that won’t, don’t, and most likely don’t care. Eventually what we say does not matter other than “I’m not going to ride there ever”“i’m not going to spectate live ever” and/or “I’m not going to watch ever”. In this regard, what Jealoushe posted to me indicates that Baddder will live on, harming horses, because the English crowd figures it’s just natural, it’s tradition.
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Do you have stats to back this up? I thought the studies showed much higher risk of Rotational Fall and injury at the higher levels?
I’m hoping Equiratings will help with the needed changes in qualifying.
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In theory that makes sense, but practically speaking, I don’t know how you weed it out for guaranteed success. Paul Tapner had a rotational fall, and you certainly wouldn’t have said he shouldn’t be among the entries. Yet some of the first timers did well. That’s what makes it so tricky to predict, when so much depends on the performance on the particular day, and how the course ends up riding. Should people have been able to predict so many hanging legs this year? I don’t know. That’s where I think you do have to step back and look at whether the course design was a factor, for evaluation and improvement. I too hope the Equiratings system will provide the nuance that helps sort out who is ready and who isn’t.
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Re: (1) riders rushing to check on their horses after a fall, and also (2) the related matter of riders patting/praising their horses after obstacles (this popped up in the Clark M discussion)
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Why are we reading so much into this and being so judgmental? Give the rider some time and space to regroup, ffs. There are people there for the horse. 4* riders aren’t callous, vehicle-oriented jerks. They’ve gone through a lot to get to Badminton, they’ve had a fall, they have a lot to cope with in the moment, mentally and physically.
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Some horses like praise, others don’t. Some riders are effusive, others aren’t. Given that we don’t see catch rides at 4* anymore, the horse and rider have developed a relationship that works for them, even if it might not be what you want to see out there. I’ve had horses who thrive on praise and horses who would be distracted and irritated by that during XC.
And now a funny anecdote: Earlier this year, at the modern pentathlon world cup in Los Angeles, one of our Canadian supporters watched a Ukrainian athlete get off his horse after a ride that started iffy but ended well. She leaned in and said to me ‘I just wish these people would pat the horse. Look at him.’ The Ukrainian had dismounted and turned away from the horse. He was looking at the ground, rummaging in his front pocket. This particular athlete is a real top competitor, the silver medalist from Rio and, in my limited experience, a very nice person. But here he was, hopping off the horse and turning away.
Then he turned back around. What he’d been looking for in his pockets was treats for the horse, which he promptly gave to the mare and made a big fuss over her. So much for our judgments.
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