Badminton anyone?

[ChasseurSauteur]

Question from an h/j rider: there seem to be a lot of comments by riders on the influence of the show jumping footing on the results (along the lines of “dead ground”, “impossible to push off of.”) Was this a factor of the weather or par for the course for Badminton?

In jumperland, riders tend to be extremely picky about the quality of the surface (to the point of scratching en masse if it looks to be subpar.) Venues like Spruce Meadows invest huge sums of money into ensuring that the footing remains very jumpable even in monsoon conditions. Does a similar expectation not exist for a world-class event like Badminton?

(Also, what awesome riding and horsemanship on display this weekend.)

[azeventer]

[QUOTE=JP60;7572595]
I remember you, you were a voice of reason…I really want to walk away from y’all and I will after this, but I just cannot get you people. 2/3…2/3 of the field, a field with top riders, did not finish., You wave it off like “well they should have ridden better” or "that was a “real Eventing course, shame on those that couldn’t finish”. That’s what y’all sound like. Suck it up soldiers, this is war.

Fastnet had a race back in the late 70’s. In that race multiple boats were lost, people died, skipper’s continued with the mentality that "we can tough it out…until they could not. Ted Turner coined a phrase that created a lot of controversy when he he stated “there’s a fine line between racing and surviving, we raced the whole time”. He also raced on a 70 ft yacht that was not in the middle of the Force 10 storm that killed people.

This sport is not about rotational falls, it is not about testing frangile pins, it is not about losing 2/3’s of a field and then having the rest look like crap in stadium. Endurance? yes, but while skippers (re riders) will make the decisions to go despite the warnings, it is up to smarter people to say, not this, not today.

If y’all think that Eventing is about wiping out more then 50% of a competition list and calling it a fair course…no one made time…more then a third had penalties who made it…that was not competing, that was surviving.

No, I really want to support this sport at the upper levels, but not with a collective viewpoint that cannot question, that pushes aside valid statistics for the emotional viewpoint of “watch how those 35 did, see how fair it was?” Clearly I don’t agree, certainly most may think I have no valid position to have such an opinion, and you may be right. However, as Vineridge pointed out, the general public and by extension some even in this sport will look on those numbers and have their own feeling and I doubt it will be one of a “fair course”. They wont watch 6 hours of video, they wont have run a 4* course, they will only see that good horses got hurt, top riders fell off, most the field didn’t make it and they will ask, why? Fair course, horse friendly wont be their answer.

Cheers[/QUOTE]

I agree with a lot of this. I am all for making the cross country a challenge, and I do not want to have the sport become a dressage test with jumps, but is this REALLY what everyone wants the sport to become? Survival of the fittest? Do we REALLY think a course on which less than half of the starters finished is cause for celebration? If any of the horses or riders HAD sustained a serious injury, (and it’s lucky that no one did…there was a rotational fall, if you all remember. ANY time horse and rider walk away unharmed from a rotational fall, that is da** good luck, no matter what you say), I daresay the commentary about the course would be much much different. Now…I DO believe that the weather was probably a big, big factor in the completion rate this weekend, and that very likely the course would have yielded much different completion rates had this not been a factor. Very likely it was a very tough, but fair test, but not in these extreme weather conditions. Certainly the debate of how to take into account the possibility of weather and other such factors and how they should effect course design is a good one to have…do we want course designers to take things like the possibility of bad weather and modify their designs “in case?” Is this even doable, given all of the unforseen factors involved? Have contingency plans in place? Maybe yes, maybe no, I can see both sides. What I AM perplexed about is the general attitude that I seem to be seeing here that says…“oh yay! 1/2 of the field didn’t make it around, but no one was hurt, so good job, all!! Only the best survive! This is the way eventing should be!” Yes, this used to be a cavalry test, but it done for sport now, not to prepare one to ride off into battle…what other sport out there would cheer if less than 50% of the players couldn’t even finish the game? Anyway…my opinion, for what it is worth…hopefully lessons were learned from this weekend, whatever they may be…I think the goal of all involved is to make the sport better, while still keeping horses and riders as safe as possible…

[tlw]

As it relates to the weather and course conditions, does anyone remember Bruce Davidson and Little Tricky at Rolex in 2002? Any thoughts on how that pair would have done on x-country this week-end?

[nzrider]

[QUOTE=azeventer;7572773]
I agree with a lot of this. I am all for making the cross country a challenge, and I do not want to have the sport become a dressage test with jumps, but is this REALLY what everyone wants the sport to become? Survival of the fittest? Do we REALLY think a course on which less than half of the starters finished is cause for celebration? …[/QUOTE]

I don’t think people are going “yay only half the field finished!” I think its more a case of “why did only half finish” and the answer is two-fold. Firstly the course was hard, it was definitely a step up from the last few years. Unfit horses probably wouldn’t have finished in ideal going either. Secondly, the weather was definitely a factor for some riders, making the going deeper and adding skids and slides on take-off and landing.

And I also wonder a little bit, that if it wasn’t a WEG year, some of those riders that retired early in the course and will head to Luhumlen instead for a hopefully good run to impress the selectors might have carried on instead and taken the 20 pen on the chin.

Was the course terrible and unfair and we must immediately sack the course designer? No I don’t think so. I think it was more a “series of unfortunate events” type scenario that set xc day up for a load of non-completions.

[JER]

[QUOTE=JP60;7572310]
You had just about the 3rd of the entries make it through cross country. All this talk about “horse friendly”, yet we had one rotational, another slamming into the middle of a jump, some limping off course (and yes, later they were fine). [/QUOTE]

This is CCI**** eventing. This is what happens. AFAIK, there were no serious injuries, perhaps not even any real injuries (not sure about a foreign rider who fell hard early on).

It’s not supposed to be easy to get around. It should take all of your skill and experience, and test your horse’s cleverness. Otherwise, it’s not a CCI****.

@retreadeventer;7572492

Perhaps this Badminton will start the reclamation of the sport. One hopes.

This seems to be the prevailing thought on the H&H board. Many of those posting were there, and have been there for many Badmintons. (I’ve been to about a dozen or so. I thought this was a proper Badminton.)

[QUOTE=3dazey;7572400]I will strongly encourage anyone who feels (understandably) critical based on statistics alone, to somehow find a way to view the xc coverage in its entirety (I was so lucky to be able to watch all 6+ hours live on BBC Sports) before you begin to cry foul. It was tough, but I thought very fair and what a 4* should look like. I think many pairs were not up to the very big challenge presented and the weather was certainly the wild card. I anticipate that many riders will up their A game and be on the money next time out. Some will realize they have a 3*, not 4* horse. And some did just have bad luck. It happens.

i was so thrilled to see how the frangible pins are now developed to such a high standard that they are mostly doing the job we always hoped they’d do, reliably.[/QUOTE]

Agree with the above in its entirety. The falls were innocuous. The refusals and run-outs were earned.

And to anyone out there who expects perfect conditions in England in the spring – that’s just not reality, and it has never been reality.

I saw the winning mare at exactly one XC fence. I said to my friend ‘That’s an attractive horse’, at which point she promptly hung a leg and looked for a moment like she was going over. She made a nice recovery, and they galloped on. Never thought I’d just seen the winner go by.

[3dazey]

[QUOTE=CaitlinandTheBay;7572617]
Now, I know nothing s take this with the most salt.

Perhaps, without the conditions it could have been a fair course. However with the conditions, I don’t really feel that to be true. The course designer needs to take into account that anything could happen weather wise. Will that mean that sometimes people will end up with a much easier course if the weather behaves? Maybe. But if it keeps people safer and finishing, I’m all for it.

It’s great that frangible pins exist, but lets not forget that we dont actually want them to break. Broken pins mean that the horses aren’t actually getting successfully over the fence. I’m sure it’s hard to walk the line between making it a true jumping test, and making it dangerous. In this case, though, I’m calling foul.[/QUOTE]

Hell yes I want the frangible pins to break. Because the best of horses and riders can and will make a mistake, and we never want that punished by a rotational fall and/or avoidable injury. I have been somewhat on the fence about them (no pun intended) until this event, and am now fully behind the technology. I think they have got it right.

[Willesdon]

An interesting read, all the comments. Thank you to everyone.

Having walked the course on Friday, the presentation of the fences was fantastic, very inviting and horse friendly. They were also really big, every one of them, and there was not a let-up to be found on the course. The designer used the ground to tremendous effect. Even the second fence, a simple log in some trees, required precision riding to maintain a line through those trees. Right at the second to last, two offset boxes, the rider required concentration and precision as they approached through some tress. The black-flag alternatives, I thought personally, were often confusing and some I had to watch before I could understand how to ride them. The straight lines demanded positive riding at all times - but, as many found out, not so much that the horse ran out of puff at Huntsman’s Close or the Quarry.

Overall, the rider had to ride what was under them at every point of the course and the horse had to read every fence: together a real mental test for the pair. A test of horsemanship and skill.

As to WEG, a horse of a different colour. Like the Olympics, it is it NOT a 4* event, more a sort of 2.5* - 3* that allows the top countries to engage in a real competition and the lesser nations to develop their sport by just getting around.

Badminton form is probably is not a guide to WEG selection. It is, however, a tremendous guide to the very best riders. A unique event.

[GotSpots]

[QUOTE=Willesdon;7573023]
As to WEG, a horse of a different colour. Like the Olympics, it is it NOT a 4* event, more a sort of 2.5* - 3* that allows the top countries to engage in a real competition and the lesser nations to develop their sport by just getting around.

Badminton form is probably is not a guide to WEG selection. It is, however, a tremendous guide to the very best riders. A unique event.[/QUOTE] I’d disagree with you on this one point - the WEG is traditionally a pretty solid four star, and not like the Olympics (which, I agree, is often closer to a three star with a lot of options to help folks get around). You often see quite a substantial difference in the XC difficulty between the WEG and the Olympics, at least historically. As for the predictive value of this year’s Badminton, while I do think we saw a lot of folks retiring and re-routing early in the course once they had a problem so as to enhance their WEG chances, those who did get around successfully will at least feel better about their ability to make a WEG team.

[snaffle1987]

[QUOTE=JER;7572916]
This is CCI**** eventing. This is what happens. AFAIK, there were no serious injuries, perhaps not even any real injuries (not sure about a foreign rider who fell hard early on).

It’s not supposed to be easy to get around. It should take all of your skill and experience, and test your horse’s cleverness. Otherwise, it’s not a CCI****.
QUOTE]

“This is a CCI**** Eventing” is not an acceptable answer and it should never be an acceptable answer, EVER. I’m not sure about the rest of the viewers; but the fact that no one was seriously injured or KILLED was a miracle. Yes, a cross country course at the top of the game should be challenging and require good navigation skills but it should never be so over the top that you are risking life and limb of your steed just to make it half way through the course and 2/3 of the entries forfeit halfway through for the sake of their animals. This is a sport and it is only a sport because of the animals beneath the riders on course. Time to start thinking about those animals a little more. We all would like to see them continue on to stadium alive and sound; and I’m sure their riders would too. Badminton is a premier cross country course in the world and lets be honest; the weather 85% of the time is less than desirable and that SHOULD be taken into consideration. Lets be honest; no course or massive jump is worth gambling your horse’s life on.

[gr8fulrider]

From Mary King’s Facebook:

What an eventful Badminton, and a very disappointing one for me and many others. Dear Archie did a beautiful dressage test, just about managing to control his enthusiasm, and was in the hunt with 42 pens. I really thought the relentlessly big XC course was right up Archie’s street, and I am sure it would have been if the ground conditions hadn’t been so energy sapping, and if he had been a few years younger. But after he jumped immaculately around the first part of the course he started to feel one paced. Following a very sticky jump through the owl hole at the Outlander Bank (where I was lucky not to fall off!), he felt a bit flat and I had no hesitation at retiring when he stopped at the 2nd part of fence 16. There were so many problems throughout the day with only 23 out of the 87 starters going clear, and no-one getting the time. Luckily there were no horses or riders badly hurt.

She is not one to whinge (trying out my proper English) overly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkg0DHhKOTw

[Willesdon]

but the fact that no one was seriously injured or KILLED was a miracle.
Not luck or a miracle but careful design. Those pins worked, the ground preparation worked, the TD consultations worked, the rider briefing worked and the decision to remove elements of the Mound and the Quarry worked. The fact that there were incidents all around the course indicates that it was well designed.

[goodmorning]

Did you watch Mary’s round? She did the horse no favors at that bank. The ground otherwise took it’s toll on her horse.

To think about it another way - you needed a 12.5-13.5min horse to get around this course, and a muddier at that. Pau gassed many horses, and I bet if the course was as ‘easy’ as Pau it still would have difficult…and is that the same course designer as WEG?

[gr8fulrider]

[QUOTE=Willesdon;7573116]
Not luck or a miracle but careful design. Those pins worked, the ground preparation worked, the TD consultations worked, the rider briefing worked and the decision to remove elements of the Mound and the Quarry worked. The fact that there were incidents all around the course indicates that it was well designed.[/QUOTE]

I’m probably a couple of months of lessons away from riding as well as Mary King, and have ridden fewer 4* than her, so I try not to judge overly. Maybe when my horse and I have a few more competitions under our belts I’ll give Mrs. King a call and offer my advice.

[gr8fulrider]

[QUOTE=goodmorning;7573118]
Did you watch Mary’s round? She did the horse no favors at that bank. The ground otherwise took it’s toll on her horse.

To think about it another way - you needed a 12.5-13.5min horse to get around this course, and a muddier at that. Pau gassed many horses, and I bet if the course was as ‘easy’ as Pau it still would have difficult…and is that the same course designer as WEG?[/QUOTE]

I’m probably a couple of months of lessons away from riding as well as Mary King, and have ridden fewer 4* than her, so I try not to judge. Maybe when my horse and I have a few more competitions under our belts I’ll give Mrs. King a call and offer my advice. Meantime I figure her observations carry some weight.

[JP60]

[QUOTE=goodmorning;7572603]
Jf really? “Shame on you who couldn’t finish?” Unfortunate you interpret the words like that; quite the opposite. I’ve referred to many as good horsemen/women. [/QUOTE]
Perhaps you did, perhaps others implied less positiveness for every time y’all espouse the position of “fair” and “horse friendly” you look beyond the reality of what went on. Horse friendly means what? That the horse can figure a question out on its own? That it can gallop fences in stride? That if given the right input it wont refuse a fence? Explain horse friendly then explain the number of refusals and/or the interesting discussion about how at least one rider was “laying on the leather”. Fair course? Define a “Fair course” when a rider has no let down jumps (this according to some posts). Is a fair course one where if a rider makes a mistake they are not penalized with a rotation or braking of a pin? Is it a fair course when top riders fell off of their regular mounts?

You and JER want to ignore numbers with emotional viewpoints of what defines Eventing. To JER it’s the “Well at least no one got seriously hurt (this time)” position which implies that those who did not finish, did not have what it took to ride a 4* course. Please stand in front of Mary King or WFP or the team that rotated over a fence and ask them, why didn’t you have what it takes to finish a 4* course. You and JER and others brush away numbers with “That’s 4* Eventing”, no, that was surviving that this should not be an extreme sport for either horse or rider.

Frangible pins were invented for a reason. We can’t have jump cups out there.

Frangible pins were invented to protect both horse and rider from a terrible injury. There were meant to stop the “rare” situation of a horrible jump gone wrong. They were not meant to be tested, not once, but multiple times in one Event. You are right, we don’t have jump cups out there, but FPs should not start to be viewed as an alternative to that either.

But you’ve already made your mind up.

The only thing I’ve pushed is that when there is sure a large number of eliminations, when stadium produces many faults the course, the conditions, the EVent planning should be questioned to determine were the best interests of the horses and riders met.

How many 4* events had less then half the field make it to SJ day? The success numbers should not be “Well no one went to the hospital”, but maybe, no one fell or no horses were eliminated. The fair should be in finding the right balance of a challenging course with a safe course.

If I have the time I may look back at numbers to see if this, 35-40% completion is the norm or is it outside the norm. I would hope for the latter and try to learn from it.

You mentioned that I’ve made up my mind, yet my mind is open to the possibility of something other then “nothing to see here, move along” or “Well, that’s just eventing at 4* level”. Let’s find out.

[riderboy]

The attrition rate doesn’t bother me. The injury rate does, and thankfully it was quite remarkably low for such an inherently dangerous sport.

[wanderlust]

I suspect the low injury rate was a function of it being a WEG year and having Luhmulen as another option. Riders seem much more interested in saving the horses for WEG rather than getting a Badminton completion.

[DLee]

@JP60;7573176

How many 4* events had less then half the field make it to SJ day? The success numbers should not be “Well no one went to the hospital”, but maybe, no one fell or no horses were eliminated. The fair should be in finding the right balance of a challenging course with a safe course.

If no horses were eliminated I would question that as being a success as far as eventing is concerned. If that’s the case we might as well go buy a fancy dressage horse who can jump a little bit. Or just stick to dressage.

[Madeline]

[QUOTE=wanderlust;7573276]
I suspect the low injury rate was a function of it being a WEG year and having Luhmulen as another option. Riders seem much more interested in saving the horses for WEG rather than getting a Badminton completion.[/QUOTE]

I was interested to see many riders retire after one refusal or a couple of shaky fences. I have NO gripe with pulling up when you are out of contention, but I would love to know how many of the 18 retirees said, “This isn’t working for me, I’m not going to have a top 10 finish, and I’m stopping now so I can play another day.” This tells me that maybe the course wasn’t too hard, but that the riders are getting smarter. And that would be a Good Thing.

[JER]

[QUOTE=JP60;7573176]
How many 4* events had less then half the field make it to SJ day? [/QUOTE]

Lots.

More so now at Badminton since there’s an option to reroute to the Luhmuhlen CCI****. Used to be that there was nothing else till Burghley – you just had Punchestown CCI*** and Luhmuhlen CCI***.