but if that is what she usually rides in, I don’t see the problem. He has even been there before, and he has certainly done Kentucky, so it shouldn’t be the crowds that had him so riled.
I was also very impressed with Ariel and very very impressed with the horse. The first quarter of the course on Saturday, she was by no means pushing for time and still managed a very quick round in the context of the day. He’s up there with Chatwin and Vassily de Lassos in terms of quality up-and-comers, and that’s a big compliment.
She is part of the broader “team” and we do have a long way to go before the Tokyo team is actually decided, but 2020 feels like a stretch. However, World Championships in 2022 and Paris in 2024 when the horse would be 12 and 14, respectively, is definitely something to cautiously look forward to.
With only three team spots for 2020 and Boyd & Thomas being an all but guaranteed pick (and rightfully so), the end of the 2019 fall season and the 2020 spring season is pretty wide open for about 10 different horse/rider combinations, in my opinion.
One bright spot on XC was how much better I thought the horses finished than I remember seeing in the past. No exhausted horses stumbling across the finish line and it looked like the majority had plenty of gallop left leaving the last water. Very very good to see.
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Bit late commenting but that XC course just seemed brutal. I definitely recognize that there would have been way more and worse falls without clips/pins, but that white oxer combination had me holding my breath every time I watched a rider go through. The ones that cleared them even looked like they were having to give a massive effort to get over them.
For anyone curious, there were about 10 rider falls and 5 horse falls. 5 rider falls and 1 horse fall were at the maltings. 3 horse falls and 1 rider fall were at those gates. There were a ton of pins activated at the trout hatchery but only 1 rider fall. Just from a quick glance at the fence analysis.
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Quotes about Harbor Pilot from HSB:
he’s very Irish, very quirky, can get very excited, he bucked her off at home during trot sets.
He’s a lot of horse and some days he’s pretty wild.its just him.
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My issue with the combination at the Maltings was that the way the line was oriented set you up to jump a very wide, very airy open left handed corner off the left lead, which mechanically sets you up for a fall. The horses that jumped it well almost all swapped to the right lead about two strides out and carved the angle toward the apex of the corner.
Obviously, getting a change to the corner is not something I’d want to see people trying to ride in that scenario so you almost had to hope your horse picked up on the joke and did it on their own. Just an unnecessary question, in my opinion.
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That’s very perceptive— I hadn’t noticed that about the leads but it makes senses. I feel like this combination crossed the line from being a scope/accuracy test to being a set-up for failure.
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For anyone trying to watch I was able to get the Burghley XC on demand using a VPN (free app on my phone) and setting it to “UK”. A bit of a hassle, but thankfully it worked. I didn’t see XC available anywhere else as an on demand other than the bbc iplayer.
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I believe that the commentators said that Tim Price (on Bango, maybe also on RSB) had looped to the right before approaching the first jump of the combination at the Maltings, approaching differently than most, which makes a lot of sense if it set up the right lead for the corner and thus a better jump without the need to swap just before.
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https://livestream.com/burghley/events/8799670
Look to the right hand menu, XC is split into chunks.
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My thoughts exactly.
Ariel and her horse have proven they are deserving of funding to go back to England or Europe to compete over the next couple years, giving her more top level experience, then she may be a strong choice for WEG or Paris. Way too early to put her on the Olympic team for Tokyo.
At Burghley her biggest obligation was to her horse and herself. I am not at all certain she would have done so well with team or country pressure on her.
She needs more experience before getting thrown into the team high pressure environment.
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Ugh… of course I didn’t go through that one because it explicitly is labeled SJ. Oh well, I like the full BBC programming without bouncing between separated videos so going VPN is working for me 
Oh it’s been a thing trying to run this all to ground all weekend. My home internet is too slow to fool with VPN, though I bet it is easier than the US facing pile of links 
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Thanks for the replay link. I also ran into issues, and I’m usually good at figuring this out – but any redirect I had, only showed dressage and SJ…
Forgive me, had a wedding this weekend – did not get to watch Burghley on the big tv in my bedroom, as per tradition in this household! Catching up now…
My thoughts as I watch Pt 1:
So sad for Arctic Soul and Gemma – glad it wasn’t worse. They are one of my favorites to watch.
I love Collien (Will Furlong’s horse).
I say it every year but gags really change the horse’s way of jumping.
Wish I could see more of Arthur and Toronto… his stride looks huge!
Those Joules fences look YUGE. Glad they’re frangibles. Seems like some horse are misreading…
Love Tight Lines… was he having an off day?
Thought Hill and Bingo Boy looked a bit hairy through the water. Nice pair though.
Imber looked like he forgot he was on XC for a second! :lol: Nice save.
This course is TOUGH!
Whew, Eliza’s Opposition Free is fresh! Some ugly moments before fence…
Gooooo Baxter and Indy 500!! Love this pair.
A few real hairy moments there with E Stoddart and Opposition…
Loved the smile on Becky Woolven’s face! Wish we saw more of her.
HOLY crap, that fall of Opposition and Eliza!! :no: so glad both walked off okay…
God the Cooper Leaf Pit looks terrifying - Indy 500 looks all game. So catty.
Onto Pt 2 of the replay…
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Take a look at Becky Woolven’s Facebook page and you will see she has posted some footage
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I don’t pay as much attention to upper level eventing as I used to, but back in the day when they were introduced the pins were suppose to make XC safer. But has it had the opposite effect? It’s allowed designers to create ever technical and even more brutal courses. Are we really seeing the number of horse falls reduced? Over the years if even half of the pin breaks had resulted in additional horse falls the number would have sky rocketed and people would be screaming bloody murder. So instead we still have all these falls PLUS all the pin breaks. (For the record rider falls don’t bother me any where near the level of horse falls–horse falls can seriously mess with a horse’s head and they are much more closely associated with rider injury and death than when a rider falls and the horse does not.) The pins are doing a nice job providing cover for some folks that may not deserve it.
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She needs more experience before getting thrown into the team high pressure environment.
My thoughts exactly. She looks good, and just like a first time horse at something like Burghley, you don’t want to overface a possible rising star. Just remember, Boyd screwed up so badly at WEG. He is STILL beating himself up over that. he definitely had something to prove at Pan Ams. He is experienced enough, but I still think the pressure on him was terrible. If you look at the pictures of him on xc down there he doesn’t really look happy.
Don’t throw Ariel in too soon. She definitely looks like another grant, maybe for a summer or 6 months overseas? Very exciting girl!
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I haven’t looked at the whole thread, so sorry if this was asked before. Just curious where Pippa Funnell has been? I remember her when she had Supreme Rock and Primmore’s Pride, but I haven’t heard anything about her for a long time (but I am pretty out of the loop). Did she take some time off from the sport? Did she just not have any top horses for a while?
This is an excerpt from a great article about her in EN by Tilly Berendt.
There are so many ways you can take inspiration from what happened today, when Pippa won the 2019 Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials with MGH Grafton Street. You can marvel at the margins – sixteen years since her last Burghley win, fourteen years since her last five-star victory, perhaps the longest gap between wins in the sports history. Or, you can watch and re-watch that cross-country round, unpicking the milliseconds to find out just how, exactly, she coaxed the eleven-year-old five-star debutante – a well-known ‘comedian’ with a penchant for practical jokes and jumping penalties – to a clear round, and one which very nearly made the time. You can catalogue the omens – the missing hat silk when Pip had lost her silk when winning Burghley last, the lucky number 77, a number so special that the rider has assigned it to the titular character in her Tilly’s Pony Tails book series. You can focus on love: the love of a doting, if exasperated, husband who flew back from a showjumping competition in Belgium to watch his wife at her best, the love of the horses in their expansive Surrey yard – “it’s the horses that have kept me going,” says Pip, after all. “They keep me young – it’s the belief in the horses, and the belief in their talent. It’s that pure love of the day-to-day graft working with them.” Or you can focus on something else entirely, something love-adjacent, something vital and vibrant and sewn up in colourful, crucial threads throughout the week. Something unsung and under-celebrated: the power of female friendship.
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Not trying to pick on fordtraktor, but quoting to make a point …
This is about the level of tolerance for risk and how different it is between individuals. And what the public expects to see. And, perhaps, how honest we are willing to be with ourselves.
(highlights mine)
There are doubtless many people who see yesterday in similar fashion to fordtraktor. And some of them are in leadership roles at the top of 5* eventing.
I, and many other people, have a very different perception. For one example - In spite of the frangibles, I saw I believe 3 horse falls with a horse flip – I believe all 3 would qualify as rotational. The kind of fall most likely to be fatal to the rider. Three, on one course in one day. (Have to verify how many on the replay, and where they occurred, if I find time.)
http://www.bdwp.co.uk/bur/19/ Go to “XC fences” …
One rider had two 20’s and an 11 from a knockdown that wasn’t pretty. Rough riding, aggressive but backward. Kept going. And then the ride ended with a horse fall.
Clearly we can’t leave everything up to good judgment by a rider who is determined to finish at all costs, because they aren’t making good judgments. We’ve seen that before.
One rider had two runouts and a break of the jump, all at the Maltings. That rider had the sense to retire.
In each case it was up to the rider to continue or retire. It isn’t just about the rider with bad judgment, there is a horse welfare question as well.
Lowering the risk doesn’t mean dumbing down or softening the sport. Clearly, because this course had the more recent safety technology, but still required elite-level riding to master it.
If a rider is out there who just isn’t handling the course well, something has to be added to how that is managed.
Maybe there is some combination of penalties that needs to be added to the E criteria.
Maybe a waving yellow flag to tell a rider with problems who is electing to continue that they must slow down and take the easy routes. They must back off or be pulled off. And if they continue to have problems, pull them off.
Something. Because as a sport, when we tolerate an unacceptable level of risk, we are asking for the eventual consequences to the sport as well as to the competitor – and to their horse. I don’t think any of us wants those consequences.
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