I trust an Olympic judge to say if a horse is in the right shape to do a GP test or not. If it had Fouarge that upset, it was a problem.
It’s likely that the judge saw more than we were able to see. The judge watched the horse warmup around the outside of the ring, and had the horse go by right next to Fouarge, and could hear much better the foot falls and the horse’s movements are much more clear to someone with that good an eye. And as for why Fouarge spoke up and no one else did…vive la France. Vive la difference.
I think it is also likely that the official response we hear is more about the tidiness and good news and PR of the Olympics than anything else.
I think horses are not excused unless they are consistently uneven thru most of the test in all 3 gaits. We had that discussion about horses with stringhalt being off at the walk but not being disqualified. The horse has to be consistently off at all 3 gaits to be excused.
And if signing up for these competitions takes all the control out of the owner’s hands, so that the coach or others decide if a rider can decline to ride or not, why would Balkenhol put a horse in the ring that another judge says is not fit to do the test? After many years at that level, Balkenhol probably knows Fouarge very well, realizes just how Fouarge would react, and is very aware of how a large number of people would react very negatively to seeing Brentina perform that way…really, none of this is adding up at all, either the suggestion that Brentina just spooked and was uneven due to tension, nor the theory that given the rules Balkenhol would knowingly decide to put a not-fit horse in the ring. Neither of these things make any sense. There is missing information.
And no. Spooking and tension does not make a horse THAT uneven.
