You did note that other coaches on the course were encouraging their students to do the same?
ULR aren’t gods. They are competitive riders. Stop making heroes out of horsemen. He got dinged, so he was penalized for his decision. Maybe public flogging would be better?
He was lucky not to be eliminated for going off course.
Some of these stories remind me of a time I was cross country judging at a recognized Fair Hill show. I stationed myself on the inside curve of the two jumps I was judging. They weren’t far apart - say 10 stride straight, 10 on the curve, 10 straight to the jump. The intended path was mowed. I parked my car about 10 ft off the mowed path and initially put my chair fairly close to the path but moved it back after a horse got close.
Imagine my surprise when a horse and rider ran on the OTHER side of my car - intentionally. More than one rider (all amateurs as I had the order of go and marked it on my notes) chose a path on the other side of the car. This meant running in unmowed grass and cutting the turn so the path to the second job was not as straight.
At one point, someone complained to the TD that I was in the way. The TD came around and asked if I had moved since the start of the division. I told her I moved my chair back but my car never moved and I did notice some go behind my car. I asked her if I should move my car and she said no.
I remember when I first noted this on these boards, I was told by some I was still in the way. This post and my experience with the TD indicates to me that as strict as officials are with people who are walking the course not being in the way, they are also pretty strict with wanting competitors to stick to the path. Running a foot off the path is one thing, a short cut that winds you on the other side of obstacles to where the footing may not be checked for sturdiness and spectators, jump judges, and others are not expecting you can be dangerous.
To me, the difference between Doug Payne’s ride and the other competitor mentioned here is premeditation. While jumping a person is very dangerous, the other rider did not intend to do that and was not initially thinking that was a viable option. Doug Payne asked about his intent and was told it was not a viable option and picked it anyway. While his particular ride was not dangerous - going back to the horses that went behind my car in Fairhill - there could have been my pet dog there, they could have stepped in a hole and had a catastrophic injury, a child could have been there…it was so far off the path that it was not “prepped” for potential galloping horses. Similarly with Doug Payne’s path - if he knew it was not the intended path, it is reasonable to assume it was not “prepped” for galloping horses during his division.
So… my only comment is that this isn’t doing Doug any favours like he thinks it is. He’s making the time or shaving time but when he shows up to a big event and this is no longer an option (say it’s all roped off everywhere), will he then be able to make the time? He’s playing with fire and the only person it will effect is himself. JMO
This is an interesting discussion and I’m of two minds on the shortcut question. First, as to whether the footing is suitable, that’s the rider’s job to determine when walking the course. I’m sure DP walked the routes he was taking, including the shortcuts. Checking footing is part of walking the course.
Crossing through a gap in the ropes strikes me as sketchy, particularly if it was another part of the course and another horse might have been coming, or spectators walking thinking they were off the course, but the video didn’t look too terrible. That DP apparently got the “ok but risk’s on you” for another shortcut but not for this one is a little odd, but maybe he thought the PTB were ok with shortcuts.
Ultimately, FWIW, I don’t see DRs handed down willy-nilly, so am going to go with the theory that there was a good reason for it.
@LadyLawyer has helpfully clarified (quoted below) that I misread her original comment (quoted above):
As a result, my original comment (in italics, immediately below) no longer applies - left here for continuity of discussion.
If that were to be true, that makes it more frustrating for me, not better. The only way to actually change behavior in people is to make the consequence of the specific action you are disciplining clear and consistent. If they felt he was being dangerous on multiple horses, he should have been given the penalty on every horse where he took a shortcut. If they felt each individual action wasn’t worth penalizing, then none of them should have been (assuming they were all functionally equivalent).
Punishing “cumulative actions” is not something anyone understands well. If my dog pees on the carpet five times, and I watch him and ignore it the first four times and then scream at him on the fifth, he doesn’t understand why that’s happening. If, each time he does it, I stop him and take him outside, he’ll learn the action doesn’t work and change his behavior. As much as we like to think differently, when it comes to rules we really aren’t that much different than dogs.
We talk a lot on this board about how dangerous riding needs to be penalized more often, for safety reasons - people who are out of control can end up not only running into things (or jumping people?!) that they do not intend to, but can run through a distance to an upright or table and rotate, or run into a dangerous area like the canola field we’ve discussed at Rebecca and end up in serious trouble or worse. I don’t care at all about intent in this case, I care only about the result, because the result is what gets people killed (horses, riders, people on the ground, what have you).
If you do something dangerous, whether you mean to or not, you should receive a dangerous riding penalty commensurate to the level of danger demonstrated (warning, penalties, or elimination). It should be enough to inspire you to go home and make darn sure it never happens again, however it is you need to do that. If you do not do something dangerous, you should not be penalized. For me it is that black and white.
Per Doug’s Facebook post:
This appears consistent with the footing you can see in the video footage.
Doug does alot of upper level show jumping right? I wonder if he has kinda rewired his brain to look for the short cuts and plan them out? In show jumping where you have to be the fastest to win, you may take the inside turn to cut a little time and win. In SJ if you didn’t take the inside turn, you may have no chance of winning even if it’s not what the course designer intended.
From his video and explanation, he didn’t go outside the ropes. He went down a path intended for another division that was running the same day, and he checked the path multiple times throughout the day and walked it multiple times to confirm it was safe. Yes it may have been outside the intended course, but the course designer should have either roped that path off, or had a flagged passage where they wanted the rider to go.
I do wonder if the show jumping has changed the way he thinks and rides courses though, looking for those short cuts.
For the record, I do agree with you that especially at that level one would think you have enough control over a horse and said horse is experienced enough to NOT jump people. I also gleaned from this thread that there were two different sets of officials in charge. I was merely postulated a reason for the difference in penalties. Both different sets of officials have different though processes, and Payne’s infraction was not only obviously intentional but he was told there could be consequences. If you were warned and the nothing happened, you may be more brash the next time.
By “prepped”, I mean not only is the path mowed/checked for footing but also jump judges and photographers knew to stay out of the area and people walking cross country would reasonably know that a horse may pass by that area. I have seen plenty of photographers sitting on fences that were not in the division because it was a better vantage point, jump judges move their vehicle/sitting area for a better vantage point for a jump that may mean their vehicle is in the way of a jump not on course, and cross country walkers plaster themselves or move purposely out of the known path.
All of this means an unexpected path could result in a dangerous situation, not only from footing not checked but also a child, pet, person, equipment being now in the way. Payne may have walked the course several times but how many of those times were during his division where he could assess where jump judges and photographers would be? How could he assess where spectators and course walkers would end up?
All of this PLUS he asked and was told that was not the correct path…well, he may not like the assessment but maybe it will cause him to reconsider in the future and a potenial future accident is now prevented.
It seems odd to me that even with all the shortcuts he still didn’t make the time (he was 30 seconds slower than the fastest horse in the division and finished with 7 time penalties) and he was 20th after dressage so wasn’t really in a position to win unless there was a disaster.
So it doesn’t seem like it was worth the risk.Disclaimer, I have not seen the horse or the ride, this is just a random thought.
My thought on this is that he knows this horse’s typical speed is a little slower so he wanted to cut out distance where he could in hopes of making the time with out having to push the horse to go faster than it does best.
Bolding mine. I read @LadyLawyer’s post as one horse, multiple shortcuts, not one shortcut, multiple horses. Which changes the calculus a bit for me in terms of what we know we know.
Is there an official statement somewhere that names the location of the dangerous riding? If LadyLawyer’s information is correct, perhaps one of the other shortcuts he took is what tipped the scales toward the infraction. Maybe, maybe not.
I do think that more SJ influence is not what modern XC needs, so while this incident likely left a lot to be desired in terms of officials’ handling of the matter, I do understand the overall sentiment.
@Marigold but I did not say it was on multiple horses, I said DP took shortcuts and rode outside the galloping lanes more than once, meaning multiple locations throughout the course, on one horse, in one singular round … and the DR penalties were assessed to him on that horse.
So by cumulative actions, I meant the above situation, which I personally witnessed. I do understand what you mean when you gave the dog example, and I would tend to agree with you if that were the case, but that scenario was not present in this situation.
Ah, I misread (and thank you to @SecondInCommand for pointing that out as well). That makes more sense. I will update my comment above to reflect this.
I will say, if that is the case then I find him uploading the “single moment” on video to be disingenuous. It is perfectly reasonable to apply penalties taking the round as a whole into consideration, and to not present that while arguing you have been wronged is misleading.
At the risk of outing myself as a cynic, if you view the video as marketing, it makes more sense. And thank you, LL for the context.
The horse, Camarillo, is in the jog pictures on the Chronicle website today. It’s a beautiful horse.
Sure. But either it didn’t work, or this horse is quite slow. Either way it seems odd. I’ve walked courses where it was necessary to deviate from the mowed path to get a good approach to a fence/combination (particularly on a greener horse) and I would sympathize if that were case, but having it be solely to save time makes me wonder whether it didn’t actually save time or if he was just way, way up on the clock. And clearly he was expecting to be. I’m assuming he didn’t take any shortcuts on his 4* horse and it had a stop and only like 12 time penalties.
May or may not be helpful, but I’ve attended Jersey Fresh as a spectator for many years, and did some jump judging held at the Horse Park of NJ years ago for a lower level event. Everyone as a spectator always behaves as if the course is determined by the white ropes–in other words, if people need to cross them, they usually speed walk, and only do so if the course is clear of a horse. Not at Jersey Fresh, but at one event I was actually positioned not as a judge, but to hold up a white rope across a road to show riders which way to go, and to drop it so cars could pass when that part of the course was not in use.
Obviously, this isn’t relevant to the legal determining of any infraction, but I don’t know if the way the ropes are treated was in the back of the official’s mind. I have to say, just on a competitive level, the advice given to Payne did sound like he was being subtly discouraged from his shortcut, and it seems a bit bold to have risked it on a cost-benefit determination.
I couldn’t attend this year, unfortunately, and it looks like there weren’t as many spectators as usual. Perhaps they were afraid of setting a precedent for encouraging this type of “hack” when things are more crowded, and there might be a greater likelihood of a person standing by to get caught in the fray?
Re: my personal opinion, I’d need to see more than a single video!
There, is I think, an important point that’s been ignored. The person he galloped by – who states they never felt threatened or endangered was NOT a spectator, but a credentialed member of the press. And while I’m not casting blame on her, the reality is that press is granted extra access and take on extra responsibility for not interfering with the competition. It is/was the responsibility of the press to not be in the way and not to put themselves in danger–this is quite different than simply a spectator. Both the rider and the photographer have said that they never felt they were in danger and likely because of that the photographer did not make more of an effort to move farther away–which unlike a spectator–was her responsibility not the rider’s. (I’ve been a credential photographer at big time sporting events, athletes always have the right away and photographers aways have a greater obligation to that than spectators.)
There is no rule that was broken here about course negotiation. I think this is a crappy call. I think the officials–if they didn’t want short cuts taken–had the responsibility to flag the course appropriately. It’s an easy, inexpensive fix. If they missed noting this short cut prior to opening the course that is their own lack of diligence and/or laziness.
In this day and age when we are struggling to be competitive on an international level to be critical of people making the extra effort to be competitive while obviously well prepared for it is bone headed.
The officials that made this decision–because they are not random, mythical, unaccountable people in the sky:
President of the Ground Jury …Robert Stevenson (USA)
Ground Jury Member …Christina Klingspor (SWE)
Ground Jury Member …Peter Gray (CAN)
I can’t even remember how many times as a jump judge I’ve screamed “HORSE ON COURSE!!!” to an oblivious competitor course walking.
Assuming someone knows all the paths of all the levels running and that is why a rider has to stay on a path is a dangerous assumption!
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