H&H have pics of the XC fences; https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/feat…-course-694923
I saw a video of that course. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a course that is less inviting. Stay safe out there.
Too many falls over fence 18b, an angled skinny brush into water. It doesn’t surprise me, seeing this jump. Why would this be designed? https://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2019/08/18b-2-620x349.jpeg
Looking at the fence by fence results, I see one fall and two retirements specifically at 18b - wondering what you are seeing that I am not?
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Anyone know what happened to Laura Collett?
You’re right, I meant 20b, which is the coluorful bird in the water. 3 horse falls there.
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Per EN reporting:
‘Laura Collett, whose gutsy round was full of the gumption that London 52 needed. But a slight misjudgement of the distance to 20B saw the horse catch his front legs, and some quick thinking and a last minute backwards scramble was all that stopped him from having a rotational fall. But it was too late for Laura, who tipped out the front door and had to make the long journey to the finish on foot.
“Luckily, he’s absolutely fine – in a way, it’s good to have that long walk back, because it means I can make sure he’s okay,” says an understandably heartbroken but perennially pragmatic Laura. “He felt amazing, and he was taking everything on, but he just got confused by all the twists and turns at the end of course. We ended up getting to 20B on no distance at all. I’m gutted – I came here with huge expectations. But we have to take the positives; he’s never seen a track like that, or crowds like that. He’s only ten years old and he has a bright future ahead of him. He trusted me out there today – it just didn’t come off.”’
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Results: https://live.rechenstelle.de/2019/lu…erboard01.html
https://tv.fei.org/video/top-3-cross-country-fei-eventing-european-c
Went for a swim.
Went for a swim.
Team results:
Gold - Germany
Silver - Great Britain
Bronze - Sweden
4th - France
5th - Italy
Sweden and Italy punched tickets for Tokyo (Germany, GB, and France already qualified).
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Not good stats thats for sure.
Sam Watson pulled his horse off of this one when he got there on a bit of a half-stride and took a 20 as a result. It ultimately cost the team at least a bronze medal, almost certainly silver when you consider the time to re-present. It was a clear rider choice in the moment, and his comment was:
I lost my killer instinct in that turn – I thought about doing the turn to the inside, but I knew that people had fallen there earlier, but when I turned back, I felt the angle was too much to ask him for. In hindsight, maybe he could have done it.
It is an interesting thing to know that it factors into a rider’s calculations on course (though if any rider is likely to be doing calculations out there, it’s Sam). I don’t know what the right answer is, but I do know that hindsight will often say you could have done it when you didn’t, or you shouldn’t have done it when you did. Sometimes killer instinct kills.
I guess my point in all of this is that I hate that the course put a rider in this position, and I hate that he will feel like he didn’t make the right decision when he very well might have. Aside from this jump, I thought the course was great. But to me, if the horse reads the jump and decides to go, that should never be a trick. If the horse doesn’t understand what the rider wants them to do and runs out or glances off, that’s one thing, but that horse wanted to go to the jump and Sam knew the data meant the horse might very likely be wrong, and had to make a decision based on the risk that jump had already presented to several other riders. That sucks.
EN posted Ingrid Klinke’s helmet cam video - really interesting to watch - it is astounding to me how quickly those B, C etc elements come up in the combinations. It also made it apparent just how much terrain there was - might have also been obvious on the livestream, but I didn’t get to watch.
Man, I wish we could just let XC fences look like XC fences … it’s really not necessary for XC courses to double as modern art exhibitions.
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