Does anyone else think he’s riding a bit long. His horse did a nice dressage test until is had a throw down, nice extended trot, good mover in general.
Loved his test…the USA judges marks were a disgrace imho.
What a nice article! I think we’ll definitely see more of him in the future. 
I wish him all the best and hope to see more of him. The WSJ said the FEI ranks him 19th in the world. I certainly didn’t know that! The WSJ also said:
“Mr. Hua’s route would be difficult to duplicate. …After Mr. Hua showed signs of promise as a 17-year-old rider, a Chinese property developer named Jiang Fengcan agreed to bankroll his training expenses, including purchasing six Olympic-ready horses-a total outlay of nearly $4 million.”
Pretty cool.
Never trust the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of anything equestrian-related. Remember the WSJ article about the 65-yr old Japanese dressage rider, which described dressage as "the obscure sport of horse ballet, and contained descriptions of the movements and tests that demonstrated lack of any equestrian knowledge whatsoever? See http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=141103&highlight=japanese
The WSJ fabricated Hua’s 19th place FEI ranking. WSJ must have been spoon-fed that stat by the Hong Kong businessman who sponsors Hua, and then failed to fact-check.
The WSJ is a corporate and financial voice, with an agenda to increase the wealth of the wealthy. This British kid of Chinese descent gets coverage and attention because of the businessman sponsoring him. Don’t think for a minute that some HK businessman would buy an unrelated kid $4 million worth of made, Olympic-ready horses and not promote the hell out of the kid in the media, including in the WSJ.
[QUOTE=Dixon;3436746]
This British kid of Chinese descent gets coverage and attention because of the businessman sponsoring him. Don’t think for a minute that some HK businessman would buy an unrelated kid $4 million worth of made, Olympic-ready horses and not promote the hell out of the kid in the media, including in the WSJ.[/QUOTE]
Well, DUH! (LOL!) Of course that’s why (the $ spent) it was in the WSJ!
That part I got, and I should have put in the rolling-eyes icon about his FEI ranking but I didn’t want to seem to be criticizing the rider instead of the WSJ.
Fact checking clearly just isn’t appealing to you, is it, when you can instead have another opportunity to attack the Chinese?
As of the latest FEI world ranking (31 July)Alex was ranked 21st, so not at all unfeasible that an earlier month’s ranking list had him at 19th. He has 4 advanced horses going right now, IIRC.
Please find another outlet for your offensive prejudices.
Nice try Lexi, but your link is to a webpage that cannot be found. Not sure why you’re trying to support made-up stats with a made-up website?
Bottom line is, the kid couldn’t stay on when his horse clipped a jump. That’s not an Olympic-caliber rider, just a well-financed and promoted rider who bought his way into the Olympics.
Since when does a bad hyperlink = a “made-up website”? The link worked fine for me, but here it is in multiple forms:
http://www.fei.org/Disciplines/Eventing/Results/Documents/C_rankings-July-2.pdf
http://www.fei.org/Disciplines/Eventing/Results/Pages/HSBC_Online_Rankings.aspx
Actually her link accidentally had some extra characters at the end. The correct link is here: http://www.fei.org/Disciplines/Eventing/Results/Pages/HSBC_Online_Rankings.aspx
It does show that he is currently in 21st place.
ah, and now you change your attack, knowing that you have been called out on your original bullshit. Pathetic.
Except that you can’t buy your way into the Olympics, YOU STILL HAVE TO QUALIFY.
Good lord, thankfully when I posted this same story yesterday morning from the WSJ in this forum it wasn’t followed by so much bitterness.
[QUOTE=ponyjumper4;3436988]
Except that you can’t buy your way into the Olympics, YOU STILL HAVE TO QUALIFY.[/QUOTE]
Actually I think you automatically get a bid if you’re the home country but he did qualify multiple mounts either way!
I think he is a damn good rider. He fell because his horse took an unlucky stumble at a more vertical, unforgiving fence. Either way, he’s a pretty fantastic rider. And, he’s AMAZING for 18!
I’m going to weigh in here because i’ve seen this boy ride in real life in competitions all over england this season. He is a very talented, hardworking, committed rider - he qualified fair and square, yes he has big financial backing but he stepped up and he deserved to be there.
Personally i was gutted when he made a mistake.
Alex Hua Tian is hardly an unknown - at least in China and the UK. He has natural talent - and he gave up his British dual citizenship through his mother to compete. Yes, that gave him a shot at the Olympics he wouldn’t otherwise have had, but it is also means he give up any future opportunities to compete for the UK.
It is not suprising that the WSJ picked up on his story - backing an eventer is the ultimate high-risk investment.
I just managed to see the Oxygen cross country, and they showed his fall. :eek:
That kid was very lucky that he didn’t end up like Laine Ashker. If he had gone straight off instead of being thrown to the side, we’d have had another rotational fall to talk about. :eek:
No, that just means the country can field a competitor without having to qualify. We have to qualify to get a team eligible for the Olympics through some of the international competitions like the Pan Ams or worlds, etc by some of our team placings. I think we were in danger of not being able to field a showjumping team at a recent Olympics and had to medal at one of the big international team championships to qualify. This was discussed in another thread. China became eligible to have an entry because it is the host nation, but the competitor still had to qualify–that keeps them from just throwing a team together and putting them out there on a course like that.
every time we fall - and get up - we’re lucky.
[QUOTE=Dixon;3436908]
Bottom line is, the kid couldn’t stay on when his horse clipped a jump. That’s not an Olympic-caliber rider, just a well-financed and promoted rider who bought his way into the Olympics.[/QUOTE]
So does that mean that once you’ve got yourself to the Olympics, you can’t fall off anymore? And that if you do fall off, you shouldn’t have been there in the first place?
Quick, someone go tell Karen and David and Philip, etc… they shouldn’t fall off anymore. :rolleyes:
Can’t we just hold off on the critical comments, maybe for one day at least? Celebrate the fact that overall, the Games this year (eventing at least) were successful, and no one was seriously injured.
