I wasn’t a fan of the big open overs & thought they were unfair & hard to read for the horses. 2 out of 3 of the horses that fell on the brush corner in the water were 100% rider error. Danielle Dunn & Oli Townend were going way too fast thru there! Tom Rowland’s did surprise me. Danielle Dunn was virtually out of control fast for most of her round & Oli was being Oli. Sometimes he gets away with it & sometimes not. His other fall was his fault, as well. The horse was clearly tiring & he was flying into that big table. Weary legs don’t respond as fast as they may have early on. That was the horses 1st time at a 5* & Oli was clearly looking to make the time, no matter what. One pull to set that horse up would have saved that fall.
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Wow! Progressing in a backwards directions.
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Cola was a little lame but they only need to be “fit to compete” not 100%. Many (Molly especially) were clearly stiff & tight as Hell but passed.
Cornelia Dorr was seriously impressive!!! If she can get that mare to simmer down a bit in dressage she will be a force to recon with. That said, judging by the 2nd horse inspection, that will be a tall order. She is a feisty one!!! 
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That was a different horse- Quarrycrest Echo, which did Kentucky in 2019. The horse had to be put down in July 2020 due to some sort of intestinal disease.
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Dorr’s is beautiful mare as well as a fine jumper. Congratulations Cornelia Dorr, well done! https://d2p5jm6orbodfc.cloudfront.net/wp_chronofhorse/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/03135707/22-LRBHT-USA-Dorr-7728.jpg
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I agree, I was impressed with Cornelia’s XC. She showed how determined you might need to be as a first timer!
I was just watching the video of refusals and falls at Burghley. It was not what I expected. The two big problem areas were the leaf pit and trout hatchery. After watching I didn’t think any of the questions were unfair.
At the leaf pit it just seems, and I wasn’t on the course, that many riders just missed the line and had slide bys. It is what a corner is supposed to test. What I saw was what looked like riders almost coming in parallel to the front of the corner.
At the trout hatchery, There were several horses that were splay-legged coming down slope into the water and just weren’t to get their impulsion back. I don’t know if the ground was hard from the recent drought, not the right studs on the horse, lost shoes, etc.? Again I didn’t think the question was unfair.
The blue and white oxers I think were badly constructed.
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I did not prefer Badminton. I adore Badminton, but the course this year had some punishing horse falls that were quite terrifying and could have resulted in horrific injury to horse or rider (and one which did). I agree that there were areas for improvement at Burghley, but the falls we did see were not rotational falls and at no point did I watch one and think “oh god, they might not get up”. The scariest to watch was probably Harry and HD Bronze getting hung up at Cottesmore Leap, which is not exactly a new fence on course.
I don’t believe this is true. Certainly we don’t want to see this many horses on the ground, but there are different types of horse falls, and some have far more risk of catastrophe than others. We saw several instances where the horses fell short of scope, essentially tripped on the back of the fence, and went down on landing. Is this a desirable outcome? Of course not. Does this mean the course designer made appropriate use of safety devices, such that if his design wasn’t quite right the results would not be permanent and punishing? Yes, and that should be applauded.
If Derek turns around and puts the same fences back in the same places next year, that is worthy of critique. But I’d be shocked if he did that. I think he did exactly what we would hope for a new designer at the biggest, baddest event in the world - asked difficult questions of excellent horses and riders, and made sure a Plan B was in place in case those questions weren’t understood. The horse falls were not crashing, and were not rotational. They were not desirable, but they were significantly safer than the horse falls we saw at Badminton (and the outcomes reflect that). I would bet my entire bank account Derek will learn from this and modify accordingly.
…as I continue to catch up on the thread, it turns out I could have saved myself all of this typing and just quoted @fordtraktor instead, who I agree with completely:
I also agree with this:
And I agree with this:
A quick correction: Tregilder’s first 5* was Bicton, last year. He finished in the top 10 (7th) with a frangible.
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I have to say that every time I hear the announcers grieving over 11 points added from dislodging a frangible, I wonder if they are remembering that pre-frangibles that would have been a crashing fall. Kitty King and Tom M. wouldn’t have made it home at all if the frangibles hadn’t forgiven the miss.
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Anyone know where the final results are posted? Can’t find them on the website, “results” page ends with XC. tx!
I saw today a H&H article by Capt. MP, stating that the corner in the water was intermediate size. While I disagree with his conclusion that maybe it should have been bigger so people would respect it more, I don’t think an intermediate fence that is the same as dozens of other corners out there would have caused a few falls if riders hadn’t crammed horses over it on any old distance.
The falls I saw there were not meeting the fence well but rider tried to force the issue rather than get the runout. Sometimes that works out but often it doesn’t…maybe people need to be more willing to take the 20.
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Yes interesting wasn’t it. He thought riders rode into too fast, so perhaps the distance was too forward.
Ground was excellent as it is lovingly maintained all year in the Park and BE has tools, equipment and expertise to assist in the care of the land.
Time xc was really tight and people had to both push to make it but also judge where and when time could be made up between technical fences that substantially slowed them up i.e. be highly effective horsemen.
Badminton was back this year after a two year break. Some horses, I believe, were a bit short of match play experience, as were some riders but even though there were falls, the percentage completion rates were within the normal range at the level. Burghley, which is a tougher course because of the terrain, has not run for three years. The completion rate was lower than usual at the level. There were a lot of E results as well as riders putting their hand up after a 20 (Pau 5* comes up soon) and three horses did not come foreward to trot up on Sunday. I think there was far less rusty riding and horses have had better opportunity to run at 4* this year.
11 for a frangible is a rule that, personally, I dislike because they are designed as a safety feature and other fences can be destroyed without any penalties being applied. The pin goes and the penalty is applied but the previous six horses tapping the fence might have stressed the pin or clip while the seventh breaks it and gets the 11. Checking pins requires human subjective judgement as there are currently no measuring tools or markers to assess deformation: it is done by eye - or maybe the pins/clips should be changed after each horse? BUT the penalties are there to stop riders being reckless, riding inappropriately to a fence. The CD can not trust riders to be responsible in the heat of competition to keep horses safe but if riders know they risk an 11 it focuses their mind.
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Hmmm. Although there is some validity in the way this idea is framed, it is not at all representative of what I witnessed through the livestream.
When a horse drops its back legs through the log, especially if the impact significantly damages the ‘log’, I count the pair lucky to have come away with no more than 11 penalty points. The horse didn’t just roll the rail a bit with its tippy toes.
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Indeed, when a horse hits hard and the log drops, the frangible safety pin is doing what it is supposed to do: preventing a fall. Kitty King was a text book example. Vendredi Biats would have certainly fallen but instead, with a bit of footwork and good balance, he was able to stay on his feet. But many, many times a frangible pin goes when one particular horse hits a fence no harder than the many previous ones. There is no objective way to decide if it is one knock or a culmination of many knocks that makes a frangible safety pin or mimms clip break. No matter how often the Fence Judges squint at the metal work (personally, very frequently), the damage may not show to the naked eye. Physics and all that. Mimms clips are designed to be easily changed but they can not be used on every type of fence. Front and back pins need the course builders to change them out. Elsewhere on a course, a horse may demolish a fence, damage it so badly it has to be removed from the competition, and still be able to stay on its feet and run on without any penalty simply because there were no frangible pins to break on that jump. To me, the xc phase should be easy to score. XC isn’t show jumping. Safety should not be penalised. Did the horse get over the fence between the flags, yes or no? Don’t get me going on flag rules!! But I do understand the reason behind the 11 penalties: riders.
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Maybe they could try some kind of overall rider-qualify penalty for activating frangibles? ie, there’s no penalty for each one, but activate more than 2 in a 12 month rolling period and you’re not qualified for the level anymore?
This is what I saw too, issues coming from riders cutting in on the line to the corner in the water.
The first 3 elements of the trout hatchery are set on basically a half circle to the left. The fact that the jump in the water was a corner on that same line should have discouraged people from cutting in and encouraged them to ride more of a flowing curved line. If you rode the curve to the corner in the water as intended, it was a very straight forward, smooth ride for most; if you cut in, your line was off to the corner and the angle/water/slope change made things come up very fast without much margin for error. Those that cut in took one stride in the water vs. two for those that followed the curve line.
What I like about Derek’s courses is that if you ride them as they’re designed, they work; however, if you try to cheat the design it tends to not work, but in a non-catastrophic way. All the griping about the lettering is an eye roller for me. I’ve always hated the mixing and matching between the straight route and the alternative route. A) that’s not how the course was designed thereby introducing lines that weren’t thoughtfully built to be jumped, B) it’s 5* and if you don’t go the direct route it’s only fair IMO that any other route should be materially longer.
A great example was Ballaghmor Class at Kentucky in 2021. About 7:20 into their round, he was able to audible mid-way through the direct route to take the option out without really losing much time because the elements where lettered individually. It was pretty clear he wasn’t going to get the out after the B element and didn’t really answer the question that was being asked by the straight route. The lettering strategy at Burghley this year wouldn’t have allowed that to happen which, IMO, is correct.
Mark Phillips’ article just read really weird to me and a few of his comments just felt like grasping for reasons why his style of course design is actually safer than Derek’s. From the article, “This was a classic example of easier does not make it safer – if that had been a big fence in the water, would the riders have had more respect and taken more time to jump it? I believe the answer is definitely yes.” I just don’t believe it’s the course designers fault if riders blow off a fence or combination as insignificant and take a chance because, again, they think they’ve outsmarted the course designer.
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Click on 1st box; 2022-Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials CCI5*-L
eventingscores.co.uk were showing results live. Normally on their site you can see all sorts of stuff for a past event if you click it on the calendar. Burghley just provides a link the LRBHT website finish order.
@endlessclimb That is partly what the MERs are about: minimum scores to be achieved before moving up. And that causes enough excitement. In BE if a rider has a certain number of falls over a season they are sent down a level or are obliged to have some schooling before they go again. I presume it is similar in other jurisdictions.
