Looks like Izilot was “full of running”, as they say.
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I watched the video, but I couldn’t see the jump for the spectators. Was there a better view?
Just look at all those 0’s!
I feel like things that look bad at frangible pins can be chicken or egg. Would it have looked so jarring if the log hadn’t dropped out from underneath him? If it hadn’t would have just slid across it in a minorly hairy moment? Or did it really save them from disaster? Hard to tell, because the pin did fire and the log did drop out from underneath the horse as he was going across it.
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The frangible is designed to act above a certain level of force. Tap it, all is well. Thump it, the pin or clip will break.
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But I think that kind of supports my point, right? If the horse is putting a fair amount of pressure on it, and then it triggers, that support drops away. I’m sure there are lots of pin triggers that wouldn’t have been pretty but also wouldn’t have resulted in anything catastrophic if the rail stayed up.
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A lot of “what ifs” in frangibles but they are designed to prevent the “Oh my God! Oh my God!! NOOO!!!” moments. Nothing is perfect but I firmly believe the stats prove the effectiveness of the pins in reducing fatal falls.
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Agreed the horse looked great, but we have a pretty long standing “rule” that a horse should only do two longs in a year (spring and fall) and it’s a good one. Even if a horse looks fresh a month later, the stress on its body is too high to keep the galloping going to be even fitter a month later. I personally don’t like the idea that this might happen more often, especially after people saw Ros win both. And like I said, this is nothing against Ros personally. I’ve been next to her in the lorry park and seen how much she cares for her horses. Just not something I hope is repeated.
I bet if it was Ollie people would be burning effigies of him at the stake for doing it.
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Agree, I hope it’s not a trend. I think MOST horses wouldn’t hold up to this type of work load year in and year out.
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thank you so much for doing the deep dive. That is distressing that the 5* are all on different programs. I can watch Rolex Kentucky for free. But I have to pay separately for Badminton and Burghley. I don’t mind that as they are both well-run and have very few hiccups. But then to pay so much for one or the other, is very frustrating! I wish they would just merge and make it easier for us.
I mean, she isn’t the first highly regarded rider to break this “rule”. In 2015 Michael Jung and La Biosthetique Sam ran three five stars in five months (Kentucky - 3rd, Luhmuhlen - 3rd, Burghley - won). I wouldn’t recommend it as a rule of thumb to anyone looking to write a handbook, but I’m not going to question a rider with a proven record of caring well for their horses. In both cases, the horses in question jumped clear on the last day (and incidentally won). I don’t see anything implying these particular animals were hard done by for the experience.
You’re right about this, but perhaps that’s a different issue we should be addressing. Actions should be judged by the conduct in the moment, and backstory only brought into it if it’s questionable. A horse jumping that well on the last day just isn’t on my list of concerns, no matter who is up top.
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Didn’t realize that about Jung in 2015 but two months is a bit different than 1 month. You could give the horse at least a couple of weeks off and a couple of weeks of hacking in that scenario. Still, it makes me think a bit differently of Jung as well. He’s had a few horses lately that you haven’t seen again due to injuries - could it be because the pace he competes at is too much? Sam was clearly a one in a million horse.
I took care of a horse that did a tendon on XC at a 4* and the rider didn’t listen to concerns because horse was sound and jumped it the next day. Clear round. Horse was scanned and had indeed injured the tendon. Jumping clear isn’t always indicative of what’s going on inside.
Anyways, no one seems to be as worried about it being indicative of the future direction of the sport as I am so I’ll keep it to myself now 
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In the case of Sam, he came back and won Badminton and the Rio Olympics the next year, and competed at 5* until he was 18. He completed at least one five star or championship level event every single year from the time he was 9 until the time he was 18 (and usually won at least one a year), bar 2014 when he was “just” third at Aachen.
While I agree he was one in a million, he was also clearly physically capable of maintaining that schedule. To my knowledge, Michael has never run his other horses like that (nor has Ros) so I don’t think it’s fair to connect injuries to that schedule when those facts don’t match up in one horse. I hear you about not wanting to see it become a future direction for the majority of horses, but this isn’t new this year, and so far the people who are doing it are doing it reasonably judiciously and there is no evidence they are doing it inappropriately.
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About Miki Jung, you haven’t seen him lately at 5* events. He is staying mostly at 4*, I think since the Olympics and World championships are at 4*.
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There is a substantial difference between the effort required in the current 5* and 4* levels and the amount of work asked of a horse in the previous long format. Times past, a horse winning Badminton or Burghley was a one off, unlikely to be repeated. Other 5* had yet to be invented… Now horses are capable of winning multiple 4* and even two or three or more 5* over their careers. The old rule of ‘two longs in a season’ doesn’t really apply in the new world of specialized training, breeding, veterinary, nutrition, body workers…
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Jeeze, was this recently? How’s the horse now?
Event rider recovering
Olympic event rider Lea Siegl is recovering after a cross-country fall with her five-star campaigner DSP Fighting Line at Pau Horse Trials on Saturday (28 October). The pair were in provisional 10th after dressage and fell at the MIM-clipped corner at 13b on the French CCI5* track. The 15-year-old gelding was unharmed, and Lea was taken to hospital. The 25-year-old Austrian rider shared an update yesterday (31 October) to say that she has broken two ribs and sustained a head-wound, which has been stitched. From Horse & Hound.
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