What a wonderful mare. I don’t know which rider is which, but the one in the navy jacket looks to have better equitation than a lot of eq riders.
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What a great experience. So nice of you to loan your horse.
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What a great story and a beautiful mare!! You’re a lucky girl to have her. (Sorry for two posts, but I reacted to your first post before I scrolled down and saw the whole story and great pictures and couldn’t resist posting again). 
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That was Charles! and I agree…I was definitely lucky getting the better of the riders for her.
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@Jealoushe you’re brave! I lent one of my horses to the OUEA for a show years ago, but I specified only for the open flat. I’m way to particular about who rides my horses.
On another note, my cover photo on Facebook is myself and my mom’s gelding jumping the Pan Am jump at CEP in 2016. It’s one of my favourite pictures. I was living in Edmonton at the time, flew home and catch rode him in a couple 1.10m and 1.20 schoolings. We just found out last week that he needs to retire from jumping, too much stress on his hind suspensories, he’s 18 now.
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I think the first round of riding is about to start. I’m in the UK so can watch with discovery +
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First rider looks terrified and those fences look huge to me! Fair play to them. I couldn’t do this!
Oh no first rider hits the deck! Horse seems a genuine one too is trying but jockey is just not completely secure in saddle.
I am so so impressed with these horses so far. Such lovely genuine animals.
I just searched on Discovery+ and I do not find any Olympics. Boo Hiss.
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Just caught up on the Sj portion now. Some lovely rounds, but some of it really not nice to watch.
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I was disappointed by how often riders didn’t even pat their horses after a round… more so by the Egyptian rider who not only didn’t pat her horse, which had made a tremendous effort for her for only one fence, but jabbed him with her spurs as they left the ring.
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Most competitors in Modern Pentathalon come from an athletics rather than equestrian background. They hope to make their points in other disciplines and just survive the showjumping. The horses are total saints.
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Probably elsewhere, but as you’ll know in the UK many of our modern pentathlon athletes come up through Pony Club tetrathlon. Both Kate (Gold - fantastic!) and Joanna were pony clubbers.
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This is horrible - did anyone see the Russian rider continue to crop the horse on the neck when he refused to go? Even the commentator was trying to keep the clear criticism out of her voice
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These horses are saints. My gosh, the riders have guts for doing this but this is really showing the horses are sports equipment and not animals.
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I’m not feeling very benevolent to the modern pentathlon today with all the media coverage. They really do a terrible job holding up the horse welfare side when they aren’t governed by our rules, and people don’t understand that they aren’t part of the regular equestrian events.
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Did anyone else literally start crying when watching the German lady Annika riding that poor horse around??
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It is a relief to come here and see this post being sympathetic to the poor horse after seeing online articles by non-horse people saying the “stubborn” horse “ruined” the score for the “poor rider.” I felt so sorry for the horses.
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Gave me flashbacks to some of the nightmare rides I’ve had. Saint Boy had had several terrible riders prior to Annika and even if she did know what she was doing the horse had just been completely soured and was shouting “please no, I don’t want to do this anymore” as loudly as a horse can. The fact that after all that he went ahead and started the course and only stopped again when he felt his rider panicking, he’s deserving of his name.
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