@poltroon, thank you for your thoughtful response. You clearly understand how reactivity - replace it with baton twirling! - is not very helpful here.
I will say this again: there are some truly excellent riders in pentathlon. If you have access to Tokyo replays, watch Gus Gustenau in the men’s or Kate French in the women’s. They are outstanding riders. At London, Suzanne Stettinius was in the competition. Many on here will know her. She’s from a totally horsey background and has ridden in the Maryland Hunt Cup.
FYI for those not in the sport, the jump height at competitions will vary depending on many factors including the average ability of the horse pool. Most courses at top level are about 1m. Spreads aren’t big. Everyone knows well in advance that the Olympics is supposed to be built to max specs.
I think changing the order of go - from #1 starts last to #1 starts first - would be a good idea. In Rio, second-round riders were really hurt by having to ride horses that had already been crashed into fences. Not that horses that have crashed through fences should be allowed out again on course.
As someone who has ridden in and coached at numerous pent competitions, I firmly believe the 20-minute 5-jump warm up is fine as it is. The horse has been around the course, you’re not exactly schooling the horse in the warm up - you just want to know if it has an adjustable stride, if it stays straight and whether it prefers the short on long spot. The horse has already gone around the course that day, it knows its job so you don’t want to bug it too much. I don’t think I’ve ever taken more than 3 warm-up jumps.
All this talk about ‘bonding’ is anthropomorphic nonsense. Yes, you bond with a horse you ride regularly in that you work out some kind of partnerships. I don’t know about the rest of you but I’ve owned, trained and ridden horses that didn’t especially like me nor did I especially like but we respected each other and found a way to work together. But in pentathlon or FEI Student or IEA or World University Games, you figure out how the horse likes to go and then you head out on course. It’s not animal cruelty to do it this way. Not by a long shot.
As poltroon suggested (as have I on my other posts), officials should more closely regulate the riding situation. But pentathlon officials are almost always favored insiders who favor their friends and respond to anyone who asks a question by shouting at them. It really is that bad.
For major competitions, FEI course designers are the norm. I don’t think that’s been said here but that’s been the case for some time.
As for those of you who think my mention of the horse fatality in eventing is ‘low’, I guess the fundamental hypocrisy is lost on you. You see a FB or Instagram video or a few pentathlon rides or clips from the worst rides (how many of you actually watched the whole replay?) and then you say ‘No more horses for any of those people!’. That’s pretty damn reactive, especially when your response to another horse fatality in eventing is ‘those things happen’. Out of 36 riders, there were something like 5 or 6 Es. I’m not sure how that differs from many of the 1-1.10m jumper classes I’ve been in - and those are people on their own horses.
) to choose a couple of FEI stewards and assign them to the horses to manage rerides, horse safety, etc. They wouldn’t know the pentathaletes and could just be there as horse advocates.