Great job 
Yeah, and apparently Werth and others of her ilk coming out against this rider’s behavior means they don’t meet Manni01’s definition of “experienced” people.
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A friend has teen kids who do this - the trick here is to get the horses to tolerate the gunshots/loud sharp sounds. So sourcing 40-50 for loan might be tricky. But still better than the $4!t-show that is the jumping portion. I like the archery idea since it’s quiet, lol.
How about laser target shooting from the back of the horse? They’re already using laser guns. It could overlap with existing training?
Or, regular mounted shooting is based on completing the pattern (different each run, but picked from a list of pre-set choices that the riders are familiar with) at the fastest speed with the greatest number of accurate shots. There’s a penalty for each missed shot, so it’s kind of like jumping in that faster/clean is going to win, then a combo of slower/clean or faster/faults depending.
Great idea!
Every one of those horses successfully made it around that arena the day before with a competent pro on their back. The fact that this horse was unlucky enough to draw a pair of horrible riders that fried his brain doesn’t mean the horse was the issue.
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Did the men ride before or after the women? Did they use the same horses?
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They are horses.
Unless you bred and raised the horse yourself, and no one else has ever laid a hand on it, you don’t know what might have happened to the horse in the past, or how that might affect it on a day-to-day basis. Even more so in this situation, when the horses are unknown to the competitors and drawn at random.
The most basic measure of riding skill is the ability to ride the horse you’re on that day, regardless of whether it’s the best or worst horse in the world. The German rider failed that test that day, in the most public and spectacular way.
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But but but, one of those riders was GERMAN, and she was in the gold medal position going into the jumping phase, and then she didn’t succeed in the jumping phase, and the gold medal went to the English pentathlete instead instead.
Therefore, it was the horse’s fault. Or maybe it was the Russian rider’s fault for frying the horse before the German rider got on him. But c’mon now, everyone knows what excellent riders Germans are. And unless you are an ‘expert’ on this subject and sport, you aren’t qualified to criticize Annika Schleu.
Bottom line… don’t believe your lying eyes. It’s unfair to criticize the German rider for anything about her ride. Oh… and any of us who decide to do it anyway? Well… we are just peons. So we should just pipe down.
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[censored by mods]
Back on the actual topic at hand - I’m glad UIPM is starting to show an awareness that change needs to be made, even if it should have happened an eternity ago. My hope is that these proposed changes actually do happen, and progress is made and that this isn’t just a PR stunt to scramble out of the limelight so they can go right back to the status quo without doing anything. I hope they take the FEI recommendations seriously and catch up on the decades of improvements that have been made in other disciplines. The optimist in me hopes they’ll even continue to contribute further down the line, instead of just waiting on FEI to do all the heavy lifting.
ETA - Interesting the mods chose to edit my post, but not the many other posts saying largely similar, if not worse, things.
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That did not actually have much relation to the situation those horses were in the next day.
I can only hope that the local grocery store sold out of carrots by the end of the day. But somehow I doubt it.
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The fact that the horse jumped ANY obstacles in the ring after the first bad ride, a bad warmup with the German rider, and a bad entrance into the ring shows that he really is a bit of a packer. I wish people would stop describing him as uncooperative, he was trying very hard with what he was given.
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I COMPLETELY agree.
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Trust me, some of these horses are NOT suitable for this, regardless if a pro can ride them or not. I was involved at a major championships, I saw it with my own eyes and watched the pro ride my horse and the athletes ride my horse and my friends horses.
There are horses my friends couldn’t ride that a pro could and they could ride circles around the athletes.
Read my post above…the organizers use the horses that get them paid the most, whether suitable or not.
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Agreed but it does disprove the concept that Saint Boy was completely unsuitable as a mount for that level. He could and did run that course just fine with a competent rider on his back.
Could he have come back to run clear after the Russian if he’d be under someone with a modicum of empathy and horse sense? Maybe, maybe not. He definitely wasn’t coming back for the German blubbering machine who kept swatting him and buried him in the fences once he did give it a go and you know what? That’s on her, not him.
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I am excited that the governing body is at least pretending to do something different. Hopefully JER can keep us updated with any changes that do happen.
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After. And Saint Boy was not used by the men.
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I think for as much as that German rider is at fault for her shit attitude, I think the coach/ trainer is the bigger problem here. I’ve been around IHSA/IEA and our team always had a rule that you do NOT talk badly about any horse ever. You act appreciative and grateful that whoever owns that horse was kind enough to share them for the day. I don’t care if it’s a 14.1 barrel racer that’s only gone English once or twice before this horse show. You treat that horse as if it’s the nicest horse you’ve ever ridden.
I have been around other teams with coaches that did not share this mindset and they typically rode worse because of it. If you ever let yourself get frustrated and blame the horse, your riding will go to shit as well. The good trainers I know don’t let stuff fly AT ALL. If you want to embarrass everyone like that, you don’t ride. End of story.
I’m really lucky I’ve had coaches and trainers that never let me act like a brat but I’ve seen some trainers that let that behavior run rampant and unchecked or even make it worse. Any time there was a kid who acted like a brat in an IEA/ IHSA show it could usually be traced back to the same coach being a PIA in the coaches meeting.
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Why not ?? I wonder …. He was a suitable horse anybody here would have piloted around the course…. He was a packer type
Wait. Now it’s all Russia’s fault?
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Huh. That’s an interesting perspective.
I just assumed they didn’t use him for the men because the GERMAN rider was so awful and brutal on the poor frazzled gelding, all the other countries got together and recognized she had wrecked the horses’s confidence.
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No the Pentathlon officials obviously didn’t follow their own rules .
4.3.5 Horse Selection
The horses must be selected with utmost care in order to secure equality among them. They must all be capable of completing the course at least twice in a day, without disobedience and with few faults, if any, for time or over obstacles.
Not what I saw….
