Y’all can take All in and Explosion W, I want a Farome for Christmas. Really curious about his breeding, talk about amateur-friendly.
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Same. I just googled and this might be her
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He is a complete dude isn’t he. Super horse.
A mare! Even better! She’s a super star.
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The rider who had the broken rein - did he get a re-do? Bit unfair if he didn’t - broken rein is beyond his control!
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No he didn’t.
Just saw this
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Really? If it was his horse and his tack, that would be fair. Not his fault that someone provided a faulty / weakened / damaged piece of tack.
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Obviously punching a horse is awful but LOL how embarrassing for her.
Imagine having to explain to people you got kicked out of the olympics for punching a horse 
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Totally agree with you. Got the impression noone really knew what to do and his round just sort of ended. It was bizarre.
He did really well to avert disaster, though you could see he was pissed off and had a bit of a tanty after he got off the horse.
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Well, at least we can now direct people to watch Modern Pentathlon if they believe the horse does all the work and the rider just sits on top, doing nothing.
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The mens on the whole much less car crash tv I think.
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Good grief! Team GB won first ever gold in the men’s Modern Pentathlon. Unexpected.
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It’s a little bit like giving a 17-year-old teen the keys to your Ferrari or Lamborgini, eh?
I went back and watched the women’s riding, as it came up on the local sports radio here (as well as this thread).
I think my favorite horse was Jhon. He struck me as kind and honest.
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I watched the women. The Russian rider destroyed the horse’s confidence, and anyone who saw that round and had half a lick of sense or experience would have said that the horse was done. The Russian rider was just awful–when the horse spooked, instead of taking a deep breath and working with the horse to circle and get him confident–he had been very forgiving to that point–she just escalated the situation, and the horse was understandably distressed.
The German rider was at fault 100%. She saw the Russian go (or at least the team coach or someone did), and she should have seen that the horse was done. She had the option to request another horse, and she didn’t. But when she came into the arena she was already in tears and tight as a bowstring and fighting with the horse. If she had used her warmup time wisely to calm him, restore his confidence, and just presented calmly and shown the horse the spook spot at the trot in, she MIGHT have even gotten away with it. But she was melting down as a rider. Once she finally got him going she got him through a few jumps, he looked like he was going to be okay if the rider could nurse him around and help him a bit. Had she taken a deep breath and ridden each jump and kept her own emotions in check, she could have gotten through it IMO, but instead her mind was on the gold medal slipping away, her emotions got the better of her, and she just made everything worse.
Sorry, but ZERO sympathy for her.
Her coach, btw, has since been suspended by the IOC for punching the horse.
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It’s not fair if rider 1 gets on the horse, rides like an anvil and deteriorates throughout but makes it around.
Then Rider 1 has used up all the horse’s jokes and by the time Rider 2 gets on the horse is like “screw you guys, I’m going home.”
Or, if Rider 1 is fantastic and tactful and confidence building for the horse and rider 2 essentially gets a prepped horse.
Fairer is for each rider to get two horses and keep the higher score.
It would also be great if the sport contained the option for riders to withdraw/redraw in the case of an obvious horse welfare situation. The way the rules are now she had no option to say, “This horse is clearly not into it, out of concern for his welfare I exercise my redraw option” without also throwing away her 24 point lead.
This could be subject to judge’s review so people aren’t redrawing every time they have one rail, but also so people pull up immediately if they feel a lame step or the horse is just having a total meltdown. Give the rider the OPTION to withdraw for the horse’s welfare without penalty and they will be much more likely to do it.
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I absolutely agree with this in theory.
In practice, I’d prefer to limit the number of horses subjected to these yahoos.
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All I can say is that it looks like a lot of those competitors need to spend a LOT more time in the saddle.
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“She had the option to request another horse, and she didn’t. But when she came into the arena she was already in tears and tight as a bowstring and fighting with the horse. If she had used her warmup time wisely to calm him, restore his confidence, and just presented calmly and shown the horse the spook spot at the trot in, she MIGHT have even gotten away with it.”
My understanding is that she did NOT have the option to request another horse. Had the horse refused four tines with the Russian, she would have, but he only refused three times so she did not.
Also, the level of tact and fixing you are expecting this rider to do in 20 minutes is the world’s ultimate pro-ride. Could Bertram Allen have put humpty dumpty back together again in 20 minutes? Possibly, but he rides like he’s been annointed by God and his horses turn themselves inside out for him.
These riders clearly are not professionals. If every amateur could ride you seem to expect that then we wouldn’t need pros.
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After watching the carnage of Beijing, which really was absolutely AWFUL, I thought for sure that the sport was messed up and that nobody in it knew how to ride. Watching the ladies I felt differently; several of them were very nice riders who really seemed to understand their role was to help where possible and stay out of the way the rest of the time. There was a Lithuanian (IIRC) rider who was absolutely lovely as a rider. Where she missed a distance she stayed out of the way, then fixed the mistake heading into the next fence.
But there were also riders who were sheer muscle and force and guts. Samatha Schultz struck me as such a rider. She was forgiving with her hand and not abusive, but she held herself out of his way and in the tack through sheer force fo will at times.
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