Modern Pentathalon

[poltroon]

@Haliburton

You’re anthropomorphizing horses here, horses are not capable of being jerks, they don’t have a large enough prefrontal cortex to do so.

What? Horses are completely capable of being jerks. They are also capable of being forgiving and kind and taking a joke.

As just a small example. When I go out into the pasture to tell the ponies breakfast is over, they simply run in to the dry lot as soon as I reach the gate. When my daughter goes, they suddenly find something incredibly interesting in the far corner of the pasture.

There are countless examples of horses adjusting their behavior to the specific person in front of them based on trust and their current state of mind.

[endlessclimb]

I have tried to compose a response several times but have failed.

I’m stunned. Just… wow.

I, as a horseman, have an obligation to minimize or remove discomfort or pain in the animals under my charge. That is non-negotiable. That is, if you care about the animals as sentient feeling beings, and don’t see them as a vehicle for your own motives.

[poltroon]

JER, I’m a little confused by your latest posts on Saint Boy and perhaps I’ve misremembered what you said earlier. But what I saw in his first round was a rider who was surprisingly tight in the seat but also pretty bracing with the hands. That ride looked really uncomfortable for him in that gag bit. She might have been fine if it had been a plain snaffle or if she’d been more willing to let go of the rein.

As we’ve said, as you’ve said, horses have the right to say no and they need a steward who is thinking of their welfare and safety. A steward who doesn’t particularly care about the results should be able to sub out the horse at any time and also make a judgement about whether the athlete gets a replacement ride or not. This is an adjustment for all the sports, that athletes of all species shouldn’t be harmed by sports and have the right to consent. The article you posted about sports in Japan honestly could have been written about the US a decade ago for sure and possibly less. We have gymnasts on the US national team this year who have been treated that way, for example.

I completely agree with you about a minimum age for all human Olympic athletes. I’d set it at 16 at a minimum with sports able to set a higher one. 13 is alarmingly young for pentathlon.

And if pentathlon needs specialized horses, maybe the budget needs to include the money to fly a set in for the competition just as for the main Equestrian events.

[Manni01]

Well the thread did take a surprising turn … I still stand my point and obviously some other people always did have a similar opinion but were hesitant to take a stand against the majority….
This strategy never pays off….

my summary for this unfortunate event….
MP has insufficient rules for the riding part.
for years there were incidents during competitions which pointed into the direction of insufficient rules. for whatever reason all these incidents were ignored not for the well being of the horses and the participating athletes
In Tokyo everything exploded because the German athlete focused too much on her potential medal and broke down when she realized it was not going to happen.
To accuse her of being the worst rider ever and torturing the horse is BS….
For years obviously it was tolerated that there is no certification part for the riding section. Bad riders were allowed to participate and as a result many horses suffered…

So overall maybe this was even good. now finally something will happen otherwise MP will loose the riding part….

[ThreeWishes]

I’m not sure she was the worst rider ever. Life isn’t that black and white. On that day she was not a good horsewoman because of her riding and the meltdown. The whole thread has been about the changes that need to happen in the sport. Two things can be true. The German rider displayed poor riding and handled what happened very badly AND the sport needs to change.

[Manni01]

This thread was kind of going into the wrong direction for the most part. I agree that the German was not the best rider ever but what happened was obviously a result of the weird rules because there were the same situations in previous years…. Sure there were beautiful rides as well but really any ride like this is too much and there were many……

[ThreeWishes]

Perhaps I understand what you’re saying. The rules, parameters, the culture of this sport allowed or created the spectacle on a world stage. I guess I could understand that if the whole history of MP has not promoted or emphasized or ensured a good riding skill base that’s on them. However the spurring and whipping and crying To Me rests on that athletes shoulders. Much change is needed.

[Manni01]

Yes I agree !!!

[Haliburton]

@poltroon

What? Horses are completely capable of being jerks. They are also capable of being forgiving and kind and taking a joke.

Humans are capable of perceiving horses to be jerks, I suggest you give Evidence Based Horsemanship a read to help contextualize what I’m trying to say.

@JER I can understand why you’d be so defensive, but based on your outspoken-ness on the abusive behaviour displayed by the sport (plowing through fences, falls, etc) I think we’re on the same team here?

[Mander]

I think the trick here is to establish what constitutes being a “jerk”. I wouldn’t describe your story as an example of ponies being “jerks”.

When I think about what would qualify as being a jerk, an important trend is that there’s some malicious intent or spite behind it. Perhaps there is occasionally a horse or pony that acts out of malicious intent, but I’m not sure I can think of any instances off hand where I think that was definitely the case.

For example, my dog listens to me quite well. He’s got great recall and is always ready to engage with me. When it comes to other people though, he’s not nearly as reliable, and at best is a little “behind the leg” as it were. I don’t think he’s being a jerk, it’s just that I have a considerable record of training and working with him, whereas others simply do not. There are even times he doesn’t listen to me - I call and he blows me off to go do something else - again, I don’t think he’s being a jerk (even if he’s not listening to me) but that he found something else that was more rewarding to him than listening to me in that moment. It’s not the response I wanted, but it wasn’t malicious by any means either, and I take it as an indication of what holes are in our training together.

All that to say, I think there’s a difference between being a jerk and, as you said, “adjusting behavior to the specific person in front of them based on trust and current state of mind”. The latter is common and expected, but based on my own experience, I’d say the former is exceedingly rare.

[erinmeri]

I am also a bit confused by the turn this thread has taken. I also think there is a vast leap between saying this sport requires a horse who can take a joke and somehow conflating that to mean one that can tolerate incompetent, unsympathetic riding at fences of this height. That notion is abusive. A horse should not be ridden with conflicting aids around an entire course of this size. A horse should not be ridden to a suboptimal distance over and over to sticks of this height.

I know budgets are limited, and I know that these athletes must master multiple sports. However, it seems plain that many of them are simply incompetent riders and in my opinion, that should not be at this level of sport. It is the Olympics, after all. And if they cannot all demonstrate competence, much less excellence? Then lower the fences.

The rider @JER posted to Instagram is indeed competent. Is that not too much to ask of Olympic athletes? Isn’t the point of the Olympics to compete at the top level and showcase excellence? I find it appalling that this is the top level of the sport and so many cannot demonstrate competence in this phase, much less excellence.

I hope JER and others advocating for change find a solution.

But the horses aren’t the problem here.

ETA, wasn’t a reply to a specific anyone. Don’t know why/how it did that!

[poltroon]

@Mander

I think the trick here is to establish what constitutes being a “jerk”. I wouldn’t describe your story as an example of ponies being “jerks”.

When I think about what would qualify as being a jerk, an important trend is that there’s some malicious intent or spite behind it. Perhaps there is occasionally a horse or pony that acts out of malicious intent, but I’m not sure I can think of any instances off hand where I think that was definitely the case.

I think maybe our definitions are slightly different. I don’t think my ponies are malicious. I think they enjoy a good joke and an extra 15 minutes on the grass at my daughter’s expense.

IE: they know what is expected of them. They aren’t afraid or confused of what they are being asked to do. They’re making an active choice to cooperate if it’s me who goes out there and an active choice not to if it’s someone else, based on a relatively sophisticated calculation of who it is and what they think will happen and how nice a day it is and all the other things that make them individuals. It’s not even a calculation of least effort; for me they will come from the far corner of the field and gallop in.

What they know about my daughter is that she will stand out there and let them keep eating. And they had an especially fun game one time when she’d bring one in and then it would slip back out the gate while she brought in the other.

Similarly, I’ve seen gems of school horses that can be just amazingly patient with small children who do not have the same patience with more experienced handlers even of similar size. Maybe this is just based on subtle nuances of body language, sure, but it’s evidence of pretty sophisticated cognition and choices.

There is no question in my mind that horses have agency to be kind and cooperative or not, and that most of them know they have the power for Not if they so choose. They have different lines as to where that is too.

By contrast, although I like sheep and I respect their sheep-oriented thinking, sheep do not in my experience have this same agency. They are much more reactive animals even when they are carefully handled and experienced with kind handlers.

[poltroon]

Back on topic, as I see it, the pentathlon officials need a big reset to realize that what happened here was pretty mild compared to What Could Have Been. Watching that horse on video, the horse looked miserable and upset but also like he was doing everything he could NOT to hurt his rider. He didn’t buck. He didn’t rear.

1. He could have reared and gone over backwards with her. A horse that is really at wits’ end can do this even with no history. She could have been severely injured.
2. He could have bucked her off or stopped very dirty, potentially causing her a permanent spinal or head injury.
3. He could have been lame - with the way he was acting it would have been possible and yet difficult to tell - and he could have had a fatal injury for himself or even both of them right there in the ring.

Every official in pentathlon should be very very grateful that none of these things happened and very aware that they could have.

So I think blame for the Saint Boy incident in particular lies like this:

1. The rules of modern pentathlon, that do not recognize horse welfare or horse agency at several very key points. And the people who seem uninterested and unwilling to change them.
2. The officials on the ground who did not act to stop this situation ANYWAY, as soon as the horse was saying no when he went in the ring. That was not fair to the horse, the athlete, or the competition, rules be dammed. And again, there was potential for serious injury here to horse and/or rider, never mind the damned medal.
3. The rider’s coaches, who never taught her to know when a horse is just not able to do the job, and never taught her that some days you just have to respect the horse’s needs and retire, no matter what the competitive stakes, no matter what the ethos of that military scenario that drives pentathlon is. This is something all riders need to learn at any competitive level.
4. The rider, who totally lost her composure. It is not that she used the stick or even that she persisted, but that she was so emotional that she lost the ability to think.

The horse withdrew his consent and it doesn’t really matter why he did. The rules need to allow and enable him to do so for the safety of everyone concerned.

[HipNo34]

This is going to have to become its own thread because I’m now curious myself about what we mean by “jerk.” Say, for example, in the context of a dirty stop. I always applied “jerk” broadly, like when we talk about horses having a “work ethic.” And I’m not sure I’ve ever meant that a horse was being straight up malicious – more that he was looking for a way out of doing something that he didn’t want to do in the course of work and lacking what I would consider just cause (such as physical discomfort or a frying experience with another rider).

I guess the trick is in how much you anthropomorphize in exploring that reason. I don’t think many of us believe that horses have exceedingly complex motivations, but I still think they’re capable of a little more complexity than some people give them credit for. No, I don’t have any evidence of this. And I’m not going to ask a horse to write a reflective essay for me any time soon. But I do get distinct feeling of intelligence watching some school horses operate!!

[HipNo34]

I somehow missed this post and feel worse than redundant because this is exactly what I was trying and not quite getting at. Back to my closet,

[MHM]

@JER

But It seems like everyone on here suddenly believes that all rides are perfect at horse shows.

There is a pretty darn large gap between a less than perfect ride at a typical horse show, and the skill level on display in the pentathlon at the Olympics. As I believe I mentioned earlier, one of the articles said that 1/6 of the competitors in the pentathlon did not complete the riding phase.

That is a pretty high number, especially considering how much more lax the rules are that would allow a rider to complete the course at a pentathlon compared to a regular horse show. And several of the ones who did complete it certainly kept the jump crew quite busy in the process.

[Darkwave]

@JER

In case anyone is interested in seeing what a good pentathlon ride looks like, I posted the video of the Austrian athlete Gus Gustenau on my Instagram @jersporthorse.

That was a lovely round. Obviously some cross cantering that would knock him out in an equitation class. But flowing, soft, balanced. I would have no issue putting him on any horse I owned, based on that round.

[JER]

@Haliburton

Humans are capable of perceiving horses to be jerks, I suggest you give Evidence Based Horsemanship a read to help contextualize what I’m trying to say.

I’ve lived evidence-based horsemanship for a really long time and the evidence says horses can be jerks. And, as @poltroon says, also kind and humorous and empathetic.

Some of my very favorite horses could be the biggest jerks.

I think we sell horses short if we think of them as lesser beings. Our relationships and their relationships are much richer than that.

[JER]

You make some good points.

@erinmeri

I also think there is a vast leap between saying this sport requires a horse who can take a joke and somehow conflating that to mean one that can tolerate incompetent, unsympathetic riding at fences of this height.

If you watch the full replay with an open mind, you’ll see some nice rides and you’ll also gain an understanding of pentathlon riding. I recommend the two Lithuanian girls for this - they are light, balanced and forward. Perhaps not stylish eq riders but the rides are appropriate for the course on an unfamiliar horse. If you want to watch the men’s, the two from France are very experienced and ride in a good pentathlon style.

When I first got into pentathlon, I was horrified by the riding. Over time, I started to understand what the consistently good riders were doing right. They ride forward to the jumps, they stay balanced, they stay out of the horses way. If they have a problem, they fix it going forward - this is very important. They ride their lines clearly and meet most fences at the base. Again, they don’t look like they’re in the Maclay but they’re unfussy and efficient. They don’t try to micromanage. They ride the horse the way the horse likes to go.

The top people in the sport are the top people in the sport because they don’t leave much to chance. They know what to do to succeed.

When it comes to horse selection for pentathlon, you need to find horses that are resilient and don’t mind knocking a rail or two. In the US World Cups, the horses often come from eventing barns for this reason. This is why you school and test the horses over the course - you find the ones who can handle the elements of pentathlon riding. At Pan Ams in 2015, we had several upper level eventers like my pony and even a horse that had gone around Rolex. @Jealoushe’s mare was a solid Training level eventer. Etc. These were all horses whose owners said were capable of dealing with unfamiliar riders, a large crowd and jumping in multiple rounds.

A horse who expects things to be perfect all the time is not going to be suitable for a pentathlon competition. Organizers know this. Horse owners know this.

[JER]

@MHM

As I believe I mentioned earlier, one of the articles said that 1/6 of the competitors in the pentathlon did not complete the riding phase.

Yes. And in the show jumping individual 5 of 30 didn’t complete. Obviously those people should ride bicycles or do archery. No horses for them!

In the eventing XC, 13 of 48 failed to complete. These people need to switch to crochet or something like Dungeons & Dragons.