But XC is the phase that has changed the most, requiring a different kind of horse. A more rideable one, if you will. Less about galloping fences, more about technical courses.
Excellent points here…
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I agree about XC changing a lot; I’m having trouble grasping the second part though, can you elaborate more?
My two cents is it’s not the increasing technicality on XC course that’s encouraging riders to ride dressage horses; it’s how heavily weighted the dressage score is on final placings.
We know the best dressage stallions are objectively poor jumpers; their licensing scores are published in just about any WB registry.
Without diving into a Deb Bennett level vivisection on the pros/cons of Dressage-bred versus Jump-bred horses, it’s understood that the two have diametrically opposing conformation.
Rules like this do push dressage level creep on the masses, and do force professionals to seriously consider a dressage-bred horse to be competitive. That’s fine in the sandbox, but it puts lives on the line over big, solid fences and is directly at odds with the push for increased horse and rider safety.
People can say “just practice” at home as much as they want, but judges are not rewarding perfectly accurate bad-moving horses as well as they reward brilliant movers with lumpy geometry. (Sidenote here: tension is much better hidden in an elastic horse than a bad mover, and judges can conflate ‘bad movement’ with tension when the two are unrelated – some horses are just not elastic.) Until that changes, we’re just going to see more riders pick horses who move and look like Valegro over horses who move and look like Winsome Adante.
Do you think this horse would score well today? He was one of the best event horses of all time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmNOabh7RnA
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Yes, Winsome Adante would be competitive today. I think Marigold that I am not being clear explaining that a partnership in eventing dressage should score less than 45. If the horse is correctly trained, his throatlatch is open, the horse looks painfree and with his partner. I looked at the scores /at recent horse trials, and it is a very small percentage of people scoring 45 or above. It gets a bit harsher at Prelim and Intermediate, but there’s quite a bit to do. It does not require an outstanding mover to score below 45. It requires correct geometry (I suck), not getting lost, and not having a horse that is uncomfortable either stressed or having underlying pain. If one scored a 5.5 on every movement, the horse would get a 45. Social license is required within horse sports as well, and usually a horse is not presenting well most of the way around to get a 45 or below. To quote you Marigold “They should be accurate, they should be obedient, and they should be well-trained” and that is at least a 6 in each movement which is a 37.5.
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Be careful on this analysis. Yes, perhaps more rideable. But when you are now cramming the jumping efforts into ever smaller distances, with more accuracy, you are increasing both the mental fatigue and the physical from the stop-start-go fast - go slow.
I still want a quick thinking, fit and catty jumper and galloper for this. One who is still jumping with good form at the end of an FEI XC.
Now, that’s not really affecting anyone at Training level. But it does start at Prelim FEI and up. For the pros, I think they are the ones taking the greatest risks because they will get the dressage mover and hope everything is good in the jumping, for the win.
Given the choice, I’d rather be alive and finish middle of the pack on my dressage.
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But isn’t that the risk they’ve always taken? To be competitive, you need good or great dressage. For the most part, the good/experienced pros can get at least a 60% in their sleep with or without a purpose bred horse. The best riders can take good and turn it into great with accuracy and relaxation (Michie and Sam?).
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Until 2004 plus the competition span of the young horses coming up, I’d say no. That is, long-format with roads and tracks and steeplechase had its death knell in 2004. People were buying for the Long format until then. There were foals on the ground and being born in 2005, that were bred for it.
Heck, LA Biosthetique Sam was bred for it - born in 2000, 75% blood, and won the 2010 WEG. And he was competing against horses bred for it.
But compare that to a cohort of today’s top horses, and there are many more by dressage stallions, or with strong dressage lines. Even a heavily SJ bred may not be suitable for XC. Remember Udonna, the horse Marilyn Little first evented? Her extravagant jump and hind end was not a good fit for XC.
Laura Collett and Yas Ingham, speaking about London 52 (52% blood, 3/4 Holsteiner, 1/8 TB, 1/8 SF) and Banzai du Loir (66% blood, 1/2 Selle Francais, 1/4 TB and 1/4 Holsteiner), both talk about “he’s the whole package”. They are specific about it- a horse with dressage movement and enough temperament to train and produce a good test on the day, enough gallop and adjustability, superb SJ ability without sacrificing the XC capability.
These are simply not the 7/8 breds (Irish for the most part) of old.
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That’s right. Then I also said:
A great example is Ema Klugman’s Bendigo. A good, safe-jumping horse who was also half-Saddlebred/half-TB and started in the sport at age 10. Her coaches were Marilyn Little (say what you will, but the woman knows how to get a good dressage score) and Packy McGaughan, so she was educated in good dressage training. She regularly scores in the low 30s and into the high 20s on her current rides. But Bendigo has multiple tests over 45 on his FEI records.
Horses like Bendigo give younger riders a safe and affordable introduction to the top levels of the sport. They are unlikely to win, but they are going to give team riders of the future foundational education and access. Bendigo has at least four dressage tests out of thirteen post-multiplier-removal FEI starts over 45. That combination was perfectly safe, but they were also against the clock - the horse did his first 5* (clear xc) at age 18. Holding them back from MERs because his dressage tests aren’t “beautiful” would be the difference between a young rider gaining safe mileage at the top level or not. That is just a ridiculous decision when, and I truly can’t stress this enough, there is no safety-related reason to do it.
As has been discussed better than I ever could by others above, they may be many safety-related reasons not to do it, such as:
As an aside RE: the below, he’s just spectacular. What a partnership.
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I don’t have access to FEI records to check dressage scores, but this thread made me think of ISH Polaris. I recall that someone (Wofford??) had described him as the best xc horse in the country, and he was also recently described by EN as ‘notoriously unpredictable in the dressage ring.’ I got such a rush watching that horse run across the country.
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For someone who has done say 50 events at or above T level on various horses, how many MER’s do they have to have compared to someone doing their first T level.
Ah, Polaris. What a good shout. Such a beautiful, talented horse to watch cross-country, and a lovely mover, but the dressage ring just freaked him right out. You are right that he also clears 45 fairly regularly. Loved that horse!
His record is here: https://data.fei.org/Horse/Performance.aspx?p=F03ED2364E3C5E63F9FEC7CE131DEFE6
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Absolutely. I was watching the live scoring from Ocala I last weekend as I had a horse running. Wayne Quarles–a well respected judge nationally and internationally–judged about 5 or 6 divisions out of about 40 division. Yet easily 50% of all the scores 40 and above came out of his few rings. A little bit a sleuthing and his low scores were typical scores of those pairs and his high scores were 7-12 points higher than a pairs’ typical previous scores in that division. He rewards good movements about the same as other judges, but then tends to score less than good movements much more harshly than other judges.
If the order of placing is correct I don’t the think it is that big of a deal. But there were quite a few that were above the 45 at Training up to the I/A. Of the 10 that missed the MER dressage qualification and still went on to XC (a few scratched) 9 of them had clean rounds.
You should think about the fact that the acquisition of one MER costs for most people about $1000-$2000 dollars–more as you get to the upper levels and have to travel farther. I don’t mind a bit of idiosyncratic scoring, but if he keeps walking down that path when it costs so many safe horse and riders so much money then he and others like him need to be reined in.
For those of you worried about the cost of the sport this is actually a big deal. It is obvious that there is a snotty group of elitists who have a grip on the sport and want to make it a rich man’s past time on par with dressage and jumpers. What’s really weird to me is these are typically the same folks bending themselves over backward in the name of “inclusiveness.”
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Thank you for filling me in. I don’t ride at that level and it’s been almost a decade since I was a groom for an UL rider, so I don’t have much insider knowledge of the UL these days.
I wonder if this will be something that is tweaked in the future. The problem is, I guess, there are not a lot of ammy riders riding that level and so their voices need to be the loud minority if this is going to negatively impact them.
For pros this new rule is probably a non-issue. They are usually funded by their clients anyway, so it isn’t as cost prohibitive to them (in some ways) to miss out on an MER.
The pros also often benefit from a halo effect. Perception being reality, and judges being human - they might know so and so is a brilliant rider and expect brilliance from them, and that can inflate scores on an otherwise satisfactory but (IMO) not brilliant test.
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Exactly.
I think it will affect a lot of pros, actually. For every Boyd or Phillip there are ten pros who aren’t really making a living at it or even covering all of their horse expenses riding or teaching. Being an amateur as an eventer is definitely a luxury many people can’t afford, especially going up the levels. But the money you make as a pro riding an extra horse or two a day and teaching a few lessons on the weekend to pay for board and shoes and one event a month isn’t going to make those MERs any less expensive than if you get it working OT in an office. And if you’re a small-time pro no one’s heard of there is no “glow” factor either.
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I would argue that collectively, eventing is one of the “poorest” competitive disciplines. Definitely the poorest of the Olympic disciplines. Which is ironic because it’s the one that requires the most equipment and most training.
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Yes, and I do think that’s something we need to figure out how to preserve. Getting to compete at the top levels shouldn’t be only for those who are born wealthy or born the child of a successful UL rider with a bunch of sponsors.
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The subjectivity of judging is a huge problem in this case - I don’t know if he was just having an “off” day, but I was super disappointed in the scoring from his ring that weekend. Giving one horse a 4 on a stretch circle with the comment “balance more” but giving another horse in the same division a 3 on the simple change movement when the horse picked up the wrong lead twice is not consistent. My test’s comments were also very hard to decipher and it had scores that were crossed out and changed by the judge after they were first written…
It’s really discouraging to have a relaxed, flowing test with no major mistakes and get a score 6-10 points higher than how the horse normally scores. Yes it was an MER score but there were several at the level that were not. Call it sour grapes but I’ll avoid any shows where he is judging in the future.
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I think organizers should be made aware of these “outlier” judges – and not ask them back.
Unfortunately, I don’t think most people fill out evaluations - so event organizers are not getting enough feedback to justify action! Also, some judges are liked by organizers or have a lot of connections in the business, so it’s kind of hard to not use them.
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