Stuart Tinney at Adelaide http://eventingnation.com/controvers…-tinney-clear/
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well, when I saw Will’s miss at that fence, even Jon Kyle murmured that it would be 15 penalties. that horse did NOT jump that jump. Period. I didn’t see Lauren’s, so I cannot comment on that, but comparing Will and Ariel’s problem are apples and oranges. she was lucky, she was so focused that she was able to continue.
The width permitted for narrows and skinnys is and has been set at 4 ft, 5 ft., 6 ft. for years as recommended by all the course design documents I can find. There is nothing new about the width permitted of a skinny. Most Advanced CD’s use the 5 ft or narrower and are allowed to do so. However you will find many of them brushed so horses can be close and not come to grief.
It is not fair when a horse goes across a corner or skinny and makes every effort to jump the obstacle, yet touches it with just a hoof, or side of the foreleg, or the rider forgets to put their toes in, hooks a flag, and gets some sort of scrutiny. That is not what the flag rule is about but rather to protect these good performances from the cheaters. Such a a rider who misses a bit, the horse is not going to get there right, lifts his front legs off the ground and slides off the side without really pushing off with the hind legs - doesn’t really jump it - but gets a leg around the flag and knocks it off - oh yeah they are “clear”. I believe that is the reason for the change in the rule. I think they are addressing this problem of horses not really jumping corners but knocking the flags off because the front legs get near the flags. It is very hard to define and just shoulders isn’t a good definition either because many a horse simply doesn’t jump but slides right or left off the face when the shoulders are past the flags.
I have clearly seen many instances where horses did not really jump - were quite stopping - yet got a leg near a flag and knocked it off and were considered clear as the rider took advantage of the benefit of the doubt and galloped on, face forward, to the next obstacle, and the poor jump judge radios in and the control says no penalty, carry on. In those instances it is one person’s opinion to the rider and the jump judge rarely wins. So the video-ing and the ipads and the attention paid to this issue now is good in my opinion and puts the riders on notice that the half-ass stuff isn’t going to work any more and to me that’s fair to those who try to get it done right.
A clean jump should never be in question.
I don’t really mind it…like the picture of the grey in the linked article? Yeah he mostly clear it but part of his body WAS outside of the jump. So he technically did not jump the jump as intended. That makes sense to me. If it is supposed to be a question of accuracy, then they should get points off for being less accurate than the ones that jump it correctly.
Does anyone have a link to the video of WC’s penalized jump? I have been looking but can’t find it.
ETA: found the vid thanks to another post in the Kentucky thread!
From the slo mo video I think Will’s horse got it’s body and parts over the middle of the fence but I wouldn’t assign him a flag penalty, maybe a yellow card as it wasn’t exactly “jumping” as much as swimming over it.
The Chronicle has an article about Will and Tight Lines. After seeing photos and the video, I stand by my opinion that 15 penalties was undeserved. It was an ugly jumping effort, to be sure, but the horse made an honest attempt to negotiate the obstacle and scrambled the safest way possible… resulting in the left hip falling outside the flag. It’s XC, it happens, but imo should not be punished.
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Rob Burke spoke to our Area 8 meeting at KHP Sunday morning and told us British Eventing was against the rule. I’m with you, and I think Will Coleman got screwed. Photo of the same jump from a different angle. Tight Lines took a long no-hoper distance but Will made the best of it.
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Personally I think part of the rule should be that the head on video of any where the 15 penalties was granted should be publicly released. Every time I see more media I change my mind on whether it is deserved or not per the wording of the current rule. I think it absolutely would have been a zero in the past but the Chronicle photo to me looks like Tight Lines front feet landed far to the outside of the back face of the jump which pulled his left hip outside the plane of the original flag location. That would make him subject to the penalty.
But side to side views really don’t help us. I want to see the head-on view to have a firm opinion.
Not releasing the head-on video just leads to much more intense speculation as well as much more media being released in support for or against. Everyone is going to have an opinion but we might as well all be opining on the official video rather than spectator footage from all angles save the ones the officials made the ruling on.
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Seriously? TL took the flag with his stifle. The 15 was well earned.
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Agreed. By the time the horse’s back end crests the jump (that’s it’s not even jumping - it’s sliding over it as the horrific distance caused it to land on the top of it), it twists and contorts with not one but both legs hanging over the left side, stifle taking the initial hit to the flag and then the hock and leg following the motion hanging over the side of the jump.
All should be thrilled this horse was uninjured, as that was seriously an ugly effort. Funny how everyone is all hung up over 15 points instead of the atrocity to the horse.
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Haha, yes they were particularly scathing about it at the BE volunteer training refresher this year!
I’m FJ at my first FEI event of the season next week. Will be interesting to hear what we’re told at the briefing.
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Actually in the slow motion video you can see the flag starting to fall as soon as Will’s foot passes the flag, which is also when his foot was dislodged from his stirrup.
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I love the accuracy, too, but as a hunter I’m trained to go to the middle to keep my horse, my knees, and my feet clear of jump standard. They don’t have jump standards to take down like we do, so I can see why they are cutting the corners. But I do agree that the flag adds a level of accuracy to the jump that was previously missing. Let’s face it - cross country is a jumping competition. It makes sense that the horse would actually be required to jump the jump. Skinnies test the skill - if you can’t make it within the flags, then it makes great sense to penalize the lack of accuracy. I rather like this. It actually makes this sport more attractive to me as an option if I ever decide to change. Less blame on the horse and more ownership to the rider to execute and pilot the horse around.
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@MsR - Going back and staring at it, that may be true, but it’s still clear that his stifle hit it hardest, and if it was already dislodged, the quarters were even further out, so that doesn’t change my view. Wouldn’t go quite as far as to call it an atrocity to the horse, but agree with atl that it wasn’t a garden variety hairy spot - WC was lucky that the horse got him out of it.
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Agreed. His hind legs went next to the jump, not over the jump. I think getting the penalties sucks, but at the same time skinny fences are tests of accuracy. If your horse is taking out the flag then you weren’t accurate enough. Shit happens. Practice more?
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Whether or not the whole pelvis goes between the flags is just as important under this rule as the shoulders were under the old rule. It’s not enough to look at any pictures before the pelvis gets to the flag.
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I think the concern is enforceability, consistency and fairness. BE’s position being either it’s a refusal or it’s not. But here we are discussing re-plays of slow motion video, photos of both horse and rider clearly presenting to the jump with shoulders going cleanly thru both flags and there is disagreement. What about shows where there aren’t videographers and photographers at every jump filming every angle.
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I said this on the other thread but I’ll say it here as well.
This situation is really too bad, IMO, because the horse actually jumped it straight, but the impact with the fence is what pushed his legs to the left. There was no attempt from the horse to deviate from the line, it was pure physics. It sounds like the spirit of the rule is to prevent riders from muscling the front end of their horses between flags on fences that the horse is trying not to jump. This case is certainly not that.
At a point I have to wonder if the rule is actually beneficial or detrimental. Does this mean people will start riding more tentatively to try to ensure they don’t come near a flag? We always express concern about XC becoming more like showjumping, and then we put in rules like this that ultimately end up encouraging riders to take one more tug and ride backwards. We’ve seen that not end well on many occasions.
It’s tough because I do understand what they’re trying to address with the rule, I just don’t think that this particular wording/execution is the right way. An honest horse that makes every effort to jump a fence straight, gets the vast majority of his body through the flags, is athletic enough to keep going as if nothing ever happened, and still ends up with a 15 just doesn’t seem right. This is definitely not the same situation we saw with Stuart Tinney where the horse was actively trying to evade the jump.
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I agree that there is a “club.” There is always a club and it usually correlates with money and/or power and influence.
Of interest is this older Chronicle article about an earlier change in the flag rule. And the rule still is not right. Tend to agree that the real problem may be the too-skinny skinnies.
"Following Will Coleman and Cool Connection’s accident where a cross-country flag impaled the horse at the Jersey Fresh International (N.J.), the U.S. Equestrian Federation has issued an extraordinary rule change proposal regarding safety flags. The proposal was approved by the USEF Eventing Technical Committee and will be presented on June 18 to the USEF Executive Committee for adoption. If passed the rule would go into effect Aug. 1 with the full support of the U.S. Eventing Association.
Malcolm Hook, chairman of the USEF Eventing Committee, saw a video of the accident and was moved to make a change. “It’s unbelievable,” he said. “When I saw it, I said ‘Something’s got to happen.’ ”
After talking with USEF President David O’Connor, Hook decided to model a new rule after one in England, where a similar incident in 2007 resulted in a horse death at the Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials.
“It was a no-brainer,” said Hook. One of the major changes will be that the bottom of flagpoles will have to be tethered so they can’t pop up. Flagpoles on fences less than 3 meters jumpable width must now be made of a material that cannot shatter, break or splinter, such as carbon fiber."
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