I was probably one of a half dozen people who had a good angle to see Lauren’s and both my friend and I looked at each other like, “they’re going to have a hard time calling that.” Where in Will’s case (which the photo above doesn’t show) the horse’s back legs drag along the side of the fence, not clearing the height of the fence. In Lauren’s case, all parts of the horse went over the fence, and the neck and shoulders went through the flags fine, but the horse’s barrel or hips popped the flag out, from drifting/ twisting outside the width of the fence. I 110% understand his frustration with the situation, and inconsistencies and vagueness of the rule though. His screw you salutes after stadium made. my. day. I adore fiestiness. Same as I enjoyed Liz’s comment during her dressage interview - “…that’s even worse!”
Well said.
It’s fair for xc to test braveness and accuracy. But when absolute accuracy outweighs the desire to ride forward, it could upset the balance of good xc riding.
Riding skinnies and narrow corners will always have an element of imperfection, because xc by its very nature has its rough moments. What happens to the footing when 40 (or 50, or 100?) horses must take off and land in the same three or four feet of ground? There may be water involved, uphill or downhill, rain or mud or hard slick grass. Xc isn’t show jumping, and I don’t believe horses or riders should be held to that standard of perfection, if the horse is honestly attempting to answer the question as designed.
I’m flipping back and forth between this thread and ACME’s. Yes, well said. The point about the horses injured by flags is a good one and I remember those. I also remember thinking, “Well, they will have make the flags out of some different, softer, more pliable or frangible material like foam rubber, cardboard or whatever”. But no, they are still made out of hard plastic. And yes, horses have a mind of their own, see jumps differently and decide when and where to jump - or not. So the rider is not in total control of a machine and this rule, at least to me and apparently also British Eventing, is too subjective and too unenforceable by volunteer jump judges however well intentioned it is. Lauren is a great example of how confusing this is. She was clean, then penalized, then penalties were removed. All of this confusion at the premier Eventing venue in the United States.
The solution is then to widen the skinnies. Because you need show jumping levels of precision to successfully negotiate a 4 foot wide fence.
On the other hand, if the point of the jump is to test accuracy, then it shouldn’t matter how the flag gets taken out. Knock the flag, get a penalty. Even if the rider’s leg takes it out.
You know, it just occurred to me that there is nothing in the rules, other than the flag rule, AFAIK,to prevent a rider from jumping a skinny like a corner as long as the whole body went between the plane of the flags. There is absolutely no point in going over the skinny part of the skinny, and one could set up a turn by jumping the skinny as a corner.
Am I reading the rules wrong?
Lauren Kieffer wasn’t jumping a skinny when she jumped way right on the brush jump.
I have a hard time understanding the purpose of the rule. What exactly is the FEI trying to do with it? If there were major safety issues involved, fine, but I don’t see that at all. Were there ever DR penalties issued for this? What I do see is a very confusing, non-sensical rule that seems to be applied without any goal of improving the safety of the sport, that’s applied inconsistently and requires a lot of extra time, photography and proper visual perspective to call
Will Coleman was quite elegant in his statement afterwards and for me, he summed up the intention of the rule well and I agreed with him. It is there to penalise the horses that are initially not attempting to jump the fence but are instead manhandled to give them not a lot of choice but to attempt to take off. That does have a safety impact. Whereas Wills horse was clearly doing its utmost to jump the fence.
So to a certain extent I do agree with the intention behind the rule.
I think what we are seeing is huge teething problems and confusion in its roll out and the consistency of application.
Post Kentucky the FEI has issued a clarification statement about applying the rule and I know there is a meeting at Badminton with the riders to discuss the application of this rule.
I think we will see this rule staying but over time the benefit of the doubt given to riders, with it being applied in only the most clear cut of cases
Yes, I think the intentions are good, but it seems so poorly written and so difficult and ambiguous to enforce that I would think it must either be scrapped or overhauled. The confusion we saw at LRK, and apparently in England, is a good illustration of that. This is from the COTH article and Will Coleman’s article. Badminton should be interesting…
“The problem we were trying to solve in the beginning is there have been multiple occasions at big events where a horse has gotten its head, neck and shoulder through a flag but never jumped the fence,” O’Connor said. “So the first point of the rule was to make sure the horse jumped the fence. The second part was that under the old rule, 50 penalties were assigned for missing a flag, and riders thought that was a bit extreme, so we actually reduced it from 50 to 15.”
The rule has seen action at lower levels this spring and was cause for discussion after its interpretation by officials at events in the United Kingdom. Kate Walls started an online petition on April 22 calling to remove the rule, and it’s already garnered almost 4,000 signatures.
“We are sending out clarifications on the rule this week ahead of [the Mitsubishi Motors Badminton CCI5*-L (England)], because at a couple of events in England there were officials who thought if a flag got dislodged 15 penalties should be assigned, and that was never the intent of the rule,” O’Connor said. “It’s not an automatic 15 penalties for hitting a flag, and the fence judge still needs to make the first call; that right hasn’t been taken away. When in doubt, the doubt should go to the rider. If it’s unclear, it goes to the rider.”
I do wonder if they were even in doubt though. I remember watching Will’s jump (on the live stream) thinking “Oof that’s some penalties”. The commentators said so too. Which makes me think maybe they never had any real doubts about it. I wish we could get comments from them, but I’m sure they would get attacked regardless of what they said. Everyone seems very divided on this.
Um, no, the rule doesn’t penalize the horse. The whole point of skinnies is to penalize riders without punishing the horse. The horse couldn’t care less about the penalties.
All this talk about how ambiguous and difficult the rule is to apply miss that the alternative is to recognize that if the flag is taken out, some part of the pair didn’t go entirely between the flags. Simple answer: it’s a 20 if retaken or an E if not. There’s your black and white. Pretty sure that the present rule is an attempt to avoid what was viewed as overly draconian given the extreme skinniness of some jumps. Viewed from that perspective, any rider should be grateful to only get 15.
Regarding the extreme skinniness - at lower levels, with a bit more skinny face some risk of the flag rule can be helped by jumping the skinny at a small angle that helps direct the horse to the center of the skinny rather than lean into a flag. It can be practiced.
The rules do not say anything about knocking a flag over will cause a penalty, though it sounds like people are using that as a reason. The flags are there to give the judges a frame of reference.
The rules are poorly written, but if I’m reading it correctly, the horses body (head, neck, shoulders and pelvis [hips]) has to go through the flags. But then it says: “A Horse is considered to have missed a flag (15 penalties) if the Horse jumps
the dimension of the obstacle and the majority of the Horse’s body (as defined above) passes through the flags.”
I think they are trying to say you need to get 100% of the body through the plane the flags create? So if any part of the body passes outside the plane of a flag then, yes, technically the horse has not jumped cleanly. There is no provision for the jump pushing the hip out or anything. You either “jumped” it or you didn’t.
Now that they have this rule, FEI now needs to provide funding so that cameras can be setup at each jump providing 360 degree coverage so all ruling can be confirmed or rejected. Otherwise you have live with the call of the judge.
Except the rule says more than 50%.
Are you referring to Article 549.2? I don’t see anything about 50% there. Just “majority” and “body [excluding legs]”…
Well 
It actually says a majority, and this is where the rules are poorly written. I first thought it read that if a horse passes between the flags with a majority of the body then that is OK. But what it reads is if only a majority of the body pass between the flags then it is a 15 point penalty. That means the rules read, from my lay reading,100% of the body has to pass between the flags. Now why they didn’t say that in the beginning or say "if less than 100% of the body passes between the flags then it is considered a missed jump. Anyways confusing and needs clarifying during the offseason.
Time to pull a dictionary. What do you think majority means?
I was photographing where Ariel picked up her flag. The horse had a bold distance at A and the flag got between her knee / leg and saddle. Horse was over the center of the jump and did not swing haunches left or right. Photos are amazing . I did post a couple on FB. Here is a link to one. https://www.facebook.com/Flatlandsfoto/photos/pcb.10157417125709524/10157417109699524/?type=3&theater
I have been thinking quite a bit about the 15 penalty rule for narrow fences. I think those folks who are having trouble accepting the new rule fail to understand the FEI, who drive the underpinning of this sport’s vision for eventing. The statement here I quote within the vision statement is why we have this rule and the frangible pin rule in my opinion. "This test focuses on the ability of Athletes and Horses to adapt to different and variable conditions of the Competition (weather, terrain, obstacles, footing, etc.) showing jumping skills, harmony, mutual confidence, and in general “good pictures”. Focus is on good pictures now. Lots of people argue with me when I talk about perception of how a fence is negotiated, and that eventing is becoming more subjective this is the proof that these things are important.
FEI EVENTING VISION STATEMENT
Eventing constitutes the most complete combined equestrian Competition, demanding of the Athlete considerable experience in all branches of equitation and a precise knowledge of his Horse’s ability, and of the Horse a degree of general competence, resulting from intelligent and progressive training.The Cross Country Test constitutes the most exciting and challenging all-round test of riding ability and horsemanship where correct principles of training and riding are rewarded. This test focuses on the ability of Athletes and Horses to adapt to different and variable conditions of the Competition (weather, terrain, obstacles, footing, etc.) showing jumping skills, harmony, mutual confidence, and in general “good pictures”. This test requires by all involved special awareness and acceptance of a certain level of risk inherent to the particular challenging and exciting nature of the test.Every effort must be made to ensure that, at each level, responsible Athletes are participating with progressively trained Horses in order not to be exposed to a higher risk than which is strictly inherent to the nature and level of the Competition.
USEF does not have an overarching vision for eventing.
The FEI has awarded 15 penalties to Maximum Security. 
