Lovely ride. lovely horse.
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And now we have Kittel’s horse smiling away… 
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Does Dalera only go tomorrow?
I’m really glad Becky won that heat. Overall I’ve felt everyone was scored pretty appropriately.
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Yes, she’s the last to go tomorrow!
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I think its terrible after what it takes to get to the Olympics that you can be eliminated for such a ridiculous issue, and then you’re letting down your teammates as well. We need the 4 member team back, having only three is stupid…
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It is so strange that in eventing, where the idea is to test a horse in three disciplines, you can substitute a horse in and avoid team elimination. But in dressage, there is no second chance.
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I am personally not a huge fan of how the sub rules are for eventing at the Olympics right now. I don’t disagree with being able to sub, but I think the penalty points should be higher. The Japanese team won team silver after subbing a horse in for show jumping after a horse WD at the final horse inspection. The penalty was only 20 points to have a fresh horse for show jumping. To me, if a horse had to be subbed in eventing, the penalty should be more like 100. One big aspect of eventing is having a happy, sound horse left on Sunday. This being said without taking away the amazing work of the Japanese eventers.
Not sure how it would work for pure dressage.
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thank you!!
I personally think teams and individuals should be separated into different categories like other sports do. I feel like small countries have a huge disadvantage when competing still. I know the reduced rider format was meant to give more opportunities to smaller countries to try for the team medals, but for countries that can only send one or two riders tops…it sometimes feels like no hope for them to do well against the mob of the team riders from dominant countries.
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It wouldn’t be an issue if they brought back the 4 member teams, if something happens to one of them there are still three more to make up a team score.
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I’m not in favor of bringing in the smaller countries until they can field an entire team, look how this thinking is ruining eventing. Its already dumbed down to a 4* and although the course was beautiful it was too manicured, with no real terrain like you would find at the major five* competitions. The smaller countries can send individuals until they are able to field a team.
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The thing is, in order to grow any part of the sport, you have to generate interest, and the best way for the smaller countries to do that is by sending individuals that genuinely have a chance. When you have riders that can make a name for themselves, money follows and the sport can grow, allowing for a closer competition. But if a a country feels like it has no chance because of its resources…they won’t invest, and the amount of players grows smaller and smaller.
The olympics isn’t really meant to be a big championship final. But it DOES bring a lot of eyes and interest to sports that aren’t mainstream, like ours.
As an aside, I thought this eventing cycle was quite fair. The questions asked were appropriate for the level - difficult, but not unreasonably so.
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Not sure how the English speaking commentators did, but Carsten Soestmeier really tried to present Dressage as something horsefriendly, I don’t remember him talking like this in the past. He really criticized the rider from Singapore…
On a separate note, what an earth is the point of that far away camera on the top of the stands? The horse and rider are a dot in the center of the screen, but they keep cutting away to that vantage point!
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Here we go, day 2! I might be crazy but this day started an hour earlier from yesterday’s - was that always the case or did they adjust because of the heat?
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Omgosh someone plz tell Lucinda her audio is low
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I would love a ride on Werth’s horse just to feel that canter!
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Oh my god, they’re using the Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron soundtrack for the Austrian rider. Whoever has been the DJ for these tests has been so good!! 
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So - does anyone know the rationale behind this whole “top 2 of every group” qualifier for individual thing? I think it is sorta goofy.
If a group has a weird set of low scores with the top two (qualifying) only at say 71…then potentially a third place rider in another group (not immediately qualifying) with high scores could have a higher score than someone who qualified simply because they were in the top 2.
I am not a fan of this.
But I’m also not a fan of the “only three riders per team” because I think they should go back to four rides with a drop for team. And yes I’m saying that because of Marcus
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