Pau ?

I am pretty sure he got one. Tilly wrote extensively about this in EN.

I read he got an official warning. Not adequate in my opinion.

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wow, I understood it was a yellow card. I agree a warning isn’t enough.

The FEI scoring system doesn’t use MR for public results, it’s only “E” for horse and/or rider falls.

https://www.worldsporttiming.com/results/les-5-etoiles-de-pau-2019-265/schedule.html

They showed it much later from a different angle on tge live stream…you saw him getting back with his horse. No anger at all towards the horse.

And yup…something not right with that horse to even attempt the wall. That is dangerous bold.

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It may not show on WST - sort of depends on how the individual live scoring site like to reflect things - but the FEI system absolutely does track horse falls, and too many will affect your qualifications.

It shows up on FEI records as a result of “EL” (meaning eliminated) with “XC-FH” as an example of the score (signifying a fall of the horse on cross country). A rider fall would be a score of “XC-FR”, for example (prefix varies depending on the phase).

ETA: I don’t remember seeing WST reflecting details on the eliminations on a phase by phase basis, but now that the results are final they do show horse falls for Wesko, Salunette, and Archie Rocks, distinguished from eliminations due to refusals or rider falls. Final results here: https://www.worldsporttiming.com/contenu/documents/0001_017811.pdf

I know - hence I said “public scoring” - it wasn’t until recently that they implemented comprehensive scoring everyone could see with detailed fence-by-fence results and rider/horse falls. But some don’t… Rolex/Land Rover KY only shows “E” on the leaderboard overall scores. It does show RF/MR if you scroll through the xc fence report: https://realtime.startboxscoring.com/leaderBoard.html

So happy for Canadian rider Holly Jacks Smithers!!

I think a new rule needs to be brought in that if your tack breaks, you’re done.

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Sad that we need rules to dictate common sense.

i’m pumped for Holly too. I love that she specifically brought her horse to Pau because she thought it would suit him. IMO a lot of the problems are caused by people bringing horses unsuited to this notoriously twisty track.

happy too for Ros Canter, that’s a five star back from maternity leave that she has to feel good about

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The way the video looks to me (a person who was clearly not there and is only seeing it on video), the rider is steering the horse towards that wall. It looks like the rider was again reaching for the short broken rein. The horse was doing what the rider was telling it to do.

I agree! Sad that there needs to be a rule about common sense. But then, lots of rules are about common sense.

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Except that we have a hero culture when it comes to dealing with adverse incidents.

Like who doesn’t remember Mark Todd’s Badminton round where he lost a complete stirrup - leather and iron - early on the course?

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I would think the concern about the rapidgate is the effect on the horse, not the rider. What happens if it snaps back prior to the horse clearing the fence and smacks the horse’s butt? Not fair to the horse to get hit for something they probably have no idea about in the first place. I’d still rather have some sort of spring loaded pole rather than a wooden stick.

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What about a stirrup? Or one piece of a 5 point breastplate? Or one of two running martingale straps?

I think it should have fallen where it should have fallen to start with - dangerous riding.

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I saw this posted elsewhere and can see this the same way:

I believe now after watching this for about the hundredth time that the horse believed it was a brush fence. He saw the definition of the bottom of the fence and believed he could jump through the vertical lines - it looks a lot like a brush fence although of course we know it isn’t but the horse believed his rider guided him to it, therefore he trusted his rider. Also, you can see the jumping effort was not to go over this wall as he could have easily jumped another meter higher, he thought he was casually jumping through

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Ugh. I thought the horse read it as a brush fence as well, and honestly, the rider probably thought it’d stop the horse. I suspect I’d have done the same. Not going to crucify him for that.

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This is an important point. I have personally done this and it is a stupid thing to do. My horse tried to jump out of the ring, hit the top of the fence, and I fell off. It could have been much worse. A friend of mine witnessed a student do the same and the result was much worse; she sprained her ankle and her horse stifled itself badly.

Lesson learned: never try to stop your horse by facing it at a fence. Instead, circle until you have control.

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Not to derail, but in fairness, he didn’t face him at a fence: he faced him at a wall, and the horse misread it. And circling to get control doesn’t always work, especially on a fit horse with his blood up.

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PSA: You don’t run horses into any kind of shit to get them to stop.

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well we saw with Mark Todd it can be done with no stirrup but his horse was too back sore afterward to continue onto SJ.

All are dangerous to continue with if broken IMO.

FWIW the rider said the horse locked onto that bit and he couldn’t pull him off.

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