the USA woman is a vey interesting one… She WON the riding leg, Broke a record and WON in the swimming leg, was totally LAST in the fencing and 28 in the shooting. This gives her a handicap of -2.05 mins going into the run.
the UK womn in second place at the moment is the most average…ie consistently in the top 10 in each discipline and so that gives her a second place overall. really interesting competition…
Is there a video of the riding on the NBC website? I can’t seem to find it. The photos are pretty horrific. It’s like they expect to fall off a few times during the round. I saw a tetrathelon once at PC Championships and even that was better than this!
Here are some photos of the women riding. There is a big difference between the women and the men’s riding skills. These pictures don’t look too bad. http://www.nbcolympics.com/modernpentathlon/photos/galleryid=247332.html
Here is a link to the mens riding and running.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/player.html?assetid=pnth-bj-sd09-082108-164024&channelcode=sportmp
Had to add to my previous post by noting USA’s Sam Sacksen was someone who stood out in a positive way. He rode well, although he had a stop and a rail, and was the only rider who took a moment to run up his stirrup before leaving his horse with the groom. Pony Club must be proud!
You know, at least all these horses are in snaffles and not some crazy gag combo leverage bits. Makes the yanking and pulling and grabbing a tiny iota more tolerable.
[QUOTE=bird4416;3463593]
How about just having the modern quadathalon; leave the riding out. It just seems much more humane to humans and especially the horses. I saw one horse slam on brakes at the wall with too much momentum to fully stop. He crashed the wall and managed to kick a hind leg into the wall where it went through the wood. He almost fell on top of the rider. The horse shook loose from the wall and ran off lame on that leg. Someone caught him, brought him back to the rider who mounted up. No one checked his leg at all. Thankfully, the rider retired. Hopefully, they didn’t make the horse carry anyone else around the course.[/QUOTE]
I saw this one too. I think they have to get back on or are DQ’ed, but I was so relieved when he retired. The horse was off and for a second it looked like they might go on. However, to his credit he did pat it a lot – at least it looked like he knew it was lame and quit for that reason.
Can’t believe they let the guy that got kicked in the face go on. I can only imagine the head injury he could have. To do a hard run after that is pure madness.
The footing conditions look terrible… and the riding was flat out scary. The course design wasn’t so hot either. Most of the horses were really struggling to get over the jumps (can’t blame them). I’m tempted to write a letter to the Olympics complaining that this was absolutly not fair for the horses… borderline cruel. A grey horse took several visably lame steps after his rider crashed him through the umpteenth jump… At the very least, make the jumps lower… 3’ still seems too high, but at least most horses are able to get over it, regardless of the rider. A few of the horses were pretty cute and looked like they were probably pretty good jumpers… I only saw a handful of riders pat their horse after they were done 
WTF is going on here? I had never heard of the pentathalon until I came upon this thread. I watched a handful of rides and could take no more. The horse of Amelie Caze finished their round completely non-weightbearing on a hind leg, his rider looked clueless as to their being a problem despite the gasps from the audience, and she proceeded to ride to the edge of the ring to dismount and smile and wave to her supporters, all the while no one seemed to be attending to the horses problem. I have no idea if the horse was used again.
Disgusting.
Are there any riding schools in China? From what I understand in previous Olympics, horses were loaned for the Pentathlon from private owners. I guess it is prestigious to have your horse compete.
Every 4 years since Atlanta, I have tried to convince others at how bad the riding is, but I have been met with many people that say what a wonderful sport it is. I am glad finally with this coverage, people can see for themselves just how awful it is.
Where is PETA when they could do some good?
Wow that is so sad to hear about the riding…in pony club I had a few friends who were focusing on this and they rode great. I have always thought it was so interesting and fascinating, I hope the horses were ok and that things improve, it really is a true athletic test from an ideological standpoint…but it sounds as if the practice part, especially horses needs a lot of standardization…maybe even qualification procedures??
[QUOTE=Fairview Horse Center;3464813]
Are there any riding schools in China? [/QUOTE]
Yes. Over the last few years, riding has become sort of a hip thing to do, at least in the Beijing area and there are a number of riding clubs on the outskirts of the city.
I’ve visited several of them and some of them are very nice facilities. The horses looked like mostly OTTBs. I know the HKJC hires riders from the UK to reschool the horses that are headed for riding schools, I assume this is also the case on mainland.
I did notice one of the Chinese MP riders had a clear round and looked ok in photos. I don’t know who the Chinese MPer was at Athens but it was clear she couldn’t ride – the horse finally bucked and sent her flying. I take the clear round as a sign of improvement in the national program.
I do think the welfare issue is a serious one. I’d also like to see riding stay in this event as the MP phases make up an interesting skill set. There’s no reason why these people can’t become competent riders – how about even 1 lesson a week?
The women looked a lot better than the men. Hopefully, the men will realize there’s a lot at stake in the riding phase and get their skills up to par.
The horses for these Olympics were purchased from Australia after the Sydney games. (I believe they were showjumpers) My question is what will happen to those saints now that MP is over. I told Sam to stuff a couple in his suitcase to bring back to me, but apparently it’s hard enough to get the air pistol through security. :lol:
I watched the first couple and that was it for me. Just shot off an email to Peta for them to look into this so called “sport.” I don’t always agree with them but I think in this case, they might be able to do some good.
Eek, PETA?
I’m a little shocked at this suggestion. Obviously things didn’t go so well, and while I agree that the MP needs to reevaluate how the Pentathalon is structured and executed, you might want think twice before siccing PETA on this sport. It just might generate reprecussions you wouldn’t want. Keep in mind that a.) most of bad riding being witnessed is from riders in foreign countries and b.) the American riders might not appreciate being lumped into such a broad category of “abusive riding and treatment of horses”. All the American riders come from riding backgrounds, so they, at least deserve the benefit of the doubt. Much like IHSA, drawing a horse is not an easy thing to do, but the challenge of it is what makes it sport. I agree that there should be better qualifiers…and lowering the height to 3’ sounds very reasonable.
Wasn’t it the IMP president who said that the heavy rains had made the conditions difficult? At least from the website, it looks like the horses weren’t used more than twice each day, which is better than what was said to have gone on in Atlanta.
It might be better as well to change the order of the events, putting riding first so that all the athletes are fresh. After fencing so many rounds and having just completed the swimming portion, even the best athletes have to be feeling tired. Along this same vein, due to how the sport is scored, the first two components are given more “heft” in building an athlete’s score, which means they probably spend more time honing their marksmanship and fencing skills than they do their riding. A high initial score makes it easier to hold onto the top spot as the pentathalon progresses, in so much that it determines their “pole position” for the race at the end of the day. If riding was the first event, perhaps the athletes would be more concerned with putting in a good, clear round, rather than just trying to get through the course.
All I was able to see were the few riders shwon by MSNBC. The american was pretty decent, I mean yes her release wasn’t very good (almost non0existent), but she seemed to have enough skill to get around and go clear. Another rider (cannot remember which team) rode the same horse and had an awful round, basically kept pulling at the hrose unbtil there was NO distance for him to jump from. The german rider also not veyr good. I keep feeling like, if these riders would just LET the horses head go, stop trying to “hold them back” as the announcer kept saying they would have done a lot better. But overall the few riders I saw were better than I expected. I agree DON’T get PETA involved!!! Make complaints to the IOC if you must, but don’t go there!!!
Elementary, my Dear Watson! The Pentathalon has very limited media coverage. Hence, no PETA.
I’m with LoriW on this one. This is abusive and horrific. Every one of us in the horse community should get this stopped. What I saw was reminiscent of the atmosphere of a bullfight! I’m emailing PETA, the IOC, and anyone else I can think of. This kind of stuff is what makes us all look bad.
Please don’t email PETA. I think it’s unlikely that they can tell the difference between the pentathalon show jumping and the equestrian show jumping. There are more constructive ways to make your thoughts known. For one thing, why not write the various pentathalon governing bodies directly?
Simon Barnes (great sportswriter for the Times and a horseperson) wrote about MP today in his column:
It begins with a vicious spit of gunfire and it ends 12 hours later in a howl of exhaustion. Some people think that the modern pentathlon should be kicked out of the Olympic Games because it is completely mad. For exactly that reason, it should always remain.
Barnes reports that the horses come with crib notes – one is described as ‘lazy’ with whip/spurs recommended, another is ‘normal’.
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