Love Hannah Sue - she’s the cutest!
I love the commentary for the most part, but there are quite a few mistakes about the horse/rider info. I wish they had someone fact checking.
[QUOTE=Winding Down;8641275]
We do have Jung, Alliston, Todd, Price, Paget, Meyer, and Tait. [/QUOTE] James Alliston only has Parker this year, and while James is a beautiful rider and I think they are one of the best XC pairs in the world, Parker struggles mightily with the dressage. 
As an aside, James has either made from scratch or fixed serious issues in 2 of his 3 4* horses, and happily rides anything from 3yo babies off the track to upper level dressage horses and jumpers. I hope that he will be able to build a syndicate or find some owners that can help him bring up (and keep) a really nice string.
OK, considering Olympic selectors are watching … if your horse is a beast across country, will that make up for being flighty in dressage? Considering how the Olympics tend to work out with dressage being less important than XC.
All the commentary about “reacting to the crowd”, etc. … the Olympic dressage phase has tended to be a highly distracting environment. I could see selectors considering the trade-off’s.
[QUOTE=OverandOnward;8641669]
OK, considering Olympic selectors are watching … if your horse is a beast across country, will that make up for being flighty in dressage? Considering how the Olympics tend to work out with dressage being less important than XC.
All the commentary about “reacting to the crowd”, etc. … the Olympic dressage phase has tended to be a highly distracting environment. I could see selectors considering the trade-off’s.[/QUOTE]
Considering that the US hasn’t really had great results post XC at the games or olympics, I really don’t believe in the selectors. They seem to choose something great at dressage and then a super show jumper. They seem to forget that XC is a phase.
It would be nice to have a team that completes the event for once.
One would thing that if you do not come out strong in dressage, it lessens the opportunity you have fr the rest of the phases. it is the safety net if you can put in a really solid and complete test. Jung has become a powerhouse because of how solid his dressage tests are. He sets the bar high to begin with which makes him very hard to catch for the rest of the phases if he doesn’t encounter any jumping faults.
That Veronica is a lovely horse.
[QUOTE=FLeventer;8641675]
Considering that the US hasn’t really had great results post XC at the games or olympics, I really don’t believe in the selectors. They seem to choose something great at dressage and then a super show jumper. They seem to forget that XC is a phase.
It would be nice to have a team that completes the event for once.[/QUOTE]
Amen to that.
If it’s me selecting, Veronica, Demeter, Shamwari are dead cert for the team. 
But to date no one has ever asked me. 
:lol::lol::lol:
I really liked Veronica’s test and think it could have been scored a smidge higher anyway. ???
If horses are flighty in dressage its only going to set your bar super low to begin with, especially in an Olympics environment. The Rolex dressage environment is high hype but I don’t think it’s anywhere near the level of what the Olympics will be for crowds, noise, and distractions.
The selectors should be looking at the complete package. not perfect at dressage at rolex but SOLID, cross country machine (no stops, falls, errors), and enough scope to get over show jumping. Whatever pairs they choose should be balanced across the board.
Of course Jung slayed his dressage round yesterday but could very well have serious issues cross country. Jung is a perfectionist and it starts in his flatwork.
If you don’t show up and put down a solid dressage round, you risk never catching who did with the other phases.
If you don’t put down a solid dressage test, but own the cross country and show jumping; you have the potential of beating who did win the dressage test so long as they have serious enough faults over the jumping courses.
Co-worker/project partner keeps phoning me, today and yesterday.
Co-worker, with excitement: “Did you see what came in the email?”
Me: “Uh.”
While thinking ‘what is email? can you put a saddle on it?’
Co-worker, with enthusiasm: “Blah blah, blah blah blah!”
Me: “Really? Whatever you think is good with me!”
While thinking ’ __ is next to go, let me max the screen!’
:lol:
Decided will wait till Monday to find out what co-worker has been doing …
I have to say the weather has been really nice for dressage!
Great coverage and commentary – makes up for not being there, just a little! Thank you, thank you USEF for the live stream.
I liked how the Cosequin bucket was in use after the performance (forgot who had it now). I have some of those! Fond memories of the lines.
Also, am I seeing bling on the helmets? Something sparkly on the decorative strips…
One more edit … I liked how the commentators were rooting for Veronica to at least catch up to Jung…too bad it couldn’t happen. Good test though.
Buck Davidson is just not as elegant as Mark Todd.
So … Peyton Manning had to practically be chased into retirement to keep him from hanging on too long and embarrassing himself. Even Marshawn Lynch is wondering if he is still up to the mark at age 30. Etc thousands of athletes who retire when they can’t consistently produce results any more …
And then there is Mark Todd. He has ridden through so many profound changes through the last decades of eventing, not least of all in dressage.
And he is still the master. Of the new sport, as well as the old.
I think Buck Davidson going after Mark Todd was an unfortunate draw. They just couldn’t be more different riders. Copper Beach is an interesting horse, he’s huge and not very expressive but the second half of the test was much better I felt, showed the horse off well.
The commentators really wanted to be so kind to Buck – I think they were quite restrained. Of course, I am sure he’s a very good friend of Karen O’Connors.
It looks to me like the New Zealand’s judge’s final score has usually been the highest of three for most of the riders, but it is a almost 5% higher than the next highest for Mark Todd with nearly 8% to the lowest.
I’m so upset, I’ve been waiting all day to watch Mark Todd’s ride, and then I get pulled into my boss’s office right before his test. :sigh:
Tuned it about one minute into Mark Todd’s ride. He actually made me stop and watch!!! Visiting from H/J land, but I have to ask, does “Buck” always have that much motion in the ocean during trott work??
