I thought the terrain made most of the trouble. Except for the waterfall. Some surprising stops and surprising clears too. Not nearly as many falls as usual. Thank goodness the rain mostly held off. I hope they can complete Monday.
Beautiful fences. Footing seemed great. Many happy volunteers. They had a jumbo tron, which I was sooo glad to see. Lots of fantastic riding. Lots of skinnies and terrain.
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I loved it, I thought the course itself was just beautifulâjumps and scenery. I was able to make a few laps around the course today and the footing looked great everywhere. The weather really was as good as it gets for the south; nice and breezy (thankfully it only rained for a short bit).
The massive hill nearly got me, but most of the horses seemed to handle it quite well. Iâm currently watching footage from today to see all the interesting bits I missed walking around.
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Was it supposed to be 4****? It seemed more of a 3***, but it sorted them out, seemed to ride pretty well, more bounce offs than actual stops. I can see that there are going to be a lot of âcascadesâ built for practicing! After all the problems that caused, i was amused at the horse that lost his rider in the water, then jumped that "scary"fence on its own!
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It was always supposed to be a 3* XC. I donât think it was a championship caliber course, even at 3*. Far too many riders came home within the time for a championship.
Michelet did a much better job at Rio.
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Agreed that the course wasnât quite championship level- the options especially were quite soft and still allowed one to finish in good time, provided they were riding a fit horse. I appreciated that the course rewarded forward riding. Loved seeing some of the âunderdogsâ come out guns blazing and have their bold riding rewarded!
Not a a huge fan of the waterfalls, though. IMO difficult for the horses to read and kind of a cheap bogey for a world championship.
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Walking it I thought there were gonna be more issues than there were. We parked it by the water since we could see the butterfly jump, the water, and kind of the corners. And had the jumbo tron. The "smaller"country riders had no problem with the direct route in the water for the most part early on. And the corners rode much better than I thought they would.
Did the heat and humidity/rain effect the horses? We watched on TV, thought a few horses looked tired? Might have just been my perception.
I thought the waterfalls were a neat idea. A way to separate the really brave XC horses out of the pack in a non-dangerous way. I also thought it was really interesting to see which combinations had no troubles there.
As as a spectator, XC day was really not that hot (especially compared to earlier in the week). It was overcast all day and a bit of a breeze for much of it. Given how many horses made the time, I donât think the heat was much of a factor.
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It was overcast and breezy for most of the day with intermittent showers. Really not hot or humid. I was in shorts and was cold for most of the afternoon.
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Part of the reason I stayed away from WEG was my concern for the direction XC has been going, and worry that it would be a bit bloody. I am positively delighted to have been wrong. Even with a somewhat high number completing and making the time, it still did a good bit of shuffling and sorting. That is a significant accomplishment.
Wasnât there a waterfall at the 1984 Olympics? I expected it to cause more problems than it did, but IIRC, it was more rustic-looking than the one this year. Looked more like a steep spot in a creek than a man-made waterfall.
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Has anyone heard any updates on Henrique Plombon Pinheiro (BRAZIL) and his horse, Land Quenotte Do Feroleto? Their faces-first into fence 5A looked HORRIBLE on TV but when the broadcast camera cut back to them they looked to be up and standing, trying to get the horse out of the ditch (for which I was thankful they showed), but Iâd still like to know that horse and rider were both truly OK - and that the rider at least had a concussion protocol performed.
Also I read that Box Qutie (SWEDEN) was being treated for a soft tissue injury after pulling up lame at the finish. Any word on the severity of the injury? Sincerely hoping it wasnât as bad as it seemed to me on TV.
I had a hard time trying to figure out how many double-clear rides there were from this. Trying to count on the official results page, looks like 16?
This is the first time Iâve been to a cross country in person, but it seemed to do the job of shaking up the dressage placings. Maybe it wasnât âhardâ in the traditional sense of fence size, but it certainly gave some big names with decent horses more than a cakewalk. As I look at it (and could be misreading or miscounting), only 6 of the top ten after dressage are still top ten, and thereâs been at least some shifting among those. The scores in the top grouping look tight enough that just a rail in the jumping can make a big difference, so it will stay a real competition until the end (which I wonât get to see, dammit!). Nobody was seriously hurt that Iâve heard about at this point. Seems about right to me.
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Blenheim Horse Trials held a WEG party after the 3* so we could watch live on a big screen. The consesus in a very experienced audience was that the course was really good. It separated the wheat from the chaff, as a Championship should do, yet a high percentage finished clear or with a few penalties. The leaderboards changed completely as a result of xc so definitely not a dressage competition. The problems were scattered across the course, some horses came through with unexpected success, there were unexpected failures. The terrain was used to great effect, the fences asked many different questions and the riders had to concentrate, think really quickly and ride the horse underneath them as it was very intense. If some people are now saying it was too âeasyâ then I suggest that they are underestimating just how skillful the top riders are. Klimke was magic to watch, as was Canter, both Prices, McEwen. It is fantastic for an American audience to see top riders from around the world as so few compete at Kentucky 4*.
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Is that video up online anywhere? And how did they get him out of the ditch? I kept seeing the word extricate, and I wondered exactly what that involved.
16 double clears XC at Tryon versus 3 or 4 at Rio. Rio was said to be an âunofficial 3*â. Iâd say Rio is more of my idea of XC for the best in the world than Tryon.
16 out of 80 something? I think that is OK. I thought the course was tremendous. I couldnât believe how fast they were going at the corners. I thought there would be several falls there and there was the one bad one, and a couple of glance offs. i think with what is going on at the moment out that way it was nothing short of a miracle that it went as well as it did. The course wasnât churned up after a hard day of horses galloping over it. FWIW, Burghley is the toughest course in the world. Year in, year out
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Although I didnât see everyone go, I thought the footing looked great and I tuned in at the last hourâŠAnd the course to me looked very fair. They lucked out with the weather for sure.
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Wondering this as wellâŠ
