btw, how was the weather today? what is the forecast for tomorrow?
I think they said extricate because there wasn’t a grade up out of the ditch that I could see.
Someone on another thread in the eventing forum said he slid into the ditch, but was standing upright in it. So they just had to get him to hop out of it once they got a halter on him. Apparently his bridle came off with the rider? I had imagined something much worse. Phew! :lol:
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I get the whole nascar thing, but the last fence was hideous. That’s something you’d see in someone’s backyard, not a world class event.
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I don’t think you can just look at the numbers. If the weather hadn’t cooled off and it was 10 degrees hotter and more humid, as is quite normal, or if the footing was bad which it was lovely, you would likely have seen close to Rio numbers of double clears. It wouldn’t be fair to the horses not to take the likely weather into account and make it too punishing.
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the Eventing crowd needs to change their perspective. Are we setting our horses and riders up for failure or are we setting them up to succeed and show their best?. I don’t know about you, but I don’t judge the quality of the course by the number of passes vs failures on course. I want to go to an event and see riders and horses succeed. I don’t want to go and see horses falling, complete blood bath, injuries, etc. Showing their best to me does not mean a hundred horses struggling and failing to make time, horses falling on course, riders retiring mid course, etc. Let’s set ourselves up to succeed and our horses to succeed and we will all be better for it. The WEG course was standup and I applaud those who designed the course beautifully and all those volunteers who ensured that the event was enjoyed by all.
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There also were two fences removed from the course at the last minute-- I’m not sure if the time was adjusted for that or not, but I’m sure it had some impact.
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Agreed. It’s “Three Day Eventing” not “Cross Country with a little Dressage and Jumping,”. Not “Dressage with placing changes only if there are big screw-ups later so we have to make the Cross Country a death maze to do that.” I think course designers need to move more and more toward courses where time faults are the most common faults, and the jumping questions are tricky in ways that are not overtly dangerous, with the biggest efforts sited and designed so that the horses are set up for success and the challenge is almost exclusively physical. I think this course did a great job. “Not a championship course” would have had the standings stay essentially static after the cross country, because all the top horses after dressage should have been able to sail around on their dressage score. Not so here. I also don’t think it’s optimal for the cross country to be so challenging that there are only a handful of combinations that wind up with no faults, so that the point spread going in to jumping winds up being broad enough that only major screw ups will change anything. That doesn’t seem to be the case here, either.
I thought the waterfall was masterful. We started out watching that obstacle, but hadn’t walked all the way around it. I didn’t know it WAS a waterfall. First several horses sailed through, so it clearly was not an unreasonable “question.” It was also an entirely plausible sort of thing one might encounter and ask a horse to negotiate in “real life” (although perhaps not at a full gallop after jumping several much larger obstacles). We need more of this kind of thing.
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Does anyone know why Sara Ostholt pulled out? And who are the officials that walk out with every rider? And look at that blue sky! It was really the right decision to wait till today. And why didn’t the eventers yell about being put back a day?
Why ‘hideous’? I would have liked to have seen the front of the jump (I looked and haven’t seen it). All I saw was the back of it as the horses head to the finish line.
Maybe ‘hideous’ to you but, to me, a nod to NASCAR which is a fairly substantial business based in the Charlotte area (just about all the teams are based near Charlotte).
Why not acknowledge a sport that is distinctly American 
I also liked it as I thought (again from the back), fairly horse friendly for a tired horses if they did have a rub.
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I agree with snaffles and Toblersmom.
And to answer Larksmom’s question, I thought it was a lovely course and seemed very doable to me. I thought the honeybee jump was silly – where does a horse meet such an obstacle out galloping across country? – but I realize the object is to amuse the spectators as well as challenge the competitors. I loved watching the first horse and rider’s round, especially how they took the waterfall.
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I think it did its job. I didn’t like the jump complexes that seemed to have an infinite number of options but that is to be expected when your world championship is not about the best of the best of the best. You can’t set a course where only the best can ride it. That is unfortunate that world championship has to allow for riders who are really not up to the standard. It demeans the entire sport.
I don’t like gimmicky jumps like the water falls or the bumble bee. The miniature golf course look doesn’t work for me. You don’t find that stuff on real courses like Badminton or Burghley.
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The officials walking out with the riders are stewards to check boots and tack I’m pretty sure.
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The waterfall in '84 was more natural looking, like a creek dribbling over rocks. This was more like an mini-waterfall, arching down into the water.
ETA: real!y impressed with the Japanese riders. I was told Wm.Fox-Pitt had worked with them.
Badminton can be borderline frightening to watch. Sure it weeds out the good from the sub par but do we need to kill horses to do that.
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Belowthesalt, I also enjoyed watching the Japanese riders. I love seeing a country that has not been previously competitive come into their own.
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I heard an interview with Mark Philips and he was explaining the difficulties of having to design a course that, at the same time, would not be too difficult for the less experienced nations, and a suitable challenge for the more experienced. Hence the tricky water stuff.
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Those stewards were preventing people from touching the horses. If you remember, some positive dope tests have been caused this way.
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I took a video of this incident on my TV because I was having a hard time explaining what happened to my friend who was there spectating at another fence. Just posted it here, unlisted and with no reference to his name or horse name because I think that would be a little mean-spirited: https://youtu.be/bC7f1QAE7L4. It is crazy to watch though and I’m really glad they both seem to be okay.
I imagine once they had the horse haltered they must have just encouraged him to jump up out of the ditch.
Look at this pic of them from dressage, love that grin! http://eventingnation.com/henrique-p…-feroleto-bra/
I agree that it looked awful on TV and I was really worried about that horse. This update (in Swedish) seems to say she is doing okay and flying home with the show jumping horses next week: https://ridenews.se/fler-grenar/falt…ade-box-qutie/ (Google translation has some pretty funny parts).
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Thank you so much for posting that. That looked unfortunate, but not hideous. I had imagined something much worse. Phew!
Thank you for the video… he jumped that like it was a drop down to my eyes. Glad everyone made it ok - I have to say he handled being stuck very well.
