He sure looks like he’s doing bounce gymnastics
I was holding my breath, I had to stop watching. That is just so scary.
Note the bit is a kimberwike on the slots… the RM prevents that bit from functioning like it should. The other picture with the RM is same.
Maybe that route should be prohibited instead of optional. Why would you ride that if there’s a way around, if not for bragging rights?
And, if the riders arms were jello from holding the horse back for the first 50, this isn’t just a moment in time with everything else being on the buckle…
It’s not just endurance. It’s any sport that puts a horse through hell, and then turns around and calls it a partnership. No, it’s not. Only one of the two gets to choose.
John with the super fresh stallion should have opted to go around this route. Why would you attempt this if the horse was being fractious up until this point? Seems like a stupid choice.
Just curious do you currently ride?
John has over a decade of endurance riding under his belt, including multiple Tevis Cups. I’m sure he knows a heck of a lot better how to handle his horse and the terrain than yet another armchair quarterback on the internet.
And a young, hot horse laying on the bit because it wants to go go go is not “putting it through hell”. If it were, no one would ever ride those horses long enough for them to calm down. Hyperbole much?
This team came through the finish line on a loose rein and at an easy trot. Other videos on youtube show John jogging beside the horse during the night. But no, let’s fixate on an inexperienced horse throwing itself up a cliff as an example of how well or not it’s trained for its sport and whether its rider is abusing it …
Riding a horse 100 miles on treacherous terrain is though.
And yeah, I pointed out the arms are jello comment because everyone was saying a short martingale on a curb bit is ok because the horses are on the buckle except for brief moments. Yet the rider himself admits that for 50 miles this horse was being reefed in this set up.
It doesn’t matter the years of experience. The equipment choice is poor and poorly adjusted. The choice to take a fractious stallion up the tougher terrain for a glamor shot was a poor one.
Andy Kocher has lots of experience jumping horses, too. So does Oliver Townend.
The die hard nature of a sport’s fan, and their inability to call it like it is, is not a flattering feature.
Yes I do. I don’t push my horses to their absolutely brink to say I did, though.
I have issue with any sport that does that.
Why would you do Tevis at all then?
Why would you do the Mongolian Derby?
Why would anyone Steeplechase?
Why would anyone run Ultramarathons?
Why do people participate in extreme sports to begin with?
People can explain their own reasons, and go and do.
It’s when you start involving animals in your attempt at the extreme that I take issue. Why was horse diving deemed cruel? Why is the Omak stampede cruel?
You know what SHOCKS me about the Tevis Cup? How many of those folks are beaming, ear to ear, in almost every photo.
Every picture I have of those 3 minutes in a dressage ring, it looks like I’m about ready to cry or am majorly constipated. They’re riding 100 miles over brutal terrain, in whatever weather, and most of them look thrilled. Like, is it the altitude? Go look - https://www.flickr.com/photos/teviscup/
And contrary to Endlessclimb’s remark, there are not that many martingales and very very few that look like they’re being used to pull heads down.
And yes, doing the Tevis Cup is about bragging rights. So is making into a CDI or Badminton, or any other top of the sport competition. Most horses would rather eat in a field and most competitors know they aren’t going to win. No one would go if they didn’t want to test themselves and be able to say they went.
Favorite so far is the series mid-way down this page, where some guy’s horse decided it needed a good roll during its vet check.
Endurance horses are vetted all through the route though; they don’t get near their brink. And now trying to think of another horse sport where the horses are vetted throughout…
Tevis has a tradition but I don’t think it’s extreme. It’s a challenge but I don’t consider it extreme.
Yes! Everyone I know who has taken part in any compacity talks about Tevis magic. A couple friends and I are planning to hopefully fly out from MD to volunteer next year so we can get to join in the fun
When your sport needs multiple vet checks throughout, you may want to think of that as a negative instead of a positive.
Bottom line is - I am anti ANY extreme horse sport. At that point its not about the horse anymore, it’s about bragging rights.
Remember a horse languished, injured, at the bottom of a ravine waiting for daylight for rescue last year because of the “need” to ride through the night. That horse would likely be alive today had that person not wanted those bragging rights.
I’ll never be in support of stuff like this, and I never will. It’s for the human, not for the horse.
I went back to look at the photos I took at the ride I managed earlier this year (15/30/50) and found zero riders with martingales. And probably about 50/50 in some sort of bitted vs bitless setup. This was very early in the season, as horses were just coming back to work and we had a good mix of experienced horses and riders and green beans.
No horse sport is immune from concerns, but “cruel”/restrictive tack is really not something I notice at endurance rides or CTRs.
That’s all horse sports though, it’s always about the people not the horse. I think endurance got out ahead of the possibility of people putting their horses to the brink by making the vet checks part of it from the beginning, not because it was happening.
I never imagined someone would find a way to turn having vet checks into a negative.
Darn.
AND, because those horses have done more than a few rides, and 100s of training miles in between, they KNOW what leaving a vet check means - MORE. How many of them are happily and perkily taking their riders out? Those aren’t horses being forced to keep going.
I scared the cat when I burst out laughing!
Have you seen how many HUS, WP, and USEF Hunters are truly and visibly LAME, with nobody saying a word? There have been threads in the H/J forum about that very thing.
Why WOULDN’T you have vet checks for something like this, to prevent crap like that? More sports need this sort of oversight.
Then nobody should go on a leisurely trail ride by themselves, ever. Or in a group where there are fall-offs miles from any help, ever