They seem to eliminate riders after about 4 refusals, which I’m glad for. Damage control for horses that don’t want to put up with bad riding.
Hungarian rider in army uniform. Sees to have some clue, and is on a VERY forward horse named Catarina.
Lithuanian rider absolutely buries the horse to a jump, crashes through it, horse takes off to get outa there, then tries to kick the rider when he first tried to get back on. Can’t say I blame the horse.
Finally rung out on max time (150 seconds).
Italian De Luca has a loose seat and not much eye for distance but was absolutely rescued by a very good horse to finish clear. I want that babysitter horse to learn on!
Nice that all the horses are getting met after the out gate by a double handful of carrot pieces.
I haven’t been able to catch all the rides for either men or the women. From the few rides I’ve seen, it does look like the riding is, on a whole, better today.
Hopefully with the sport becoming more competitive, the riding will continue to improve for all!
(As I was typing this, there was a horse refusal and rider fall…)
Poor czech guy to be ditched twice n still have a smile and a pat for the horse…
Jan Kuf gets launched over the fence without the horse twice, getting eliminated, but still catches up at the outgate to give horse some nice pats before leaving. Good to see.
Rain has picked back up again.
I wish the announcer on nbcolympics.com knew something about horses! Some of these horses are refusing / dropping rails out of bad distances, and the announcer is not noting or explaining that at all.
Oops, my bad!
I think one of the biggest negatives about allowing them to continue after a fall is that they try to hold on to the horse because the clock keeps running (unless they reset a fence). Good way to pop someone’s shoulder out of socket or hurt a horse.
I couldn’t blame the horse that kicked out at the Lithuanian. It’s interesting, with the women there was a noticeable increase in riding ability as the day wore on. Not so with the men…some of the early rides were much better than some of the later rides.
I only managed to watch 10 minutes. I was disgusted by the poor riding and lack of care for the horses. I don’t think I have ever seen anything else like it. Why in the world do they put the poor horses through that?
Fergus is 30 min. from me. If possible, I’d love to go watch!!
I was curious about how competitions source horses for the pentathlon, and found the following ad for horses for the World Cup in FL. It’s interesting, it’s being pitched as a marketing opportunity, and owners are paid, though it doesn’t say how much:
@JER–forgive me if you’ve answered these questions before or if they sound silly. I was just wondering why the fences are so relatively high given that so many of the competitors seem so unfamiliar with riding.
I understand why the fences might have been traditionally that high when more people rode (even casually) but it seemed clear that there were HUGE discrepancies between the familiarity with jumping between the different riders.
I was a bit surprised in general, watching, given that, like I said, my main introduction to the sport had come from knowing Tik Maynard and obviously he is just the consummate horseman. I remember him saying he got into the sport via the Pony Club Tet so obviously every person has a different entry point.
Also, why is it acceptable to get on after a fall? Has there been any move to change that rule? I was just so surprised that was still acceptable. I remember seeing old videos of eventing from the 1970s when people would have terrible falls and everyone would rush to stick them back on again and thinking, “Ha, that would never fly today.” But…
Honestly, I think they are allowed to continue after a fall or going off course because it happens so often with these riders. A lot of them would have been DQ’D. None of them would make it through pony club at the most basic level.
[QUOTE=Wonders12;8806942]
Overall, I thought most of the riding was much better than past Olympics.
In general, I would love to shorten their stirrups and add a neck strap. The riders are all so fit and the horses are so game that I think everyone would benefit from the riders just getting out of the way!
Where do I buy one of these horses? Or 5. Wow, what good souls. Some actually look really nice with tons of scope to spare.
…
My Fix: Since it sounds like you can’t really improve your score from riding, I would make an elimination cut before riding. Only the top 2/3 continue on to ride, run, and shoot. Most of the exceptionally bad riding was early on/with the lowest placed athletes. Additionally, many of the better athletes ended up punished/out of the running because their horse had a bad ride earlier.[/QUOTE]
The long stirrups thing drives me nuts. The only reason I can think why they don’t shorten them is that they have do the run/shoot ride after riding, and the compression/stress/soreness of those leg muscles has probably turned them off from riding with short enough stirrups. :eek: The only way you can build up the strength to ride short without your legs falling off is by riding 10 horse a day, and that’s not an option for them.
Honestly, they need to lower these jumps… 3 foot max. If people think that the lower height will mean less rails, I’ll invite them to watch a few rounds of the Novice Rider division at a HT! The way these riders are going with grabbing the horse’s face and falling on their backs, they’ll have no problems pulling rails when they ride that poorly.
My guess is that FEI doesn’t want to touch this sport with a 10 foot pole… it’s bad enough they have to deal with the endurance scandals, they sure as hell want to be involved with and policing riders who can’t ride their way out of a paper bag.
[QUOTE=cnigh;8807835]
Honestly, I think they are allowed to continue after a fall or going off course because it happens so often with these riders. A lot of them would have been DQ’D. None of them would make it through pony club at the most basic level.[/QUOTE]
Except that quite a few were recruited from pony club’s tetrathlon, so they must have made it through.
I agree, the horses might appreciate lower fences given how much they have to compensate for pilot error. That big yellow over towards the end was a big stretch when riders came in with a long spot. Kudos to the horses who were still game to try!
I’m going to answer all the Qs in a series of posts. I will preface all of this by saying that yesterday was a tough day for Pentathlon Canada.
[QUOTE=Hollywood87;8806893]
Out of the first 10 riders, 4 had falls, one of which fell twice. The rider Moya from Cuba left on a stretcher. She caught him so hard in the mouth over the 2nd fence, no wonder…I couldn’t stand to watch any more. Such awful riding skill on display was disheartening. Poor ponies. And terribly dangerous for those riders. [/QUOTE]
The first group of riders you saw were the lowest ranked coming into the ride. The Egyptian girl, Haydy, is very young (17?) and not a rider at all. She qualified for Rio through the easiest route, the continental qualifier system, which gives guaranteed Olympic spots to top finishers in the 2015 continental championships. Egypt is in Africa, and the reality is that Egypt is the only nation in Africa that has women competing in pentathlon (Egypt has a very robust program, quality athletes and the nicest coach). There are a few South African men, but for women it’s just Egypt. The African qualifier undoubtedly had a much easier riding course than Rio.
The Turkish girl is also young and can run like blazes, but her riding is utterly, astonishingly insufficient. In most competitions, she rides into the ring, puts her hand up and retires. When she does try, she usually gets eliminated. This incompetence has caused much anger among other pentathletes and coaches, because if you can’t ride and don’t even attempt to ride, you’re not a pentathlete. The Turkish federation has signed off on her riding certificate (you need to be certified by your federation, and I will also say that the US is one of the worst in terms of certifying athletes who don’t know how to ride) but it’s clear she can’t ride. She’s lucky she hasn’t been hurt badly.
When you see athletes like those two go early in the order, it really colors the experience.
The horses are from the army equitation school. They are quality jumpers. I think there was a feeling that they were a bit more horse than athletes were used to riding.
Neckstraps are allowed. If an athlete starts working with me, the first thing I do is tell they must use a neckstrap. I will devote an entire session to teaching them how to grab the mane, and to do so over every single fence. Like I do. If they ask why, I tell them that Mike Plumb, he of 6 Olympic medals, always has a strap to grab over every single jump and also on the flat.
Donna was using her own neckstrap on that horse. 
I do find it funny how people resist grabbing mane, like it’s a beginner thing or something for sissies. I tell them it’s how experienced riders get to stick around long enough to become experienced riders.
[QUOTE=Wonders12;8806942]
Poor Donna. She gave that horse a hell of a ride. I thought she had re-instilled some confidence in him and they were going to pull out a complete round, but he was just done. 
Most of the exceptionally bad riding was early on/with the lowest placed athletes. Additionally, many of the better athletes ended up punished/out of the running because their horse had a bad ride earlier.[/QUOTE]
You’ve hit the nail on the head here. Yesterday, you saw the last two Olympic gold medalists, who are also multiple world champions, get E’d in the ride because they were on horses who were simply not going to jump anymore after a first round with an incompetent rider. Laura Asadauskaite, who won gold in London and just about everything else in the sport, inherited the Egyptian girl’s horse, and he wasn’t taking all four feet off the ground again. She’s not the most skilled rider, but she is very effective and good at going with the horse. Lena Shoneborn, Beijing gold medalist and multiple world champion, is an excellent rider. She could not do anything with her horse.
The sport really needs to ask itself if this is what it wants, for stellar athletes to be E’d due to the incompetence of non-riders. A horse often needs serious re-schooling after a disastrous round – reschooling by a professional, not another ride by a possibly unskilled unfamiliar rider.
This is also what happened to Donna, as she was tasked with riding a horse that had crashed into a oxer standard by an unskilled rider. The horse wasn’t going over oxers, thank you.
Donna’s horse was in a pelham, and he was really backed off the bit. If you took on it, he inverted. He also kept his mouth open and his jaw locked. IME, this is a horse that would need to be ridden forward, on the lightest contact, only taking on the rein when you need brakes. IMO, this is a skill set too far to ask for pentathlon. In order to do this, you need to have excellent balance and you need to establish in the warm-up that the horse will stay straight and is honest. If the horse doesn’t stay straight or isn’t honest, you shouldn’t be riding that horse over jumps. IMO, this horse is not suitable for a pentathlon competition for that reason.
If your horse has 4 refusals with the first rider, you can request a reserve horse. You might have noticed this happening in the men’s competition with German athlete Patrick Dogue and eventual winner Alexander Lesun from Russia. But Donna’s horse – and Laura’s and Lena’s – were E’d for rider falls or time, not refusals, which meant that they could not ask for a reserve horse. The only thing I have to say about that rule is that it totally sucks.
JER thanks for the insight!
Is it normal for an international competition to have so few horses that they have to go multiple times? I noticed several horses that proved with the women they did NOT appreciate poor riding also being used for the men. Is there any impetus to make changes? I’d be surprised if there was significant resistance to simply lowering the jumps a bit, at least. I’d hate to see riding dropped completely because some people can’t be bothered to learn to ride, but that size of a course on a strange horse is nothing to sneeze at even for the very skilled riders.
I think the announcer said the Egyptian girl was 16. But I think this is the same guy who couldn’t figure out the Egyptian flag looks NOTHING like the German flag, so I wouldn’t trust him.
I just watched replays of the showjumping. :eek::eek:
This is nothing short of horse torture.
I mean, there’s bad riding… then there’s not having a damn clue how to ride.
Wouldn’t a dressage test be better?
[QUOTE=Jexa;8806973]
I wish they had enough horses for them to only go once. The second rider has quite the advantage or disadvantage depending on the horse and the first rider. [/QUOTE]
Yes, but it’s so hard to get enough horses for a competition. Even at the World Cup level, there are comps where the jumps are 90cm because that’s what the horses can do. And that’s not great because there are too many clear and the good riders don’t benefit from their skills the way they would in the other disciplines.
This is almost always the case. The owners are there, volunteers are there, the stabling area is usually a very happy place with an army of teenagers grooming and fussing over horses.
[QUOTE=Wonders12;8807045]
If I had a suitable horse, I would consider lending it for a competition with the riders who came later in the day. But I would never lend my horse knowing there are all those riders who rode earlier. So the sport is not going to get enough horses so they only go once unless they do something to protect the horses.[/QUOTE]
When we had the Pan Ams in Toronto last year, we set up a system for this. Even though pentathlon rules allow for a rider to get back on a horse after a horse fall (this MUST be changed, if you want to complain to high heaven about something, please complain about this), we decided that the was not acceptable in Canada, and that if we had to inform our owners that a rider could continue on their horse after a fall, we would have no horses for the competition. I actually put in writing that if the rule wasn’t changed for the competition, that I would physically intervene if someone tried to get back on my horses after a horse fall.
Our solution was, in the event of a horse fall, to let the rider have a re-ride on another horse. We did have one horse fall in the warm-up, and the rider was given another horse to ride. Worked out perfectly. But it doesn’t excuse the idiotic outdated pentathlon rule.
Also, there is a ring steward who can pull anyone off the horse in warm-up if they’re too incompetent. It doesn’t happen as often as it should.
It’s been tinkered with a lot. I think a fall should have more than 10 pens – it should just be an E, like in real riding.
There are a number of people in the sport lobbying for a higher standard of riding. The US coach, Janusz Peciak, has been quite outspoken about this. He’s been furious about the incompetent Turkish girl this year.
Pentathlon riding used to be much more difficult. Check out this video of the 1984 Olympics – the riding starts at about 5:40. Now that’s a real course! Also, please don’t miss the US rider who is doing his best to imitate Rodney Jenkins.
Team GB gets millions of pounds per year for their program. Other countries, like Canada get nothing. Some athletes manage to get kit from their country’s equestrian team supplier; others wear the uniform of their police/military unit. Some don’t have a clue how to dress for riding. But I’m not one to point fingers because when I needed a jacket for the recent masters world championships, I bought a kid’s riding jacket for $30 from the local consignment shop and sewed a $1.99 USA flag on the sleeve (photo).
Agreed. But really what needs to go first is getting back on the horse after a horse fall. That is just plain wrong and inhumane.
JER, thank you for keeping us all informed about this sport! Do you have any ideas for what would help with the situation of the higher-ranked athletes getting stuck with the somewhat traumatized horses?
I know you’ve said it’s very hard to find enough horses for the event. Do you think letting the higher-ranked athletes go first might help at all, or would this still not be very helpful since they are based on the two prior events that don’t have anything to do with riding? I’m assuming that the best riders are also strong in the other areas for the most part, but there could also be athletes who are good at fencing and swimming and ranked high at that point, but terrible riders. Or maybe basing order of go on a certain number of riding results from past competitions, to ensure that the good riders aren’t unfairly penalized? I know that’s unlikely since the competition wouldn’t start as a “blank slate,” but it would incentivize people to have strong rides throughout the lead-up to the Olympics as well.
I agree that the reserve rule sucks…are there enough horses usually to change the rule to be able to ask for a reserve due to falls/time/refusals under 4?
[QUOTE=HorsesinHaiti;8807446]
The Irish rider did very, very nicely.[/QUOTE]
He’s a good rider. Most of the Irish team comes via Pony Club. If you saw Natalya Coyle yesterday in the women’s comp, she’s an excellent rider.
A couple of years ago, I was asked to coach the Irish riders at a comp in Europe and when I introduced myself to them, I said ‘So does anyone foxhunt?’ An awkward silence. One girl offered that her father was a field master. Someone else said ‘We’re not supposed to hunt during pentathlon season.’ Then he added, "But I went last week.’ To which another said ‘You did?’ To which the first one said ‘Don’t give me that. You went out on Thursday.’ ‘I know. But it was my birthday.’ At that point, I wasn’t worried about getting them around a course of show jumps.
[QUOTE=HorsesinHaiti;8807457]
Hungarian rider in army uniform. Sees to have some clue, and is on a VERY forward horse named Catarina.[/QUOTE]
He has his own horse at home.
[QUOTE=HorsesinHaiti;8807473]
I wish the announcer on nbcolympics.com knew something about horses! Some of these horses are refusing / dropping rails out of bad distances, and the announcer is not noting or explaining that at all.[/QUOTE]
Too bad. BBC had a good team, a former gold medalist and a knowledgeable horse person. They really took time to explain how it works.
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