Two sides to the coin.
On the one hand, once the rail is down it is down and there is nothing you can do about it, so there is no advantage to using part of your attention to keeping track.
On the other hand, there is probably a REASON you had a rail down- too fast, too slow, not balanced, not straight - and if you can figure it out promptly you can adjust the rest of your round so you don’t make the same riding mistake again.
In Aus all SJ to be run before XC at 2* level and above (except CCI-L obvs) not being pullled up mid course but having to withdraw and not run XC. Presenting to XC after having more then 5 rails will be a yellow card.
I feel its a good rule
Pre-season volunteer evening, the two UL riders giving their opinions, as part of a chatty ‘get to know the sport’ Q&A, admitted that often they forget/don’t know/can’t count that high with penalties around a course. Their focus, said NZ team rider, is getting round. Not least because selling horses is how they make their money. “I lost £10K on the price of a horse because it ran out”.
If I hear that dreaded “clunk”, I’m certainly making adjustments to avoid it again. But whether or not the rail came down is inconsequential at that point.
I have a careless young horse right now, and it doesn’t matter if she came in at a PERFECT distance with a PERFECT pace… there’s a chance she just might not try hard enough and will rap or knock it down. She is improving slowly, but as I said above, jumping might not be her thing.
Great point(s)!
I still agree with @Gardenhorse on this one. My trainer says the same thing that it appears theirs does. That I need to think about the next fence, not worry about the fence I already had. That does not mean what happened at that fence is ignored while continuing on, it is more - learn from that fence and make the next one better.
But like was mentioned above, while showing (stressful) my brain can not concentrate on moving forward and try to figure out if that tap caused the rail to come down, how many rails is that, what is the rule again on how many rails, do I need to pull up, what place am I in now, etc.
I always ride to have the best course I can have. I don’t ride worrying about what place I am going to come in. Honestly, if I even tried that it would only make for an even worse course (nerves lead to worse riding).
Sometimes the horse touches a rail and you hear it and it doesn’t come down. So I’m for the jump judge counting. When Boyd won at Tryon On Cue under the lights last year, he touched quite a few fences.
I usually know because my soul leaves my body when I hear that thud 
You certainly said that better than me. 
I actually agree with both your points. I obviously didn’t phrase my comments well as I’m not saying you should be oblivious to the fact that your horse had a bad fence and you may need to adjust your ride to the next fence. I’m saying that in the moment, it is irrelevant to me if the rail actually fell or just wobbled in the cup. So I wouldn’t be focusing on the previous fence by listening to hear if the rail fell or looking for it on the ground or counting the total number of rails that I had, I would be thinking that I need to balance my horse for the upcoming jump.
This debate is interesting to me as a show jumper! I train and ride with eventers, and I feel like this is one of the (many) places where we have different needs. I have to know when I have rails because if I’m in a power and speed and I had a rail in the power I don’t get to continue once I get through with that phase. If I am in a jump off and I have a rail but others are having rails I might go a bit slower/be more careful to be sure I don’t get another one, and maybe I’ll still be in the ribbons. Or, if it was a dumb, unlucky rail and the round is otherwise going well, I might speed up so I can (hopefully), be the fastest of the 4-faulters. If it’s a speed class and it’s really competitive and I get a rail I’ll probably dial down the speed because I’m out of the ribbons anyway, unless my horse would benefit from continuing on with a very fast school over the rest of the course. And so on.
I guess it’s not as important for you guys to have that exact damn! rail fell!! as it happens, unless things are piling up into a big disaster and you need to try to salvage it.
Just chiming in as someone who has been in the judge’s booth for horse trials (through intermediate) as a scribe… there are definitely plenty of situations where you realistically cannot stop a rider the moment that 5th rail comes down…in the middle of a combo…2nd to last fence or last fence… even if we blow the whistle right then the chances the rider hears it or can act on it before committing to the next fence (or crossing the finish line) are slim.
I will also say we can usually see these rounds unfolding, and when they get to 4 rails the judge I work for typically has a plan for whistling the rider out.
Last season clearly not everyone had this rule in their brain but I expect more will this season.
OK, this is a stupid question but it looks like there were 3 CRs at Bruce’s field today/yesterday. Is that 5 or more poles or is there something else I am missimg?
Yes it is.
Just a technical point. The rule is quite clear that the CR is applied at the end of the round, unless the competitor retires or is eliminated. The tipping point is 20 jumping penalties which would then include disobediences. No rider should be stopped by the judge before the end of the round unless they have been eliminated.
I looked up the rule: it wasn’t clear because the CR is applied after the round except if the rider is eliminated for 20 cumulative penalties? That sounds like they can be pulled out of the arena. I do agree it more sense to apply the CR after the round. Maybe riders need to ‘Retire’ at a certain point to avoid the CR on the horse’s competition record.
Willesdon, a rider is NOT eliminated for 20 jump penalties, they are penalized with a CR and not allowed to continue in the competition. Elimination is a penalty imposed for a number of things which are spelled out in EV153. The CR is applied at the end of the round unless the competitor is eliminated for e.g. omission of an obstacle, too many disobediences (2 at Preliminary and up, three at Modified and below) etc. or if the competitor chooses to retire for any reason including having incurred an excessive number of jumping penalties.
Thank you for the clarification.
I am back to confused. How is it that so many riders are choosing to finish on a CR? I go back to thinking there must be something wrong with a horse if you are having that bad a day in the SJ, and I doubt jumping more has ever helped a horse in pain. Or if it just isn’t your day, and I’ve been there, why keep going? I go back to thinking that horses only have so much confidence “in the bank,” and there’s no use making withdrawals more often than necessary.
I just don’t understand and frankly am a bit appalled that this was happening so often it needed a rule, and now that there is a rule multiple people are triggering it at a single event!
The rule is a signal that so many rails is not really acceptable.
Fordtraktor,
I totally agree with all that you are saying except for one thing. The rule has been in effect for almost a year and on the west coast at least, I have seen come into effect very seldom. I judging rounds at multiple events, I have applied it only three times and one of those, I was wrong. If we are seeing it applied frequently in other places then it is a clear message to the riders affected that it is time to go back to basics.
It looks as though there are around 3-5 CR per event.
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