I watched Ema Klugman press her first 5* horse, Bendigo, around Maryland. He was extremely tired and it was hard to see. Eventually he just stopped jumping, almost as if he retired himself. It is unfortunate that she did not learn more from that incident.
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I am not an FEI official, but presume the warnings work similarly to way they do for USEF–they’re issued during the show, and are supposed to be given to the person it’s being issued to. Not after the fact. The public is finding out about it after the fact, because the warnings have now shown up in the FEI’s system, presumably because the officials submitted their report in a timely fashion.
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I was there at that fence when it happened. I wouldn’t have carried on because I would have fallen off!!! LOL!
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I saw that too and thought Wow these people will complain about anything!
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For clarity, CB did not receive a yellow card, he received a recorded warning. Ema received a yellow card. They are two very different things.
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That’s fair – I am also not an FEI official. I suppose I just assumed that if they thought it were something to be flagged it would’ve been flagged earlier, you know what I mean?
Similar to what others have said about a steward requiring the horse to be checked before continuing on course.
Thank you for pointing this out! It’s important to be precise about these things (really, it is!).
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So, first…found this video while looking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydl4X2Pi7iU
Skip to I think it is 18:12 to see an amazing save from falling off. Also, towards the end of this video there are some spectacular falls.
This video has an example of “before the rule” but if the one I recall, the horse slid down a ditch and right under a hanging log. I could be misremembering… Start at 22:47
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Oh. My. Goodness.
I almost had to watch with my fingers over my eyes. Like a horror movie. Lol.
I think the guy on the gray horse was really lucky that the bay outrider’s horse just happened to be nearby, since I think that helped the gray horse stand there quietly while he managed to get back into the saddle. Holy cow.
I felt like the outrider was tempted to grab the gray horse’s head, but decided he’d better not touch it.
The other incredibly crazy videos along those lines are the ones with steeplechase jockeys. Man, oh, man. Just unbelievable.
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Wow. That’s not the picture I was thinking of earlier. But it looked pretty darn crazy.
I sort of wonder how often the spectators got run over when there were so many people crowded along the ropes and somebody started to fall off or a horse got loose or whatever.
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I will say one of my favorite videos is of amateur steeplechase and 6 of the 7 riders got lost on course. It was the FUNNIEST thing…oh man…gotta see if I can find that one!
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Warnings and yellow cards are given at the event, to the rider. It typically takes several days for it to be reflected in the online database.
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I will say some of the steeplechase tracks in Europe seem super confusing when they are looping around and doing figure eights or whatever. I can imagine getting lost.
I agree with this, and also that the laughter from the commentator was inappropriate. No concern whatsoever for the horse.
It won’t kill eventing, but it is a bad look, and bad horsemanship. Winning uber alles 
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“those of us who are true horsemen”
That made me laugh, thank you Maude.
Off now to go out and pet (and feed) my horses.
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As an old person I can tell you that the “Thrills and Spills” is what made eventing popular in the first place. People expected to see falls, and those video compilations used to sell like hot cakes. Having said that I remember very few serious horse injuries prior to the 90s when the new courses came in. Personally I knew none at all and I lived in the heart of eventing country and knew lots of riders. It could be that I was too young to notice but the only horse death listed at Badminton online prior to 1992 is due to a heart attack.
I will also say that the vast majority of the anti-cross country sentiment comes from the UK where organizations have parlayed anti-hunting sentiment into general anti-horse sentiment with a large dose of class war, anti-conservationism/ pro development and misogyny built in. I’m not British but have spent enough time living there to have a fairly good understanding but if you’ve spent your entire life in the USA and only read about it in articles and online it might look quite different. We are starting to see it on US social media now though, lots of comments about riding being wasteful and elitist and how the land and resources (and presumably the women themselves) could be better utilized by young men to raise families. We are hearing the same thing in the conservation space in which I am heavily involved. I’ve been watching that grow with alarm and at this point the US is facing losing public lands entirely and quite a large segment of the young male populations supports that. Or, ETA, maybe it’s better to state they feel it is inevitable and may as well happen sooner than later so they personally can benefit.
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So I started this post and have sat here and watched and listened and agreed, disagreed, pulled my hair out in some moments and ultimately have formed this conclusion.
The folks who have been around the Eventing block, Especially since pre-1990, have seen and ridden more and watched more turmoil than the eventing fans of the last decade and a half. This, I want to note, is important because in the early years there was a completely different mindset that existed in the view of horse and human welfare. The strings attached to the “old days” and calvary associations were still very much attached. “Frangible” was in no one’s vocabulary and while I am sure there were folks then thinking it could be done better, it wasn’t steeped in safety committees and the like.
Since this is the origin point for many influential people of today it’s worth noting that your original perspectives can change, and they have I’m sure, but there could be elements that linger. It’s NOT a lack of caring about horse, rider, event, welfare, that can cause a seasoned 5* competitor who is commenting to laugh that Phanty got back up without triggering the rules for a fall. It’s the understanding of tough eventing life, if I had to take a guess, but realistically, it’s one person’s own experiences that lead to their reactions in life at anything. Dismantling them into “meanings” or assumptions is the side of us as we become uncomfortable onlookers and need “Blame” and “responsibility” to protect us from being capable of doing the exact same things.
The people who have been drawn to the sport in the post 2010 era have been fortunate enough to see whole upheavals in the rules many times over. We have done more studies, seen far fewer loses, but sadly we do keep having loses, and overall the out of the box thinkers who are able to think of ways to make the sport safer have been shown the red carpet to engage to try to keep the sport alive and in the quadrennial Olympic cycle.
I can’t count how many times I have heard the sport will not survive. I’m 53, started eventing in 1984 and truly we have faced “doom” so many times over. But for my own 2 cents, I do believe Social media and public outrage will likely be a bigger threat than the horse deaths.
(Not trying to debate this point so much as to say that imo, this is our biggest active threat that has the most “teeth” in my time spent in/alongside the sport)
FWIW, my eyes watching Calvin’s ride through Pete’s hollow yielded the following thoughts,
“(as Phanty left too soon and nipped the back rail of the second triple bar) Ughhh… (Landed, didn’t ‘roll’ to be an FEI fall) OH wow. (Then watched Calvin sit perfectly still and Phanty clearly was like ‘yea time to get back on my feet’, and they cantered off) YAY!”
Sinead and Kyle 100% reflected what I was thinking. Did I watch the next 2 fences to see how he was holding up and how he jumped? HELL yes. But I rewatched his whole round since and I remain impressed by the character of the horse and its clear enjoyment doing this sport.
I think the bottom line to the reactions herein is this:
We have people who understand that a sport with horses has unpredictable moments that are without negative or positive influence and react accordingly that flukes are flukes and you ride it through as an onlooker and hope for the best. We have folks that understand the above but would like to see human intervention at the moment when the lack of predictability has ended and the duo are back in control, to assess if all is actually ok. Noble thought, not a bad concept but not sure they’re factoring in the frosted mirror like glaze that adrenaline can produce to cover actualities in the immediate aftermath of a “thing.” Then we have a group who I don’t know that I would call fans of the sport. I think they watch pre-loaded to spring onto any perceived ‘failure’ and paint the picture as willful malice towards the poor innocent horse.
I thank everyone for their thoughts. I have researched the Tevis Cup and while it’s interesting and more recent results traumatic for all involved, I cannot think that any horse sport will ever get to 0 fatalities in it’s participants inclusive of training and competing times, and if that’s the case in dressage then for sure walking along cliffs in the nighttime has no hope.
The world is not a padded room. We do not exist in a vacuum and if we cannot keep humans from fatal accidents of all freakish natures, I am not sure why we seem unable to comprehend that freakish moments (not even fatalities) would not befall all parts of life?
Life is truly what you make of it. I don’t want to ever lose a horse under my care, but I have. A lightning bolt, a synovial cyst that grew inside of C6 and rendered the horse completely neuro and a broken leg in the field. Stuff happens in life.
We’re not even touching on all the ways I have injured myself and tested the amount of time I get to walk this planet. It really becomes, for me, a moment to decide do I want to live life and do my best as a human with all the things I value and care about and be a better person by watching others mistakes and enacting change in my own life so I do not act in ways that they have, that led to perceived mistakes? Or do I want to waste what time I have fighting the fight against others to try to explain their flaws in judgement. Based on my past posting it’s clear that answer used to be I wanted to try to explain how the moral and logic compasses for others were off. But moreover now, I want to ride. Idiots gonna be idiots and I can’t expect others to want to change their view if it’s what THEY believe. I just hope not to have their vitriol pointed at me.
Might be interesting if eventing became like the Masters this year and all phones were banned on course. The players and onlookers raved how it was nice to detach from the world and be able to enjoy the sport instead of Jane Doe’s private life and a thousand cell phone camera clicks distracting players in their swings.
Em
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I saw it and didn’t think it was particularly bad. My horse took a far worse tumble in the pasture and popped back up–we’ve all seen horses (in person or on film) crash through fences or flip themselves on grass while playing. This looked no worse and in fact far less dramatic than pretty much any of those. I would have understood the choice to stop, the choice to assess, the choice to flag him down, and I understand the choice to continue–and I think any one of those could have been the correct choice. Calvin knows the horse, and he felt the horse was fine. Subsequent veterinary inspections and a clean showjumping round bore out that he was right.
The second incident without the first would be a “bad moment”. It wouldn’t have raised eyebrows. However, they look like they are caused by similar riding choices re: striding to that type of jump, and I think it might have exposed a weakness in the training program (I mean, I am not one to judge his riding, but purely on paper). So maybe, like at any event, he went home with homework–only in his case, the DR means it was externally assigned and will be externally assessed. I don’t think that’s wrong. I don’t DISAGREE with the choice to give him the DR, but more for the choices to take the long spots / the riding that got him there than for the incidents in and of themselves. It feels a bit harsh, but not unreasonable.
What bothers me is 1) the optics, of course, and 2) the fact that it was internet chatter that caused the retroactive decision.
Horse welfare should be a priority, and as I said, if they had pulled him up at any point, that would have been a fine decision. I think even Calvin would agree with that. But the horse welfare was not why Calvin was penalised. He was penalised for the optics to silence the Kaizer / Milestone / whoever else folks. I think we don’t do ourselves any favours in building a culture that worries more about optics than about what the vets say or that bows to the pressures of those who say horses can’t be athletes, can’t be pushed (not in the excessive pressing sense, but in the work-up-a-sweat sense), can’t ever take a funny step without needing a CT scan or an MRI.
Just my thoughts. Calvin has a good reputation in Germany.
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If you want to ban any sort of social media criticism of a sport, then you’d not only have to ban cell phones, you’d have to ban any sort of televised footage, including the online stream every year. Then not have any sort of filmed recap. Or if you play a recap, carefully edit out any less than perfect rides or jumps.
The assumption that the officials responded to social media pressure can’t be proven unless you know an official. There have been many yellow cards or written warnings given after the fact. Or it could have been given same day and the media response was later.
I have seen social media outrage over a girl cantering her pony bareback, social media outrage covers every type of riding ever. I don’t think that we can control it, I do think we can take steps to show that our sport wants to be safe. Which I think we have.
I do think massive social media outrage of “abuse” that isn’t abuse is just as bad as massive social media outrage of social media outrage. For example, Maude’s post.
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You have absolutely no idea that this is true. For all you know, the officials were discussing a warning before this rider even reached this fence, and debated pulling the rider up after this fence. Unless you know someone who was standing next to an official, or an official themselves, you are making this assumption with no facts. This is not the first warning that was issued after an event was over or that we just heard about. It happens all the time. They could give someone a warning same day and issue the media response later.
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