Wasn’t that Phillip Dutton at the Pan Am games?
I remember a picture of a horse deciding the easiest path across a trakehner was under the relatively narrow log and through the generous ditch, with the rider scraping under the log as well.
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I still get a shudder down my spine whenever that picture pops up. And I also wish there was a video to see how it actually played out.
Ditto for the picture of the horse over a stadium jump with the saddle so far back that the girth looks like a bucking strap.
Here’s your original criticm of her:
I find it quite fascinating that Hamel is getting nothing but praise for staying on her horse, who she spurred several times in the haunches and groin and yanked quite aggressively on his mouth.
That DOESN’T reflect a knowledge of horse sports and a difference between a rider exercising self-preservation and a rider making a craven decision driven by a desire to win/compete at all cost. It also does not reflect your sentiment that “we have to trust riders to know their horses” - this rider (who I do not know at all) probably knew that she needed one good sharp pull on the reins to avoid getting hoof prints on her back. If we’re going to criticize riders - by name, on the Internet, where things live forever and will come up in every Google search for them - for awkward riding when they’re trying to avoid a fall, then that’s a tough standard for the sport to follow. My own riding certainly does not meet this very high standard - that I’ve never caught my mare in the mouth, jostled around in the saddle, or inadvertently kicked her when trying to avoid a fall (though she’s pretty athletic so she mostly just launches me clean off). If your riding and the riding of the people you know IRL does meet that standard, then more power to you!
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Straight from the horse’s mouth. So to speak.
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How do you know that the officials weren’t discussing yellow carding him before he even reached that jump? Yellow cards often come after an event is over, there is no indication that the officials were responding to social media pressure.
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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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