Really excited that now 2 of the 3 competing horses are US-bred!!! Tsetserleg TSF was bred by Tim Holekamp and Vandiver was bred by Deb Crowley.
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Yes he was obviously lame in that jog! Not sure why they let her continue???
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Hey, if we can’t breed the riders in the US, at least we can breed the horses. 
Bummer for Deniro, who’s a top class creature, and I hope he recovers well. Love Vandiver, though!
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I read that as something “fixable”.
A “foot issue” could be anything and could have people making some bad speculations – for instance, collateral ligament injury to the foot.
A “farrier issue” seems to describe the issue is short term and non-injurious.
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Since I couldn’t see the jog, I cannot say whether or not he looked lame. My thought is they were waiting till the last moment to spin him, hoping he would be OK. That is so bad for her. She tried so hard.
Liz just posted on IG saying they found a bone bruise.
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So excited for Vandiver and Doug Payne/Debi Crowley! I hope things go smoothly for them
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Vandiver is from my hometown, everyone (in the equestrian community anyways) is SO excited for them!
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That comment is even more perplexing given that she has now posted that they found a bone bruise. Could they all have been thinking initially this was something that they could use shoeing and pads to relieve pressure and get him sound, and when they tested it out at the mandatory outing, it became clear it wasn’t going to work? That just doesn’t seem like a good way to go into a major team competition, and it just seems odd now that they had him do all three phases of the mandatory outing before reaching this conclusion.
I wonder if the other team members had a good idea this announcement was coming after seeing how Deniro Z looked last week, if not it is a tight turnaround for Will Coleman and Off the Record to be ready to ship out.
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I’m not bogged down in the semantics of his unsoundness.
For example, this could have easily been a case of horse pulls shoe, horse has shoe replaced, horse suddenly is NQR and everyone is scratching their heads as to what is going on.
I’m not saying that’s what happened, I certainly have no inside info. But I’ve been there plenty of times where a minor farrier issue turns into something bigger.
I think they have been incredibly transparent with the public about this.
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@Texarkana Those are definitely fair points! I’ve been through that myself as well. At this point, I’m just sad for Liz and happy for Doug and Tamie. Liz has worked very hard for this opportunity, and Deniro Z is a lovely horse, so I hope they can come back to fight another day on another team.
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Right. Half the time we don’t even get an “explanation” at all. Certainly not an explanation that suggests injury. It’s nice of them to be so transparent. I hope Niro is on the mend ASAP.
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Well, not being transparent isn’t really a choice when everyone who is watching sees your horse is lame and you’re on the Olympic team. I just thought it was an odd choice of words, to call it a ‘farrier’ issue rather than a ‘foot’ issue. Only time I can say I have a farrier issue is when he doesn’t show up.
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Hot nail= farrier issue
WTH he’s off on this left hind= foot/leg issue
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Been thinking about what it might be like to be the traveling reserve…
You’re an incredibly driven and hard working rider, you’ve aimed for the Olympics as your big goal, for years, you have the right horse at the right time, and most of the stars align - but not quite as well as some of the other riders’ stars. So you get to go, but you don’t get to compete unless something bad happens to one of your teammates - and you don’t want that to happen.
So you do your part to support the team (even though eventing is largely an individual sport) but dang. In the past, the traveling reserve could at least relax and take in the experience once the competition was underway, but this year they will need to continue as if they were competing until the final jog. And if you get subbed in, it means something bad has happened to one of your teammates that likely eliminated any team medal chances.
Just seems like a very hard place to be mentally and especially so this year.
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I have a friend who was in this position. Twice. Dressage.
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I sincerely hope that everyone from the tippy top down that has any influence or contribution to make to the outcome is in agreement that these are the correct objectives for the US Eventing team in Tokyo. I know I am, but…'Merica.
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Becky Holder recently did a podcast talking about her time as a travelling reserve. Really interesting insights.
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I looked around…where is the video?
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Major League Eventing was there and video’d the jog. It can be seen on their group facebook page. Mind you, not a true jog as they even let one horse jog in boots…
