Whew, I think I’m glad the Olympics are over. That was a lot. I have some thoughts on the whole modern pentathlon debacle (of course I do) but we’ll save that for another day because it encompasses some larger thoughts and concerns that I also have about the equestrian events as a whole. On the bright side though, how fantastic was Sweden in the showjumping final? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a team that deserved a gold medal so much, and I was delighted that they pulled it off. Especially with a little unassuming looking horse like All In. No one would ever pick that one out of a field but man when he jumps it’s just something else entirely. I really don’t like the new format for showjumping though, I gotta say, from a horse perspective. Still, it did produce a great nail-biting finish to round out the equestrian events, so I guess mission accomplished on that front.
decidedly NOT olympians
Aside from watching the Olympics, I’ve still been managing to keep Henry on a very regular riding schedule. The mild summer and his general lightened workload have made his usual summer vacation pretty unnecessary, he feels fit and fresh and isn’t standing there suffering all day in extreme heat. We’ll take low-mid 90’s over three months straight of 110 weather any freakin time, that’s for sure. Naturally though a couple weeks ago he decided to do a weird thing where his front legs stocked up like tree trunks as did a spot on the right side of his face. This isn’t the first time that’s happened, it used to be a once a year thing every May/June but it’s been a couple years since the last time. We never have been able to figure out if it’s something environmental or something he’s eating, or what. No idea. None of the other horses ever seem to have an issue, he never acts any different, never has a fever, never goes off his feed or anything (as if he would)… just gets swelly and itchy. And you can wrap/poultice/sweat/bute to your hearts content but nothing makes a difference. He has so many allergies and sensitivities that I’m betting it’s something related to that. Delicate flower.
In the past we’ve given him a little dex if it got too bad (like the time the swelling was in his sheath) but I try to avoid dex if at all possible, so I opted to just wait it out as long as it didn’t get worse. And indeed after a few days it did start to get better, and now his legs are totally normal again, he’s just got a little bump left on his nose. Mostly because I think he won’t stop rubbing it no matter how much anti-itch stuff I put on it. It’s not really causing an issue though aside from annoying the both of us, and it means that I have to use a real bridle with the noseband removed rather than his usual sidepull, which he thinks is rude. Otherwise though, it’s fine, and it’s gone down a little bit, so hopefully we’re past all the random elephantitis.
everyone’s favorite noodle
While Henry and I were at home doing some jompies, his brother spent the weekend in Tennessee showing at River Glen. Obviously I couldn’t go but I got a lot of updates and videos and I pre-ordered the All Photos package from the show photographer so I can still give you guys a full update on how the show went. I’m determined to actually wait for the pro photos this time though before I do the recap, so… stay tuned. We’ll circle back to that at some point this week (hopefully…). They already have the proofs up so maybe they’ll be quick to send the download link? One can hope.
I admittedly spent most of the weekend hitting refresh on Startbox and obsessively checking my phone for updates, and somewhere in all my stalking (River Glen did post their courses online, which was great) I saw this in the Novice course at Millbrook and thought it was interesting.
That’s a new one for me, never seen a bank question presented that way before. Looks like it rode just fine though. Millbrook in general looks beautiful, too bad it’s 1800 miles away. Why is all the best stuff so far from Texas (looking at you, Rebecca Farm, almost 2000 miles away).
Speaking of courses, I also saw this on Instagram:
Y’all. Omg. I could get a jump with Henry and Presto’s XC faces on it. Or their derp faces. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much “too much” would that be? I need it.
I get asked for Percy updates all the time, so clearly I’m not living up to expectations with the Percy content. Truthfully there wasn’t a lot to say when he was sequestered in his own small paddock. With him being born dysmature it takes quite a while for their joints and stuff to catch up, so they can’t be allowed to run around and be rowdy as much as the other foals. He’s also a good bit younger than the others, so he’d be smaller than them even without the dysmaturity factor, thus it took some time before he got cleared to go into a larger turnout or play with other foals. However… I’m pleased to say that the wait is over.
Percy’s progress has continued to be slow but steady, which is really a good thing. He’s continued to get stronger, his legs aren’t as lax, he’s more proportionate, and he’s filled out a bit.
remember when he was born he could very easily fit under his surrogate dam
He kind of does that thing where he fills out really nicely, then grows upward a ton and looks reedy again, then chunks back out, then shoots up, etc etc. Typical baby growth spurts, but his seems to cycle through a bit quicker than the others as his body tries to catch up.
But, he’s really mastered his legs now, and they’re strong enough to support him even when he leaps and gallops around like a normal foal.
So, given all that, it was time for him to join the rest of the herd.
Percy is a pretty bold guy naturally, and marched right over towards everyone.
Granted, he’s been sequestered by himself for so long, and it’s hard to join an established herd of boisterous outgoing babies and territorial mares, so once they got closer he got a little intimidated and decided to stick behind his mother a bit. Percy’s smart.
To literally no one’s surprise, Obi and Teddy were the first members of the welcoming committee to come say hello.
Teddy lost interest pretty quickly when she realized he wasn’t that entertaining.
Obi has decided he likes him though, (Obi likes everyone) and is really good at drawing the other babies out to join his mischief. Percy is no different and really hasn’t taken much convincing.
Obi took him under his wing and it didn’t take long before Percy was pretty much a fully integrated member of the crew.
Percy has done well out there with everyone so far, and has settled in pretty quickly. It’s easy to forget that he’s really not even 3 months old yet, he’s come quite a long way from that tiny wobbly little baby we first met. Hopefully he continues to flourish out there in his big pasture with his new friends.
I’m sure y’all have seen a lot of the chatter going on lately about USEF taking a hard look at revamping their amateur rules. There’s been a lot of discussions, a task force was created, and a few days ago they had a webinar about some of the ideas they’ve had/changes they’re looking at. A basic write-up of their ideas is here if you missed it. Admittedly, I didn’t watch the webinar, I just read the cliffs notes version. Mostly because I’m honestly just really tired of having the conversation at all.
I think eventing is the sport in which amateur vs pro classifications matter the least. Our divisions are rarely separated by amateur vs open, rather ours tend to either all just be open divisions or they’re divided into “Horse”, “Rider”, or “Open”. I think I’ve been in an actual Amateur division a grand total of once in my entire eventing career, and that was at AEC’s in 2015 where they split divisions every possible different way.
The way our classifications work in eventing is that “Horse” is for less experienced horses: A horse division is open to any competitors, but the horse cannot have completed an event above the next highest level. So for instance, no one could go enter Henry in a Novice Horse division, since he’s competed at Preliminary. A Novice Horse division could have pros on green horses, amateurs on lifelong low-level horses, etc.
Next is the “Rider” classification: A rider division is open to competitors who have not completed an event above the next highest level in the last five years. So basically since I’ve only competed through Prelim, I could enter Prelim Rider but I couldn’t enter Novice Rider. The rider divisions are also not limited to amateur or pro, only by the rider’s experience.
Last is the “Open” classification, which, as may be obvious, is open to any horse or rider of any experience, amateur or pro. Some people just always enter the Open divisions by default because it’s easiest (like Megan with Presto, she just always enters all of hers in Open, and that’s fine, you don’t HAVE to enter Horse or Rider even if you’re qualified for it) and it tends to shake out fine in the end anyway.
It’s slightly more complicated than that when you take into account FEI stuff (it’s all outlined here) but for the most part, that’s it. Pretty simple. However, one thing USEA currently DOES do is award “amateur placings” for points or championship qualification purposes. For instance, if someone who was classified as an amateur came in 3rd place overall but was the top placed amateur, they would get 1st place points toward their USEA amateur leaderboard ranking and would get a 1st place qualification towards championships. You don’t get any extra ribbons, heck you probably won’t even find out your amateur placing until the points get entered into USEA, but that’s the only place where amateurs can benefit a little bit. Honestly, I’d be totally fine with doing away with that and not even having an amateur classification at all. To me this whole amateur thing just seems way more freakin complicated than it’s worth. There’s got to be a better way, even if it’s something totally different than any sport has now, or with more classifications than I listed above.
So my question is – why would something akin to (even if not the same as) eventing’s approach not work for other disciplines too? I’ve come from the h/j world, and while it would be VERY different from how things are now, I can see it working. Honestly it’s a lot simpler than the way things are now with 9000 different things that amateurs can or cannot do under the rules and all the attempts to circumvent it or make allowances. The Horse/Rider/Open classifications also tend to sort themselves more fairly, IMO, because if I’m entered in a Rider division at least I’m not up against anyone who’s ridden at a much higher level.
Mostly though, I’m so tired of having the amateur conversation that I’m ready to just do away with it entirely. They don’t really use it in other countries either, so… why are we so twisted up in it? Is there really not a better, easier, simpler, way than writing a million rules about what people can or cannot do to keep an asinine status? Why are we clinging so tightly to this “amateur” classification in the first place?
Now that the dressage and eventing are done and dusted and half of the showjumping is done, now seems like as good a time as any for an Olympic style blog hop, while everything is still fresh in our minds.
So, tell me:
What’s been your favorite moment?
What horse you’d most like to ride?
What horse you’d most like to own?
What horse hadn’t you seen before that put itself on your radar?
What was your favorite cross country round?
What was your favorite dressage test?
What horse would you give the “good do-er” award?
What horse and rider looks to have the most fun partnership?
Tullabeg Flamenco
What’s been your favorite moment? Julia winning individual gold. That was just a super freaking exciting finish and a big #girlpower moment, how could I not pick it.
What horse you’d most like to ride? It is still, and probably always will be until the day he retires, Tullabeg Flameco. I just love the zest with which he does he job, how hard he tries, and how genuine he is. Sam often says that anyone could ride him and I volunteer as tribute to test that theory.
What horse you’d most like to play “owner” for? Omg, Vassily de Lassos hands down. What a fun horse that must be to own, and Andrew seems like one of the genuinely nicest riders on the planet.
Vassily
What horse hadn’t you seen before that put itself on your radar? I’ve seen The Quizmaster before somewhere, I know, but I’ve never really SEEN The Quizmaster before. That horse really jumped out at me, loved the type, loved the jump and the overall style of the horse. It’s a shame they got a TE for jumping the combination wrong at the water, because the horse was really rocking and rolling around that course. Also interesting to me because it’s by Albaran xx, you know I love a good TB sire.
The Quizmaster
What was your favorite cross country round? How could I not say Vassily? He’s just incredible. I have to give a shout to Ballaghmor Class too though, Ollie really came out guns blazing and gave us all a riding lesson right out of the gate.
What was your favorite dressage test? Ok, none of the eventers had a really great dressage test except maybe Michi, so I’m gonna hop over to the real dressage folks for this one. I had two – the first was Sabine’s in the team final where she really stepped up and threw down a fantastic test to bump the US up to Silver. That was amazing to watch. And then of course how could I not pick “Rave Horse” – Steffan’s freestyle was really fun (two words I rarely say about dressage), and seeing it take off all over social media has been hilarious. I’ve seen more dressage TikTok’s from muggles in the past week than I ever imagined possible. Who knew dressage could go viral?
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 31, 2021
What horse would you give the “good do-er” award? I’m torn between two eventers: Gurza and Tayberry. Gurza, bless her, made it work from some pretty questionable distances all weekend long. She never said no and never stopped trying, which of course makes sense because she’s a very high blood chestnut mare. So much heart in that one. And Tayberry, sweet tiny little wonderful 20 year old Tayberry, chugged right on through to the finish with his Chinese rider. He was slow but steady and they had a great completion. Both of those horses were just so kind and tried so hard for their people.
What horse and rider looks to have the most fun partnership? I loved DSP Fighting Line and Lea Seigl. She’s only 23 years old, the youngest rider in the eventing competition, and has come up through the international level along with that horse, who was a really fun little firecracker. You could tell they knew each other very well and even when he had a lot of yeehaw antics she just sat chilly and gave him a pat and went on with it. He tried his heart out for her and she rode him beautifully to finish 15th overall.
Man, the Olympics is a lot. All the dressage, then the eventing, now the beginning of the showjumping… feels like we’ve been doing this for months, yet it’s also flying by. Well, the eventing felt like it flew by anyway. I have A LOT of thoughts about it all and maybe even a for-fun little blog hop tomorrow, but I wanted to jot down my biggest takeaways from the eventing competition.
I came flying out of my seat and ran laps around the coffee table
First and foremost, how can you not be thrilled about Julia winning? No disrespect to Ollie or Tom but I was rooting like hell for Julia. With all she’s been through in the past few years and losing the ride on Chipmunk, then her top horse having to be retired… if a German was gonna win, I definitely was hoping it would be her (sorry Michi, love you 4ever). Plus, like, as a female in 2021, how freakin cool is it to FINALLY have a female gold medalist in eventing? Not to mention – would Julia have even been on the German team if Ingrid hadn’t gotten injured? Probably not. Her win was an awesome moment. She was my “human hero” pick of the games for sure. But how was she not absolutely shitting herself going into that final round of showjumping? I’d have needed a diaper and an oxygen machine. She’s got ice in her veins… well freakin done, Julia.
best XC horse in the world
If I have to pick a “horse hero”, it’d be Vassily de Lassos hands down. What an impeccable career that horse has had, and he continued it with another impeccable performance in Tokyo. He was the only horse to finish on his dressage score even after two rounds of showjumping, which was enough to secure him bronze. Plus how can you not root for Andrew Hoy? Vassily’s XC round was absolutely brilliant, he’s absolutely everything a modern event horse should be. Fast, clever, ridiculously athletic, forward-thinking… his footwork and reaction time are second to none. It was really just a joy to watch. Too bad he’s not a mare.
bonus Vassily
Also, I feel like we need to talk about the French. I got so many messages from people saying they were surprised to see the French do well or surprised to see so many French horses. Guys, we can’t forget that the French won gold in Rio, right? Never ever count out the ever-so-sneaky French. They don’t compete as much outside of France so I think in a lot of ways they stay more “hidden” than the Brits or the Irish or even the Germans, but they’re a powerhouse and have been for a while now. As for their horses, Selle Francais is one of the top-ranked studbooks in the world, year after year, in both eventing and showjumping, and always has been. The performance of the French team in Tokyo was especially impressive I thought, considering this was really their “second string”, having lost their top heavy hitters in the past few months to injury. Their second string still managed to swoop in and secure team bronze. Also what I really love about them: they are just so very thoroughly FRENCH. 99% of the time it’s a French rider on a French-bred horse in all French tack, French equipment, French clothing, etc. VIVE LA FRANCE.
Speaking of French-bred horses, 6 of the top 7 horses were bred in France. That was some serious domination. As for some other quick stats: the average blood percentage of the top 10 was 59%, a bit higher than the field average of 55%. Additionally, 3 of the top 7 horses had a full blood dam – two TB, one AA. The horses under about 45% blood really did not fare well here overall. I was also delighted to see all 3 Jaguar Mails finish – what an accomplishment for a stallion (a French stallion, naturally).
I wish it could have been a tragedy-free games, but alas that was not to be with the loss of Jet Set. My thoughts on that are summed up really well here so I won’t even bother trying to say it any better.
As for the biggest competitive heartbreak, man I was sad for Japan. They’ve worked so hard and looked so good coming into these games, I was sure they’d get a medal. I actually gasped when Yoshi popped off of Calle 44 on cross country. What a shame to come so far and be in your home country. And then Kazuma Tomoto finishing 4th overall, just out of medal contention… soooo close, yet so far. Brilliant performance for Kazuma, but an overall bummer for Japan to go home with no medals.
As for the US – heavy sigh. Yes, it’s the best we’ve done since 2004 in that at least we actually finished a team this time (ouch), but it wasn’t exactly a great performance either. I could be in the minority here because I’ve seen a lot of other people saying they thought we did great, but… we were 41 points off GB and 24 points off the podium in general. That’s quite a lot. I also think we got lucky a few times: Boyd and Phillip both had near-misses on XC (there’s a point where “epic saves” really need to stop being a regular thing) and Vandiver looked pretty tired by time he crossed the finish. We added quite a few rails overall too. I just think that, as a country, we’re better than that. We’re definitely not GB-level good (lord they dominated everyone’s asses, didn’t they?) but we certainly have a plenty deep pool of talent and horses to where we should be showing better than that on the international stage. I would love to go back in time and make a couple substitutions to see how that played out, but alas, it is what it is. Will be interesting to see if anything was learned from it by the time the next WEG rolls around.
Last but not least, I wanna talk about MIMgate. You guys know that I am 100% for anything that increases safety on cross country. Frangible fences in particular. Love them. Add more. And there’s also no arguing that frangible technology prevented more than one nasty wreck at the Olympics. It did it’s job here for sure. However, the rail on the corner at 14 came down A LOT. Like… A LOT A LOT. Eight times, I think it was? We only saw it on the coverage a few of those times, and one was really legit – Ferroleus Lat would have been splat on the turf if not for that log dropping. However, there were also at least two times it came down where it really really shouldn’t have, and those two times had a big impact on the placings. First was Sam Watson and Tullabeg Flamenco – he gave it a decent thwack with a hind foot, but certainly nowhere near enough for it to have needed to come down to prevent an accident. The other time was Michi Jung, who by all accounts (it wasn’t shown on the NBC coverage but some screenshots have been circulating on social media) didn’t have the rail fall until he was several strides clear of the fence.
Now, this jump had the new yellow MIMclips in use, which can be activated with supposedly 70% of the force of the traditional red ones. There was an oxer near the beginning of the course that was using the red ones and that thing got absolutely WHALLOPED all day, yet I never saw it fall.
The bummer comes in the fact that there’s no room for removal of these penalties within the current rules. Back when this first started and the penalties were 21 for dropping a frangible, athletes were allowed to protest to have it reviewed and potentially have the penalties removed if it was deemed that the activated frangible did not prevent an accident. When it was changed to 11 this provision was removed, and now it simply states that if the fence is deformed, you get the 11. Period. Doesn’t matter how or why… rail drops = 11. My issue is that, if we now have a new clip that allows the rail to fall WAY more easily, it doesn’t seem fair to not allow potential removal. Especially with how easily we saw it fall a couple times here at Tokyo. I also think there needs to be some kind of integrity check in between horses if it does take any kind of impact. If it’s taking three (or however many) little hits that weaken it a bit each time but it’s only falling on the third teeny tiny hit, that’s a concern.
side note: Is there any more attractive horse in the world than Flamenco? I think not.
Like I said – I think the technology is greatly needed and 100% should be used, but I also think there needs to be a middle ground if we’re going to have fences that are so “light” to the touch. The last thing we want is people coming out here and picking their way around/showjumping up to every frangible fence… IMO that could be a safety issue in and of itself, not to mention totally outside of the point and purpose of the phase. I hope this is an issue that will get more traction and discussion in the coming months, and possibly some tweaks to the rule. At the end of the day I think rules should have two purposes: 1) safety/well-being 2) fairness of sport. If at all possible we should consider both of those things (which I think absolutely can be done in this case), and we saw some really unfair penalties here in Tokyo that made a big impact.
breedrideevent.com 