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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thoughts on the eventing? Let me hear them!

I was extremely distracted this morning with watching the Olympic eventing showjumping (oh my god what a finish) but we’ll talk about my thoughts on all that tomorrow. Since I’m now crunched for time today I figured we’d do a quick Mina update on how she’s been settling in!

She’s been with me for two weeks now, and really she’s settled in quite well. She’s got some quirks, for sure, but she’s a super super sweet dog that really just wants more than anything else to be loved. She hasn’t done anything truly wrong at all – no accidents in the house, no attempted escapes, no chewing, etc. Mina does get a little overstimulated sometimes still and her ability to listen sort of goes out the window, but that’s fair. She’s been an apartment dog her whole life and coming to a farm is quite literally a whole new world.

At first she was quite horrified by the horses (she can see them out the living room window) and the neighbor’s cows (she can see them from the porch) but she doesn’t bark at them anymore, she mostly just watches them. She learned pretty quickly that she’s not allowed to duck under our yard’s fence to go into the horse pastures, thank goodness. One on one she’s definitely intimidated by them, but shows zero inclination to want to chase them or be aggressive, she mostly just goes to her default behavior when she’s worried or excited – flopping over onto her back. If she wants to stay wary of them, that’s fine by me, because a few of these horses will for sure chase her if she gets too bold.

She’s already earned a nickname, Beans, which I use much more frequently than her actual name. It started at Mina, morphed to Meens, then to Meens Beans, and now it’s pretty much just Beans or Jelly Beans or Jumping Beans (although I was astonished to find out just how many different types of beans I could think of, once I started listing them off at her one day). That’s how you know they’re officially part of the family I guess, when you rarely use their real name anymore.

When I go down to the barn in the morning to ride she dutifully sits on the couch and stares out the window, watching us do all the morning chores and rides from afar. When I walk back to the house I can see her through the window, nose pressed up against it. That whole window is just constantly covered in noseprints, it’s pretty cute. She doesn’t panic when I leave though, which is definitely nice. I was a little worried how she’d be about that having had a shelter experience times two. She just dutifully goes to the couch to wait, though.

She’s a pretty energetic and active dog too, she likes to go outside every few hours and chase her ball around or run zoomies around the yard, or go down to the barn with me to feed or throw hay. Her recall has gotten a lot better already, she does come when I call her (usually the first time but not always) and is better about not zooming ahead quite so much. That’s a work in progress, but I’m definitely not worried about her trying to bolt or escape. She’s more likely to chase me down than vice versa.

Really she’s proving to be a great dog so far, and having her here has definitely helped me cope with the back to back losses of Stewie and Quinn. She makes me laugh every day, that’s for sure.

Last week’s Foal Friday was all about Obi and Patrick’s relationship, which is largely centered around their games of Bitey Face. Colts just gotta colt, and biting each other is what they do best. While those Bitey Face games are about the limit of Patrick’s rambunctiousness, it’s certainly not the only thing Obi is interested in. It took him a little while to come out of his shell, but I think Obi is now making up for it, because he is one rowdy and bold little dude. Of course, Pippa and Patrick (who are both fairly dignified) aren’t that interested in taking part in all of his games. You know who’s always up for a little chaos and mayhem though?

Mostly they chase each other around a lot, because that’s Teddy’s most favorite activity in the world. Nobody tell her she isn’t a racehorse.

She’s like Obi’s very own personal trainer, which is probably a good thing because, uh… he’s kind of a chub.

In between all the zoomies (and there are A LOT of zoomies) they also tend to have a sixth sense for finding trouble. Largely, I think, because Teddy’s pony DNA works like a GPS tracking system for Trouble, and she’s always drawn right to it. Obi feeds off of Teddy’s boldness and curiousity, for sure, and I think she’s helped him blossom and be more confident.

Admittedly every once in a while Obi forgets his place and brings his chompers to the zoomies party…

Luckily Teddy is pretty forgiving, and she usually just reprimands him by taking him for another few laps of the pasture. She’s already figured out that tired colts are better colts. Who run the world? Pony mares.

Happy Friday everyone!

Admittedly I always have mixed feelings about the Olympics when it comes to eventing, mostly because it isn’t the top level of our sport. Indeed, most of the horses and a large portion of the riders in the field have never contested a 5*. BUT, there’s definitely an aspect to it that is special, like getting to see more diversity than we usually do in these top level competitions – so many different countries, different people, and a slightly more diverse field of horses as well (we don’t often see horses bred in Russia or Spain or Poland!). So let’s look a little more closely at the horses in the 2021 Tokyo field, shall we?

Before we start, to clarify: these stats include only the 3 starting horses for each team and the starting individuals, not any of the reserves, except for a couple brief mentions where I will make it clear that it’s a reserve horse that I’m talking about. Basically, if it has a dressage ride time, it’s included in these statements, if it doesn’t, it’s not. (note: I have updated to reflect the last minute changes to Team Australia and Team Ireland)

Alright, let’s roll.

Let’s start off easy: of all the entered horses, more than half of the field was born in one of these three countries: Germany, France, or Ireland. 16 horses in the field were bred in Germany, 15 were bred in France, and 11 were bred in Ireland (8 registered ISH, 2 registered SHBGB, one TB). Of note: out of the 8 registered as Irish Sporthorse, 2 are of traditional ISH breeding – the rest are part or full continental WB (usually Holsteiner or Selle Francais).

We are used to seeing at least a handful of full thoroughbreds at any top level event, but in Tokyo there is only one lone full TB in the field, Glenfly, who is an Irish-bred thoroughbred that competed unsuccessfully in national hunt races. However, even with only one full thoroughbred there is still a lot of blood present in this field. There are 4 horses by a full TB stallion (these stallions are Ostermond xx, Presenting xx, Albaran xx, and Seigneur D’alleray xx) and 5 horses out of a full TB mare. Additionally there is also a lot of French AngloArab blood present, with one horse registered AA, 1 horse by full french AA sire, and 4 out of full AA mare.

The average blood percentage among all the entrants (again: calculating only the starters, not the reserves, and tossing out the handful of horses that have an incomplete pedigree) is 55%. The horse with the lowest blood percentage comes in at 22%, with the highest being 100%. If we toss the full TB, the next highest is 90%. This average is pretty on par with what we see at most 4* and 5* level events.

Moving on to the sire’s side of things, the most represented sire is Holsteiner stallion Contender, who is seen within the first 3 generations of 7 horses, 3 via his son Contendro. Selle Francais stallion Diamant de Semilly is next up, being the sire of 2 and the sire’s sire of 2 more. Selle Francais (but 82% blood) stallion Jaguar Mail has three direct offspring in the field (one out of a full AA mare, one out of a high blood British mare, and one out of a low blood dressage mare). Three more stallions are represented by 2 direct offspring each: Selle Francais stallion Mr. Blue, Rheinlander dressage stallion Fidertanz, and Trakehner stallion Windfall. Two horses are by Contendro out of a Heraldik xx mare, and another is by Contender (Contendro’s sire) out of a Heraldik xx mare.

On the dam’s side of the pedigree, the most represented damsires are Heraldik xx (3 horses) and Rock King (3 horses). One mare, Rock Me Baby (by Rock King out of a Shaab xx mare), has two offspring at Toyko: Balham Mist by Mill Law on the Swedish team, and Colorado Blue by Jaguar Mail for Team Ireland. Also worth noting that one of the mares competing, the aforementioned Source de la Faye, already has an offspring competing at FEI level (Ultrasource del Cerro). He’s a 7yo currently competing at 2* level, and he completed Lion d’Angers last year, following in his mother’s footsteps.

Speaking of Lion d’Angers (how’s that for a segue) we have a LOT of horses in the field that came up through the FEI Young Horse classes. 55% of the horses in the field competed in these classes (which are 6yo 2* or 7yo 3*) on their rise up the levels. Even more impressively, 42% of the horses in the field competed at the Young Horse World Championships at Lion d’Angers at least once. Their success at that venue ranged from podium finishes to eliminated, but they did qualify and compete there.

Looking inward at our own US horses, two of them (if we count our reserve) competed in the USEA Young Event Horse program. Tsetserleg did one YEH class as a 5yo, scoring 79. Mai Baum did one YEH4 class, scoring 74, and one YEH5 class, scoring 73. Needless to say, neither of them took the YEH world by storm and neither made an appearance at Championships.

Trak lovers (there are always a handful of you and you know who you are) there are 3 Trakehners in the field for you. Or really four, if you count the one that is registered Westphalian but is actually by a TB stallion out of a full Trak mare (this is why we look at the pedigree, people, not the “breed”! Thanks for coming to my TED talk). Two of these Traks were bred in the USA and both are by Windfall – Vandiver (out of a TB x Trak mare) and Tsetserleg (out of a Trak mare).

While the overwhelming majority of the field comes from Holsteiner and/or Selle Francais jumper lines, there are a few traditionally dressage-oriented sires with some representation as well. On the sire’s side of the pedigree we see: De Niro (grandsire of 1), Sandro Hit (grandsire of 1), and Fidertanz (sire of 2). On the dam’s side we see each of these stallions in one horse each: Wolkentanz, Royal Dance, and Donnerhall.

As for a few fun little random facts:

• fischerchipmunk is one of 7 full siblings. He’s by far the most successful sibling, one other has evented to 3*, and one has showjumped to 1.35m.

• Tullabeg Flamenco has two full siblings, both eventing at FEI level – one at 2* and one at 3*.

• Totem de Brecey’s dam also produced 5 successful showjumpers who competed from 1.40m to 1.60m.

• Diachello, Z, and Fuiloda G all had dams that showjumped successfully in addition to being broodmares.

• One rider, Lara de Liedekerke of Belgium, is on a homebred horse. Alpaga D’arville is by Wonder Boy out of a full TB mare.

Let the games begin! Who are your favorites?

Did I pay a rush fee to get Presto’s Chatt photos in time to post them in the recaps? Yes. Did they actually show up in time? No. Am I gonna dedicate a whole post to them because now I’ve gotta get my money’s worth? Absolutely. Sorry not sorry. I’m sad that they didn’t get any dressage pics to memorialize his 23 score, but oh well. His first recognized Novice!

I think we’ve got ourselves a real baby event horse! He’s so game and I love that you can see it in his pictures.