Aoife Clark - any news on her horse?

I met Natalie Blundell yesterday evening and she was fine and her horse is too and is apparantly for sale now as she is returning to Australia, I was also close to where they loaded Carolyne Ryan Bell's horse when it landed and went lame, and it seemed quite happy just very lame although there didnt seem to be anything obvious, Carolyne and the vet were looking (and looking lost as to the cause) and the horse was then loaded and taken away, several people were shouting at her to get off but I think she was genuinely nonplussed as to that her horse was seriously lame as opposed to "treading" on something and being lame for a few strides......
 
armchair_rider said:
That was Natalie Blundell and Algebra. According to her fb he is fine and she has torn ankle ligaments.
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Thanks for that it looked really nasty glad not as bad as it looked. Do you think the BBC did eventing any favours by showing all these falls. Fine if they show them live but to go back and show a block of fallls almost as if it was "you've been framed?"
 
cava14una said:
Thanks for that it looked really nasty glad not as bad as it looked.
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falls can be really deceptive, the fatal injury was not even a fall, poor Sarah she did nothing wrong, my heart goes out to her, she was sensibly taking the longer option as the horse had not had an easy time the jump before, and he just left a leg, looked really innocous, could have happened at any level.
RIP Orto
 
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cava14una said:
Thanks for that it looked really nasty glad not as bad as it looked. Do you think the BBC did eventing any favours by showing all these falls. Fine if they show them live but to go back and show a block of fallls almost as if it was "you've been framed?"
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Hard to say really. If they hadn't shown any falls it wouldn't have been representative of what actually happened on the day. But the way they were shown didn't do the sport any favours.

Shame about Algebra being sold, they're a good partnership
 
You can't pretend the falls don't happen - and if you think back honestly, it's always been the convention for years that at some point there's a short pull together of the people who fell or otherwise had drama. I think it would be ethically questionable to stop that now because of concerns about the image of the sport. In fact this time they consciously only included the horses that they were able to say 'all those horses were fine after a vets' inspection' and didn't include the falls which they couldn't say that about. That made me a bit uneasy, from an ethical reporting point of view. If we're going to defend the sport we have to be prepared to be honest about what happens. In terms of whether it's a shorter montage or included throughout, you can argue it both ways in terms of which makes the falls 'look worse'. On the one hand, a 30 second section is shorter and more contained than including the falls one by one in terms of total impact on the audience. On the other hand, there is something questionable about seeing the drama as drama... You can genuinely argue it either way as a broadcaster, I think.
 
But they did mention about Sara's horse in the coverage. I almost think the opposite, that they shouldn't show the horses who they haven't confirmed are OK. I think it could be seen as disrespectful if the horse is subsequently PTS or severely injured. No one would complain if they didn't show a fall where a rider died would they?
 
KatPT said:
Upleadon got up and walked off surprisingly sound, my other half has an incredible series of photos of the fall, looked awful from the photos and where I was standing but the horse did everything possible to avoid standing on Neil. (Who looked less sound but I was very happy to see him get up). I was also right next to Aoifes fall (another incredible series of photos, I might post once I know horses are ok). She was incredibly lucky the horse went over her at his loin area rather than his shoulder or barrel going over her. You could see that fall coming a mile away (not saying I could do it better!). Horse was very shocked.
Also felt really sorry for William getting stopped where he did, it was a total balls up as far as I could tell and he looked fuming. His poor horse was a legend to pick up again after getting cooled off.
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Kat - any idea what happened? Looked on TV like Neil's horse tried to bank the V?
 
They did mention Sara's horse, but not in relation to the falls, but to the fact he had sadly had to be pts , infact orto did not fall, as I said earlier just left a leg.
 
fabscd said:
But they did mention about Sara's horse in the coverage. I almost think the opposite, that they shouldn't show the horses who they haven't confirmed are OK. I think it could be seen as disrespectful if the horse is subsequently PTS or severely injured. No one would complain if they didn't show a fall where a rider died would they?
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Yes, they did mention it, but my point was it was not included in the montage. That because the montage was supposed to be 'thrills and spills' rather than serious bad news.
 
slumdog said:
Anyone who wants to catch up on any rounds- http://burghley.tv/vod2014/
(Yes I am watching it at 4am, the joys of insomnia!)
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Lol!fellow insomniac here But I've already watched the highlights thanks just browsing g the forum till my alarm goes off at 6! Yet another sleepless night only had 2 hours before making the drive from cheshire to burghley for cross country day but luckily my friend drove my car back!
 
WinkingWillow said:
Lol!fellow insomniac here But I've already watched the highlights thanks just browsing g the forum till my alarm goes off at 6! Yet another sleepless night only had 2 hours before making the drive from cheshire to burghley for cross country day but luckily my friend drove my car back!
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maybe we should start a forum for insomniacs!?! count me in!!
 
mypegasus said:
Have just looked at the FEI yellow card listings.

Aoife was given a verbal warning for inappropriate riding and Megan Heath was given a yellow card for excessive use of the whip.
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Seems weak that Aoife gets two verbals in the space of a week - surely, having previously been warned, she should have got a yellow card for Burghley?
 
I'm shocked aoife only got a(nother) verbal warning, I think her riding at Burghley was damn right dangerous and deserves a yellow card, after all, didn't Mary King get a yellow card for jumping almost from a standstill, two strides from a fence? Well, after Aoife's horse slipped and almost fell, she jumped a fence 2 strides later...
 
Nicnac said:
Agree. Her round made me wince and personally thought her horse didn't look 100% after his nasty slip at the Discovery
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Agreed. I was wincing when she just sat up and kicked on after he caught his leg on the lip of the ditch at Discovery Valley. He didn't look right and I was thinking I'd be surprised if he presented the next day (the stride she saw at the Burghley Station was just wild so he never got as far as trotting up)
 
star said:
Agreed. I was wincing when she just sat up and kicked on after he caught his leg on the lip of the ditch at Discovery Valley. He didn't look right and I was thinking I'd be surprised if he presented the next day (the stride she saw at the Burghley Station was just wild so he never got as far as trotting up)
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Yes, it seemed as though she kicked on rather than checking he was ok.
 
Clearly sore behind after that ditch, gave both back legs another good clout coming out of the sunken road, took out a flag with his nose, and did anyone see her praise that horse, even once? Poor thing. Even if they hadn't had that crazy fall, I very much doubt he would have passed the final day trot up.
 
Idiotic riding. I know I'm nowhere near that level but her round was dangerous, even non-horsey folk said that.
Wonder how she is getting away with it so lightly....?
 
As she came careering down the hill into that last fence, I thought her horses back legs looked all wrong. It was horrible to watch. She was lucky neither of them was seriously hurt.
 
She pushed for a stride that just wasn't there and the horse became disunited coming into it way too fast, it was never going to end well.

I'd have thought (not just in this circumstance but generally) that two verbal warnings (especially in such a short space of time) should automatically = yellow card. But its all dealt with separately at each event and if the verdict was no yellow card for each separate piece of riding then they can't give one overall unless they begin to look at the wider picture?

I've never really looked into yellow cards/warnings before this year, its all come to light a bit since Mary and the list makes interesting reading actually... interesting that OT got one for abuse of whip at Badminton, don't remember his round but remember others using whip poorly that haven't been given one so must have been bad!?
 
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