Are the Showjumpers going to let us down ?

Fair comment, badattitude! However, my take on it is that by staying up in the league we would, as a team, be competing at a higher lever therefore gaining more experience at that level in the lead upto 2012.

I think they decided that staying up was a more realistic and more beneficial target for this year. From where we were at the end of last year getting a medal at the World Champs was probably unlikely in any event, but to build throughout the year and into next year giving experience to a mix of riders and horses would be more beneficial in the long term.

what's the expression, sacrifice the battle to win the war, or something!
 
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I totally appreciate what you're saying Woody but this is the WORLD EQUESTRIAN GAMES, a really high profile competition ( in the equine world anyway) and as far as the profile of SJing is concerned it looks poor.

How is such a performance going to encourage those who don't know the Brits so called strategy and just think we're not too successful. The public image to future owners, investors doesn't look good IMO.
 
I don't think it looks particularly poor on reflection. On paper, they took 2 very experienced riders, one with reasonable experience and one (hopefully) up and coming.

That selection presents the impression of a selection committee being encouraging to new riders and suggests to owners that perhaps they do not necessarily need to put their horses with one of the established riders (as perhaps the old regime would have sugested).

They got through to the second round of the team competition and finished 9th. With a bit more luck (toes in water etc) and a following wind it could have been better. Not such a bad result really? The Americans must be gutted?

I know its the World Esquestrian Games, I am just attempting to understand and express the reasoning and planning behind the selectors strategy.

I, for one, am a huge supporter of Whitakers, etc but have felt for some time that we need to move forward to encourage new owners to support the sport and open the door to new talent, which without experience will not improve and progress.

With this strategy, have we not done there or there abouts as well as we have in the last few years in major champs anyway? I cannot be sure of my facts here though!
 
Woody78 said:
I don't think it looks particularly poor on reflection. On paper, they took 2 very experienced riders, one with reasonable experience and one (hopefully) up and coming.

That selection presents the impression of a selection committee being encouraging to new riders and suggests to owners that perhaps they do not necessarily need to put their horses with one of the established riders (as perhaps the old regime would have sugested).

They got through to the second round of the team competition and finished 9th. With a bit more luck (toes in water etc) and a following wind it could have been better. Not such a bad result really? The Americans must be gutted?

I know its the World Esquestrian Games, I am just attempting to understand and express the reasoning and planning behind the selectors strategy.

I, for one, am a huge supporter of Whitakers, etc but have felt for some time that we need to move forward to encourage new owners to support the sport and open the door to new talent, which without experience will not improve and progress.

With this strategy, have we not done there or there abouts as well as we have in the last few years in major champs anyway? I cannot be sure of my facts here though!
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You analyse the reasons why it didn't happen very well but the only thing people will remember is that we were 9th, end of. The rationale as to why will be totally confined to history and only those in the sport will know that rationale.

No-one remembers those that come second over time never mind 9th. In any other walk of life be it job, sport or vocation 9th is not very good.

You don't hear football players say ' I nearly got a goal'. No its actual balls at the back of the net that count and no-one cares if they were off form cos they had a late night, hangover or legover as is recently the case. Its the scores on the doors that matter.

I just hope that we're not analysing a poor Olympic performance in 2012.
 
LHS, I totally agree! I have a very sports minded competitive husband along with very competitive daughters.

Look, my whole discussion here and support of the selection policies is based on my wholehearted wish to see GB showjumping right back up there, as it was in my youth (Broome, Psalm, Stroller etc) bang on time for 2012.

It was not a good year for change with the Worlds. Change was well overdue and postponing it would only have prolonged the situation. If the regime had not changed, would we necessarily have done any better?

I am not convinced by the no horse power argument. We have some lovely young horses coming through that were probably considered for the Worlds but maybe the scenario was that after discussion with owners/riders it was agreed that it would not be right for their long term prospects.

Take Billy Congo for instance. At Hickstead he jumped brilliantly, in Dublin he was overawed by the atmosphere of the occasion.

Anyway, I digress. It is easy to criticise and trying to think about it from a positive perspective and try to understand what they are trying to do and where they are trying to go gives me more encouragement that maybe things are going forward than the reverse.

9th is not good enough but the improvement has to begin at some time and will not happen overnight!
 
Yes I agree that change has to start somewhere and he has started somewhere, but I think it a terrible shame an event as high profile as a WEG is used as a training opportunity. There are many large classes etc for horses to train around.

A showcase such as WEG doesn't come around often.

Its been said many times before but I think what RH is doing is great but with all the reserves at his disposal it worries me that we can't do better than a 9th position at such an important event.

BS has really struggled to capture peoples imagination in recent times and how motivating would it have been to see a national team turn a corner on the world stage.
 
Totally!

I have a view that it should have been changed long ago, the this year's Worlds would have been a halfway point in the build up to 2012. As, indeed, it has proved to be with Eventing and Dressage.

As it has worked out, this year is just the starting point.

Look at it this way, at least we have started!

I believe there is still a place for the older, experienced riders (us oldies have our worth!) expecially when they have been getting the results. It's like any sport though (slightly different cos there is a horse as well), we must keep moving forward and the best way to bring in young talent in a team, is alongside the experience. We have only done so sporadically.

Strength in depth is the way forward, as shown by the eventers in particular, especially in this sport where so much can so easily go wrong with injury etc.

Still, RH has made a good start, we have done what we (I think) set out to do at the start of the year. Bejing ended uncomfortably and from there this is progress!

I, for one, have more optimism than I have had for a while that BS is dong something to improve our results. Hope it's the right something!
 
But then you have the other side of it, which the Americans are fussing about now. The feeling there is that there hasn't been enough long term planning, only emphasis on winning this or that high profile competition. So they don't have the infrastructure or the younger riders/horses coming up and it's showing this year. (This may or may not actually be true but some of this thread is discussing perception so it does go to that point.)

The Canadian eventers have been singled out - along with some of the "lesser known" countries which have had good showings - as a team now reaping the spoils of a more long term approach. Perhaps most influentially for that team anyway, is it's made up almost exclusively of "new" people, not associated or belonging to the old guard, and developed with the current management, whom they listen to and have faith in. (This has been, to put it mildly, a problem in the past.) This has been a five year plan and included money for combinations to get mileage at top end competitions even when realistically they weren't competitive.

It's pretty clear, given the number of new faces around, that things have changed radically. The "big" equestrian nations used to be able to show up with second string riders/horses at all but the most important competitions and still be very competitive, even in the last 20 years. This simply does not seem to be the case anymore. Many other nations don't have the depth of somewhere like the UK or US in the whole scene, but they clearly can dig up 3 or 4 riders who can come to play on the day. Also, margins are much smaller - if you look at the scores it's often come down to one rail or a time fault. (Which also shows how much, increasingly, is luck. A rail can come cheaply, even with the very best program.) Further complicated now because chefs and other management have to keep track of where they are in the funding cycle and other "bookkeeping" concerns. Yes, the WEGs are important for that, but so are other competitions.

Given that teams are also facing funding issues, there are more equestrian sports taking out of the pot, and keeping and running top horses gets more and more complicated every day, it seems increasingly unlikely that one program can send out winners every time out. Obviously having everyone at their best as much as possible but with the margins so small the gap between second and tenth can be one inexperienced horse or rider.

As far as whether the WEGs should have been used for mileage, it really isn't comparable to any other competition except the Olympics. Sure there are other big shows but the logistics of something like this are so different, not to mention the pressures. Also, from a European point of view, those are the only events teams have to really travel to, which adds a whole other set of pressures. It's not just mileage jumping the jumps, it's the whole experience.

Absolutely, it would have been great for the UK to get a sj medal this week. (And don't oversate how badly they did - other horsey nations didn't even make the 2nd round!) But there's going to be a whole lot of screaming if they don't do well in 2012 and I think the people in charge now are really trying to keep their eye on that goal. I suspect the feeling is, too, there will be money to be had even without the very best recent results. So if they're going to plan for the future, there's no time like the present.
 
I can see both sides of the argument....yes, we all want GBR to do well in big championships, and yes, we all want to see new blood and new talent being given a chance. I for one was gutted that we didn't improve more than one place in the final standings last night...but we did beat the Americans on their home turf with one of their strongest teams, and we did beat the Dutch with one of theirs and the Irish. The likes of Saudi Arabi will always have the funds to go out and buy 4 or 5 world class, ready made horses for their guys to ride in a championships...but how many of those riders would be able to produce a horse to that standard ?

As has been said above, the change has to happen at some time and no time is ever that convenient. There is ALWAYS a major championships 'next' year or 'this'....we have Worlds or Olympics every 'even' numbered year and europeans in every 'odd' year....plus the issue of staying in the top flight of Nations Cups every year that is a huge financial necessity for British Showjumping. If we don't go to superleague shows our riders don't get invited to the biggest shows...with the biggest prizemoney...and if that doesn't happen, our top horses get passed on to riders (of other nationalities) that do get invited.....simple mathematics really.

I don't think we have a particuarly 'limited' pool of talented horses either...think of those that weren't there....Peppermill, Robin Hood W, Locarno, Pom D'ami, CS Online, Hello Sailor....and then there's the younger ones....Billy Congo, Carlo, Kalico Bay, Argento, Big Star....and a few other less well known such as Sultan. We also propped up a couple of the other nations in Kentucky by way of some high profile horse sales...Billy Birr and Wonderboy to name a couple. We can and do produce top horses....we perhaps need to learn to hold on to them a little better :-p

Put it this way....is it better to come 9th in a World Champs held in a different timezone on the other side of the world where there is relatively little mainstream media coverage or on your home turf in front everyone at the 2012 Olympics ?
 
Rambo said:
Put it this way....is it better to come 9th in a World Champs held in a different timezone on the other side of the world where there is relatively little mainstream media coverage or on your home turf in front everyone at the 2012 Olympics ?
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Is the main reason that there was so little media support BECAUSE the result was expeceted to be so poor?
If this is the case then BS needs to look atitself very carefully, because:
no media = no money.
 
i would rather our team finished 9th in another country and not in the UK at the olympics! i also get fed up of seeing the same riders in every team like the whitakers. i think it was time for change and i also feel rob has done a fantastic job this year and achieved his main goal which was to stay in the top league of nations cups. and the young riders need a chance to go to top events to get experience or else it would be the same people competing at all the top shows on the teams. i feel that we have some really good young horses coming through the ranks like billy congo, kalico bay, etc who will be good team horses once they have gained more experience and hopefully be ready for 2012. we also have the european championships next year to think about and to maybe send a more experienced team out to the europeans. i think that we done well to achieve 9th place, it could have been worse, and i feel our team should be partly pleased with it considering some of the horses were young
 
toffeesmarty said:
Is the main reason that there was so little media support BECAUSE the result was expeceted to be so poor?
If this is the case then BS needs to look atitself very carefully, because:
no media = no money.
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No, it wasn't the reason. The reason was that a) the difference in time meant that the events would not be finished in time to meet the daily paper print deadlines and b) it was bloody expensive to send reporters.
(They might not be horsey but I am surrounded by media peeps here!)
 
OK....after reading all of these post I would love to know exactly which horse and rider combinations all you pessimists would have sent??...do tell?

As some others said Rob jumped fantastic and on the team first day(2nd day) Rob jumped clear with a time fault, Scott and David had a foot in the water and Michael didnt go to plan but that meant that 3 of our riders never touched a fence ina round that was VERY difficult and ended with not many clear. Ok the foot in water was annoying but Scott had 4 and 4 at his first ever championship and this year was the first nations cups he has been on ...which is a lot better than any of the other British riders (overall in the team competition - 1/9, 4/el, 9/1) so I think he did an amazing job..

Next Chamberlain, well I was at the horses previous yard and this time last year it was jumping much smaller tracks and would never have seen anything anywhere near the tracks he would have faced out there. He jumped an amazing 1st team round and his greeness showed a bit in the 2nd round when he was being so careful that he had to be pulled out and go again. Should he have pushed him through....no way world championships or not...the horse has a huge future ahead of him and he does not need scaring or punishing when he is jumping so good now otherwise he will never be the horse that he is so obviously capable of.

Rob H has done an amazing job this year with our team and after watching this week at HOYS I think we have some very exciting prospects for teams next year in Oz de Breve, Dan Neilson, Sam Hutton, Triple X, Argento, Unique, to name but a few.

Of course it would be better and fantastic if we were to win a medal but things are far more complicated than some people seem to realise.

So please tell me who your winning World championship team would have been....??

**rant over!!
 
Maybe you could give us an idea of why the eventers, dressagers, paralympics, have all got their act together, done the country proud and become medal winners whereas the SJers have not.

Surely it takes more than RH in isolation to have worked on a strategy over all this time. Why is SJing different.

Just curious
 
I would have to have a good think on who I would've sent, but have to say Talan and Chamberlain would not have been my top choices. I've seen Talan have lots of 4-fault rounds (granted those were just what I've seen on TV) to be convincing enough to put in several necessary clears. And Chamberlain looked pretty overfaced with the size of the courses. Also, why did they not send Promised Land with Tina? I think he's every bit as good as Hallo Sailor. Look at how well he jumped at Hickstead and in the Puissance. Two other excellent chances would have been Peppermill and Pom D'Ami. Both, sadly unavailable due to injuries. Another gripe is Wonderboy. Why-oh-why did Ben sell him? It was said he was bought with the World Games in mind, but then they got rid of him. Saying they had a couple of really good horses, so decided to sell. Where were they during selection? Were they (presumably Robin Hood and Triple X) even considered? Wonderboy obviously was by the Syrians. I am sorry, but if you have a horse of that calibre, then you keep him in the country. Yes, you have to make a living out of the sport, but there is no point groaning about the failure of the GB team when you sold one of your top prospects beforehand. It makes no sense to me.
 
TBH, I don't see what the fuss is about - 9th is not exactly disgraceful is it?

As one local showjumper near me put it - showjumping is hard because you can go from hero to zero so fast. Poles are all that count (ok I know stops and time faults do too!) there is so little leeway over anything. :)

Someone mentioned Billy Congo up the thread - I have seen him compete at Bramham a few times - I LOVE that horse :)
 
I think if we were sending a team to do nothing more than secure the best result possible over the course of this particular championships, and assuming all the horses and all the riders concerned were 100% fit, then i would suggest the strongest team we could send would have been Peppermill, Carlo, Pom D'Ami and Robin Hood. However, they would be accused of sending the same old 'names' again....and at least one of those horses could well be over the hill by 2012...and one or two of the riders too, so really not doing much for the 'future' of SJ'ing in this country :O

Whoever it was above who was questioning why Wonderboy was sold, i ask you this. If you had (at least) two horses who you considered good enough to jump and be competitive at WEG, and someone came along and offered you £x millions for the 'second string' what would you do ? Ben has to make a living....his primary focus as a businessman is to make as much money as he can...be that by winning classes or dealing horses. The WEG's and other championships are merely distractions along the way for him. Sure, he'd love to be crowned World Champion....but i'm sure the money is just as important too.

At the risk of being shot down in flames,i would suggest that showjumping more than almost any other equestrian discipline is the one where money really talks and success can be bought. Yes, there is a lot of money in dressage....but there is also 'personal opinion' too so even if you buy the best horse, if your name doesn't fit you run the risk of being overlooked and i don't think Eventing even comes close in terms of the money vs horsepower debate. I think the fact that a Saudi Arabian who is virtually unknown managed to come second overall demonstrates this point perfectly.

On a related topic though, did anyone else notice the super young grey that Guy Williams was riding in the Leading Showjumper of the Year at HOYS last night ? Just a 7yo but absolutely played with the course....and Oz de Breve looked a class act too....very different from Laura's normal 'type'...a proper jumper.
 
Rambo I'm not going to 'shoot you down in flames' but I completely disagree with your comments about the Saudi rider. You only have to look at his performance in the final four for evidence that it is not just money that won him the medal. Good on him I say!

BTW I think you're views on dressage are a bit old hat too, but you're entitled to them LOL
 
It's an expensive sport and EVERYONE at that level is spending it. The Americans have deep pockets and it didn't help them out much this time. ;)

I do think money buys things like training and the ability to travel horses easily, BUT supposedly nations like GB have top quality competitions and training available on the doorstep so the fact that someone from Saudi, say, has to finance training with someone like Pessoa or Tops isn't really relevant. Also, there is a pretty deep "non-Western" circuit now so people are getting mileage over international courses and against other good riders that observers in Europe and North America never even see. They may be buying/breeding the horses but clearly they're also doing the work.

Personally, I think the WEGs have been a bit of a shock to the "traditional horsey nations" - we're so used to playing each other, we might not have noticed there are other people knocking at the door. There were comments on here about the "unknown" Saudi rider who was top after the first Nation's Cup round but he has been to the Olympics a couple of times and even won a bronze in 2000. Having someone like that tends to raise everyone else's sights and game.

Even the relative Canadian success seems to have been a bit of a surprise. I think their eventing results are very relevant to GBs sj discussions. They hired someone proven but not part of their own club, put in place a five year plan, developed new people who would sign on for the program (a problem in the past), and took a step by step approach. I will agree, they likely can't keep it up because there's just not the money for travelling etc., so perhaps I'm just proving Rambo's point, but it's not the money "buying" success without work, it's money allowing the success to be showcased.

I don't think the "old" nations have lowered their games, I think it's just a bigger, more level playing field now. `If you look at the WEG results overall, with the possible exception of the Reining (although that's changing) and the Para events, the margins are very small now. I do think people have to take this into account when commenting too - a few rails here and there are not a "disaster" but they do now often make the difference between up there and nowhere.
 
MissySmythe said:
Rambo I'm not going to 'shoot you down in flames' but I completely disagree with your comments about the Saudi rider. You only have to look at his performance in the final four for evidence that it is not just money that won him the medal. Good on him I say!

BTW I think you're views on dressage are a bit old hat too, but you're entitled to them LOL
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Don't get me wrong, i'm not taking anything away from the KSA rider and obviously HE has to have the ability as well as the horsepower....but my point is that given the very best horses, GBR could probably field two or three teams that would be very competitive at that level too. You can be the best rider in the world...but without the best horses few will ever know.

My views on dressage are just that, my views. Not saying it's entirely correct but there's always that element of doubt if personal opinion plays any part in the end result :)
 
This is in an article on Horsetalk

?The British Equestrian Team headed the WEG medal table with good results in all the disciplines in which they competed. Except one: show jumping.

Many might wonder why anyone would make the Nations Cup series a priority in a World championship year in the first place. Perhaps British Show Jumping fought its relegation from the Meydan Top League at the end of 2009 - despite performing appallingly badly in it - because they thought they had a God-given right to be there and then disregarded the rest of the 2010 competitive schedule.

Belgium, on the other hand, took its relegation like grown ups, won the 2010 Promotional League in a common canter (as they say in racing), and then won a team Bronze medal and an individual Gold at WEG.

Two of their riders are also very young and so are at least two of their horses, so flying a team out to the USA for 'experience' as the British have is clearly an argument that holds little merit.

Another medal-winning team were the French, who, since spending a year in the Promotional League, have won both the editions of the Meydan Top League since they rejoined it, have the reigning European Champion among their riders and won a silver medal in Lexington.

All this has also been achieved in great part by riders under the age of 30 who "made their bones" riding in places like Zagreb and Ugar. Three of them had never competed at a World championships or an Olympic Games before and this "lack of experience" has not impeded them to any great degree it seems.

Nor is there no more money for horses in Belgium than there is in Britain, although they have a better, more established breeding programme. But a great many of their home bred and produced horses are sold to other nations, well before the home side can make use of them at championships.

What the British may lack in a breeding programme, however, they gain in the World Class Programme for developing talent, which does not have a FFlemishequivalent. So both nations have advantages and disadvantages but what looks better on a world stage to owners and sponsors? A well beaten third in a Nations Cup series or a couple of medals at a World Championship and maybe thinking about that is the best way to organise a team strategy

The rest of the article is here http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/news/2010/10/126.shtml
 
Thanks for posting the link Badattitude. That was a real eye opener for sure. How on earth can they eliminate some riders for a bleeding mouth and not others? How did they get away with that horrendous ring measuring error in the para-dressage? And good on Jos Lansink for sticking up for the grooms. NO heating, NO hot water and FILTHY accommodation. Delhi didn't get away with the latter for the Commonwealth Games, did they? All that on top of the Ijsbrand Chardon sabotage. Disgusting!! There seriously needs to be a thorough investigation into all those things.

Jos also raised an excellent point on the cost of living during such events. Why is there not a law preventing this? A couple of Indian restaurants in St. Andrews disgraced themselves when the last golf open was on. A bottle of beer cost £9 and a rogan josh almost £20!! Totally wrong in my opinion.

Also, when is dressage going to follow the example set by vaulting and reining? By that I mean dropping the highest and lowest scores. Didn't one judge score her under 80% during the individual final? That looked like bias to me, especially since the others were all over 80%.

It was also interesting to read an international perspective on Britain's failure at WEG. They raised a good point on our relegation from the Nations Cup. Perhaps if more emphasis had been put on preparing for the World Games instead of declining a share of humble pie with Belgium, then could we be looking at some different results?
 
Over2You said:
Thanks for posting the link Badattitude. That was a real eye opener for sure. How on earth can they eliminate some riders for a bleeding mouth and not others? How did they get away with that horrendous ring measuring error in the para-dressage? And good on Jos Lansink for sticking up for the grooms. NO heating, NO hot water and FILTHY accommodation. Delhi didn't get away with the latter for the Commonwealth Games, did they? All that on top of the Ijsbrand Chardon sabotage. Disgusting!! There seriously needs to be a thorough investigation into all those things.

Jos also raised an excellent point on the cost of living during such events. Why is there not a law preventing this? A couple of Indian restaurants in St. Andrews disgraced themselves when the last golf open was on. A bottle of beer cost £9 and a rogan josh almost £20!! Totally wrong in my opinion.

Also, when is dressage going to follow the example set by vaulting and reining? By that I mean dropping the highest and lowest scores. Didn't one judge score her under 80% during the individual final? That looked like bias to me, especially since the others were all over 80%.

It was also interesting to read an international perspective on Britain's failure at WEG. They raised a good point on our relegation from the Nations Cup. Perhaps if more emphasis had been put on preparing for the World Games instead of declining a share of humble pie with Belgium, then could we be looking at some different results?
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Oops....meant to say one of the judges scored Laura. B under 80% in the individual (or was it the team) final.

Darn H&H's not allowing you to edit your post!!
 
Over2You, you are welcome. This one is a very good website for all world news and I use it often. And I too thought it was a very good article.
 
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