Badminton XC thread

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teapot

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milliepops said:
no it's a tricky one, that's for sure.
I love eventing, it's fun to do and exciting to watch. But times are changing and I am also unsure how to square the top competition aspect with preventing any horse from having an accident.

It feels unusual to see this much negativity (whereas it feels commonplace in dressage) , previously it's been more ripping into individuals rather than questioning the sport as a whole. wonder why it's taken this long? rewatching the footage even the top riders in the world are yanking away on horses mouths in a way that would have them slaughtered in a dressage ring... but it's OK because the horse has its ears forward (doesn't that just mean its attention is ahead of it??)
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Yup.

I loved yesterday for watching the test of 5* and how easy some made it look. It was the best of the best. That’s not to say I am not aware of how it may look to a wider audience, I don’t think any of us like seeing horses have crunching falls.

What the answer is I honestly don’t know because if you sacrifice the sport/make it ‘easier’ you could end up with people taking more risks…
 
milliepops

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teapot said:
Yup.

I loved yesterday for watching the test of 5* and how easy some made it look. It was the best of the best. That’s not to say I am not aware of how it may look to a wider audience, I don’t think any of us like seeing horses have crunching falls.

What the answer is I honestly don’t know because if you sacrifice the sport/make it ‘easier’ you could end up with people taking more risks…
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or being less qualified in the first place to attend, and while there is some great riding at lower levels there is also some less great, so that is not necessarily the right approach either. the whole nature of the sport is that you can't predict what will happen out there so the thrill is the element of defying the odds, it's sort of intrinsic that there will be hairy moments and scrapes and i don't think you can get away from that - to do so might be to make it into varied terrain showjumping and that's not a great prospect either!!
 
sasquatch

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teapot said:
Yup.

I loved yesterday for watching the test of 5* and how easy some made it look. It was the best of the best. That’s not to say I am not aware of how it may look to a wider audience, I don’t think any of us like seeing horses have crunching falls.

What the answer is I honestly don’t know because if you sacrifice the sport/make it ‘easier’ you could end up with people taking more risks…
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I think you’re right with making it easier meaning more risks.
I do think an alternative would be making the long routes longer and less technical and short routes and any rider who’s had a refusal at any part of a combination/short route is then forced to jump the long route. Would be a better way of punishing a rider for miscalculating more than the horse, time penalties would be added. Although for an unfit horse may be punishment enough and may push riders into more technical fences on worse strides. Maybe having a softer alternative with time faults would appeal over chances of a run out at more difficult fences, as well as I think more stringent punishment for those who are found to get a yellow card or warning, if it meant a removal of placing riders may be less likely to risk them to begin with. Someone who’s sitting first and has an incident on course they could be yellow carded for will definitely ride differently after knowing a yellow card would cost them placing full stop.
 
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Beautiful round! Well done Tammy Smith, clear and inside the time.
Absolutely wonderful partnership to watch, you can really see they’re very in tune with each other
 
milliepops

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Its tricky, making long routes longer might make them even less attractive.
No one in their right mind would take a direct route they genuinely thought they couldn't pull off.

I know people have differing views about what Oli did on the first horse but to me it was really no worse than the several that pecked on landing and picked up to carry on, which no one really mentions. Other than the French horse that was shattered I don't think we saw much in the way of yellow-card type incidents?
 
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Who’s the woman on the livestream commentary? Don’t recognise the voice and I missed the beginning of this section where she presumably got introduced.
 
sasquatch

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milliepops said:
Its tricky, making long routes longer might make them even less attractive.
No one in their right mind would take a direct route they genuinely thought they couldn't pull off.

I know people have differing views about what Oli did on the first horse but to me it was really no worse than the several that pecked on landing and picked up to carry on, which no one really mentions. Other than the French horse that was shattered I don't think we saw much in the way of yellow-card type incidents?
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I think it’s why if they cracked down on all incidents and had something like a TMO to review it would benefit to an extent, and rider who makes several mistakes on course that causes the horse to peck on landing being examined or any near-falls etc., to be reviewed.

It’s also why I’m not sure if making long routes easier and short routes harder would work, but a way to penalise riders rather than horses for mistakes would definitely be through time penalties without risking horse falls by making the jumps themselves so difficult they punish horse and rider if they go wrong.

I would like to see more frangible pins used on combinations though, as often it seems to be the first or second elements where there’s problems and if both Emily and Cathal had had pins on the second elements you wonder if they would have had such nasty falls too
 
sasquatch

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Austin O’Connor clear over fences but finish with 0.4 time faults, meaning they nearly finish on their dressage score.

Great achievement, just a shame he’s out of the top 10 currently due to not having a great dressage
 
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milliepops

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you'd have to change the entire design of fences courses to have pins everywhere though wouldn't you? I think they are put in pretty much everywhere they can these days at a big event like this.

and reviewing who caused a horse to peck or not is fraught with difficulty, i 100% think this kind of thing should be reviewed but i would say it looked like Swallow Springs chose the bad stride they went on, not Oli, and he then jumped clear, has passed the inspection and expected to SJ so it was an OK decision to continue.

Forgot the horse that hesitated at the broken bridge, again that was not the rider's "fault" that they ended up splatting, it was just a consequence of the horse coming off too quietly. i don't think it would be fair to clobber the rider with any kind of black mark for something like that, if they'd been able to pick up and continue - it was not rider error i don't think?

how would you separate in the event of one that pecked after the footbridge and it wasn't clear whether horse or rider made an iffy judgement? horse that puts its legs down in the middle of an otherwise good attempt, for example? I'm not expecting you to have the answers sasquatch ;) i just can't imagine how to have much kind of qualitative assessment of an xc round, on elements that were not black and white welfare issues (overuse of whip, tired horse etc)
 
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milliepops said:
you'd have to change the entire design of fences courses to have pins everywhere though wouldn't you? I think they are put in pretty much everywhere they can these days at a big event like this.

and reviewing who caused a horse to peck or not is fraught with difficulty, i 100% think this kind of thing should be reviewed but i would say it looked like Swallow Springs chose the bad stride they went on, not Oli, and he then jumped clear, has passed the inspection and expected to SJ so it was an OK decision to continue.

Forgot the horse that hesitated at the broken bridge, again that was not the rider's "fault" that they ended up splatting, it was just a consequence of the horse coming off too quietly. i don't think it would be fair to clobber the rider with any kind of black mark for something like that, if they'd been able to pick up and continue - it was not rider error i don't think?

how would you separate in the event of one that pecked after the footbridge and it wasn't clear whether horse or rider made an iffy judgement? horse that puts its legs down in the middle of an otherwise good attempt, for example? I'm not expecting you to have the answers sasquatch ;) i just can't imagine how to have much kind of qualitative assessment of an xc round, on elements that were not black and white welfare issues (overuse of whip, tired horse etc)
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Honestly I think it’s maybe time they started looking into it. Rugby has a TMO to look over events that could have been foul play - even when there was no malicious intent, if someone accidentally may have done foul play it’s reviewed and a decision is made.
If a horse was to add an extra side, slip and nearly go down on landing and the rider keeps going however horse is clearly not as happy and has lost confidence, I do feel that should be something deserving of a warning whether or not it causes a fall. It’s very different to have one bad jump, rider gives a fence or two to see if horse is still enjoying jumping and if not retires vs someone riding a horse who’s lost confidence and isn’t jumping well. It would also be at the discretion of whoever is reviewing, which isn’t ideal, but it’s the same with all sports that use a TMO system. Fence judge can flag an incident, give their report and TMO reviews to see if there’s a concern there or not. Something such as FJ sending a message to say competitor 12 horse took flag out and struggled over fence 4, front legs went down on landing. Unsure if horse slipped on takeoff or was a rider error, please review. The TMO would then review footage and make a decision as to if it’s a non-incident or not.

I do definitely think that more can be done to make eventing safer without making it softer, and keeping the ‘toughness’ in courses like Badminton. I think it just needs to start adapting the way other sports have done to safety concerns where new rules and features are implemented to protect safety whilst not making the sports so ‘soft’ they’re unrecognisable. The technology is definitely out there, but with equestrian sports not getting as much funding and every day viewers outside of racing, it’ll take a while for it to be properly adapted and used
 
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