Burghley XC - has everyone forgotten what "a coffin canter" is?

kerilli

kerilli

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Was anyone else amazed at how badly the half-coffin was ridden? i went on a Ginny Leng clinic about 8 years ago and she was ranting then about the fact that no-one was setting their horses up properly for coffins any more... i bet she was having cats on Saturday. some of the riding was a bit shocking, i think, especially considering it didn't have a third part... good job, i guess!
 
i was thinking exactly the same thing!
I can't believe the speed that some of them came up to it at!!
Shocking!
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especially Caroline Powell... she's usually brilliant, i think she had a blonde moment and thought it was a steeplechase fence! the horse looked so shocked, poor love. i only saw the t.v. coverage, not all the xc, so i doubt she was the worst!
love the pics of Pepper, btw. he's gorgeous.
 
yeah!! lol did you see wfp nearly fall off on his winner? felt sorry for him!

but that bash that zara had was awful! a lot of people fell at those mushrooms...
 
that was quite funny... it's not like William to get caught out like that. good job the horse kept his head up! i think that was Ballincoola actually, not Ed, that he had that tiny blip on.
Zara was very lucky that that was such a smooth and rounded fence she bashed.
 
I'm sorry, but I just find it amazing how people think it's their place to slag off top riders who are all better than 99.9% of us lot on here.

I don't just mean this post, there are many!!! no body judges every fence perfectly, and some people on here seem to think that everyone who gets a ride around a 4* has to be the perfect rider - and if they make a mistake then they are just cr*p!
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it just really bothers me!! anyone commenting on the bad riding ever been round a 4*?? Or anything near?? No, thought not.
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Fact is BB2 event riders do seem to have forgotten how to ride, what were, standard fences. The amount that totally botched up the approach to the half coffin was incredible. I don't think there is slagging off going on, just observation
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Maybe so, but it's easy to say what people should be doing when your sat on your sofa/watching from behind the ropes, might not be so easy when you are actually doing it!
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Yes, actually, i have, thanks.
I didn't say they were all bad, or that anyone has to be perfect, but the fact is that that kind of fence should, for safety, be ridden in a certain way (ask experts if you don't believe me) and a lot of people weren't riding it in that way.
Nor have any of us said any of the top riders are "cr*p"... i certainly haven't. i don't know where you got that from.
 
Sure it is, and if it had been one or two who had botched it then I am sure nothing would have been said, but the amount of riders coming through and, personally, I could tell more than 3 strides out that they were not going have an easy time of it tells me that the basics still need to be covered
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But I totally agree with the fact that I am sitting here, and not on the back of the horse, but if it had been me on any one of those horses and I watched myself back, I would be rather embarrassed
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umm, it's fairly easy to set a trained 4-star horse up for a fence at more or less the right speed. look at Zara, who had a right handful... she didn't just gallop at things as if they were steeplechase fences, she took the time to set the horse up.
 
Did anyone here actually walk the distance?!?! NO! Did the riders walk the course several times with trainers etc and make a descision on how to ride the line before just "galloping upto it" YES! so therefore I think the approaches were calculated ones. The landrover crossing earlier in the course was jumped like a true coffin at a coffin canter by a majority of the riders we saw (pretty much all of them!) so people are still well aware of what a "coffin canter" is otherwise I am sure they would never have reached the 4* qualification level.
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Omg, please no arguments!
I think these have all been observations as previous posts have stated - if it were only one rider who had messed the combination up, it would be understandable, but I think because of the number who actually did seem to be getting it a bit wrong lots of people have picked up on it - and why shouldn't they!
 
But lets say you see a log one stride ditch at a local hunter trials - If you have no knowledge yet have watched several eventers at top class riding a similar fence surely you would use this as a reference point? I certainly do.
I find watching top class riders invaluble - both for the good bits and the bad bits. They are not just schooling round for fun and its fascinating to see how they cope with different aspects in a comp environment.
 
Sorry but I do not think it has anything to do with the distance involved, the cock ups were in the approach and preparation - it wasn't as tho there was a one stride to an up to height upright after the first element, there was a ditch and most horses (even lowly ones) should be capable of shuffling, bouncing, whatever to pop the ditch - I think the real prob was that it wasn't a true coffin and THAT is what messed up the riders approach - they did not have the 3 element to set themselves up for and I think that threw them.
 
First of all I don't think anyone who makes a mistake is crap, nor do I think all 4* riders are perfect. I think they are human and are capable of making mistakes and misjudging things, same as the rest of us. Noticing their mistakes, pointing out common errors etc is not slagging people off - as Weezy said it's making an observation. I never have and never will ride at that level but that doesn't mean I have no idea what's going on or what might hapen - we all winced as Andrew Nicholson jumped the arena fences yesterday on his second horse - it was fairly clear to see that something was going to go wrong unless he was very lucky - unfortunately he wasn't.
 
I agree diane and pepper however the comments that "basics are obviously not covered" etc etc is a bit unnecessary, and because there were so many "sticky" moments through there, do we think it could not be a coincidence due to bad riding but becasue it was actually a tricky distance at a fence that, as a half coffin should cause no problems to a 4* horse!? If it was built long as I expect it was, a bold approach would have been needed, and I think it was probably designed to test, somthing that it successfully did?!
 
so what do you mean by "the basics still need to be covered"?? Have 4* riders not had their basics covered?
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my apologies to k, you must be the 0.01% I was talking about.
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Still, you weren't there today, riding that fence... I doubt anyone who rode it today would comments on the poor standards of everyone else's "coffin canter".
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