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I'll be the only one who thinks the sloping ground down towards the first mushroom and the increasing bad ground is the main culprit then?
If those mushrooms were earlier on the course and on the flat, they wouldn't have caused half as much a problem I think but isn't that what XC riding is all about, taking into account the conditions and the sighting of the fences?
Mary's saddle is a Bates Xtreem with a green seat. they'll do whatever colour you want. Pink, anyone?
I agree that the slope and slipperyness contribute to the first shroom being so punishing, but the fact is that a lot of very good horses, who didn't look tired, had horrible falls at it.
So, i count 5 horrible falls at the vile mushroom. Can anyone remember how many it caused last year? I remember 2 clearly, Clea Phillips and the American girl. Any others?
It was at the top of the slope last year iirc, not approached so downhill.
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**cough** see my ealier post............. [ QUOTE ]
I'm guessing the ditch gives the horses a better ground line. Plus the 2nd one is on flatter ground. Think the slope runs them more into the bottom of the 1st one.
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Sorry, didn't see that, have missed half the posts, but I did see the 'uproar' ones, so apologies to you, I thought I'd get a slating for thinking it was a very clever course especially in those conditions! Having been there yesterday, I was very surprised it continued but the course rode fantastically; I do hope Badminton learns from this.
It'll be interesting to see how many get through the vetting tomorrow.
The mushrooms were awful, I missed the beginning but I saw 3 falls there in all, twice a horse rolled onto the rider and the 3rd time I couldn't really tell but she looked quite badly hurt, although she did walk away in the end. There was also a nasty fall when a horse tripped and got cast and was thrashing around with the rider trapped, he looked like he got a few kicks off the horse thrashing around but he got himself free and both were fine.