Following on from a link in one of the badders threads

If any of you have Lucinda Green's (or Prior-Palmer as she was then) book, Up up and Away - the fence at Kiev is the cover photo. There are also a couple of photo's in there that show her taking off and landing on the other side. You also get a glimpse of the 'hill' leading down to it - I think hill is a misnomer, the thing looks as steep as a mountain!!!

I remember one of the very first 'skinnies' although it wasn't a true one - either Burghley or Badders in the 90's - think it might have been Burghley but can't swear to it. Ditch and couple of strides to a very narrow 'edge' of a fence - most people hooked left after the ditch and swung back to it but I remember Tim Randle and Legs Eleven having a go - unfortunatly he ran out. Seems to be fewer of the amateur/one horse partnerships around nowadays too. James Robinson springs to mind but I can't think of many others.
 
And just to add - I love this thread. I have the two thrills and spills vids too and never tire watching them! Bonfire's olympic test always makes me well up and Murphy's bounce at WEG over the lane crossing always makes me gasp out loud.

Wasn't it after this that Mark Philips wrote a column saying that he felt Ian Stark and the two greys (Murph and Glenburnie) were unsafe and sort of accusing Ian of dangerous riding?? I think Ian was a trifle miffed as he said you never knew what Murphy would do, he just had to sit there and go along with it. Fantastic partnership and always loved watching them :-)
 
Mark todd's video "20 years in eventing?" (1999) has got some really good footage of how they started making the courses too technical and twisty in the mid 90s, the remy barelells in the Burghley arena around 95 come to mind, but by the end of the 90s they'd got the combination of rider frightners and technical questions about right.
 
I just think it's so interesting watching how eventing has changed over the years, from safety, to fences and courses, types of horse, types of rider *whispers* the "fashion"!! I think if I had watched "old school" eventing before anything else then there is no way I would be pointing a horse that I was sat on at a fixed jump!
 
Yes, I think there probably are more smaller horses now. There used to be a minimum weight of 11st 11lbs and with the long format and the big galloping fences it was hard for small horses although there were some notable exceptions. The courses now lend themselves more to handy athletic horses so smaller horses have more going for them than in the past.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top