Following on from a link in one of the badders threads

Agreed, however there is still a fine line between a challenging course at the top of the sport, and one that is 'safe' enough as well. Also, and I may be wrong here but wasn't that drop/bounce near the end of the course? Seems a very big ask for the end of the course let alone the long-format day?
 
kerilli said:
I know everyone nowadays thinks that Opposition Buzz is a freak, and he is, he has phenomenal scope etc, but Murphy was like no horse i have ever seen, he made 4* look like Novice, took enormous liberties with total distain.
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gawd yeah, I remember Murph, he was the best ever! (IMO)

Can I ask when they changed the SJ faults from 5 pens for a fence down and 10 for a refusal to 4 faults and 4 faults...?
 
i'll have to check but i thought that drop to bounce was only about 1/3 of the way round, maybe halfway, i'm pretty sure it was no further on than that.
you can check statistics on the BE website, if you type in Badminton or Burghley in the Search box it'll bring up past results.
thinking about it, at a guess i'd say there were fewer finishers back then, but, and it's a huge but, there were a far higher proportion of 'amateurs'. qualifications weren't as stringent either.
re: Karen clinging on, that was at a U.S. event i think, and she was penalty-free as long as she didn't touch the ground, so it was worth clinging on and trying to climb back in the plate.
the ethos back then was very much 'stick rider on and get them going again', i have mixed feelings about the new '1 fall and out' rule tbh. a silly slip on the flat or unseating = end of comp, which isn't good, can be hugely disappointing... but, at least we won't have concussed or injured riders carrying on. (i knew someone who had a fall on the flat at Windsor 3-day chase, when a Junior i think. she went on to go clear xc inside the time and doesn't remember a second of it, was badly concussed.) obv major safety considerations there.
 
kerilli said:
the ethos back then was very much 'stick rider on and get them going again', i have mixed feelings about the new '1 fall and out' rule tbh. a silly slip on the flat or unseating = end of comp, which isn't good, can be hugely disappointing... but, at least we won't have concussed or injured riders carrying on. (i knew someone who had a fall on the flat at Windsor 3-day chase, when a Junior i think. she went on to go clear xc inside the time and doesn't remember a second of it, was badly concussed.) obv major safety considerations there.
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This happened to Princess Anne too, at the Olympics I think it was :eek:
 
Lobelia_Overhill said:
gawd yeah, I remember Murph, he was the best ever! (IMO)

Can I ask when they changed the SJ faults from 5 pens for a fence down and 10 for a refusal to 4 faults and 4 faults...?
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umm, they changed them in '03.
shame, i think, i prefer to be able to see from the results, if possible, whether a horse had a stop or a pole, also i think for an eventer a stop should have higher penalties.

i've dug out my original Thrills and Spills vid (which those clips are from), and the whole of Toddy and The Irishman's round is on there, so i'll know in a minute where on the course the drop to bounce was... ;) ;) it's an Equestrian Vision one, well worth the £ for it, mine's nearly worn out i think, have watched it many times over the years, learn something every time.

another huge difference nowadays is that the water is always shallow now, it used to be allowed to be far deeper, up to 10 or 12" iirc, so if a horse jumped in boldly, the deep water was enough to turn it over (decelerate lower legs enough to cause fall). back then we never even tried to count strides in water when walking a course, it was accepted that there was no point having a striding plan because anything could happen when you landed! (this was at lower levels for me, obv! don't want it to sound as if i'm claiming i rode there.)
the water in the Lake at Badminton gets VERY deep if you go off your line towards the middle, and the route they used to come in and turn, encouraged them to go straight on into the deep bit. lots of horses jumped in well, had brake/steering failure on landing, and unwittingly charged straight into trouble. nobody stayed on at that point...
at events decades ago the water was much much deeper on occasion, it was all at the mercy of the weather. horses even had to swim at one point, i think that might have been the Mexico Olympics.

i'd forgotten some of these... e.g. the year that Toddy was interviewed at the Coffin, stated that he thought Hugh had 'been kind', and proceeded to stop on his first horse and fall with the second. Also Ginny, Ian, Lucinda and various other top riders having bad days at the office...
 
Woodykat said:
This happened to Princess Anne too, at the Olympics I think it was :eek:
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it happened to a female rider at Burghley too, innocuous-looking fall early on so they let her continue, then an absolute purler for both horse and rider. later, she remembered nothing of riding the course at all...
i think that was the reason the rule was changed, could be totally wrong though.
 
the drop to bounce was fence 8, just after the Quarry. it was the year they had the white rails into the Lake, too. Toddy on Irishman went the long way at the first part of the Coffin though. clever. the second water was a big brush drop in, then a bounce of brushes out, i'd forgotten that. they did Tom Smith's Walls too, and Luckington Lane (either on angle or straight with another jump first for longer route).
There was a double of open corners too, shock horror.. but they had long back rails so the horses could understand them far better...
 
The Thrills and Spills videos are great. I've got the second one too. My Mum goes on about how Badminton is nothing like it used to be (think she'd have first gone in the late 50s/early 60s). Back in the day when you had a galloper going ahead of each rider to warn spectators (of which there were few) off the course as none of it was roped. In particular she cites the quarry as being very soft now compared with 40 years back.

Wasn't it on the Thrills and Spills vid where they showed Lucinda desperately trying to get her horse out of the penalty zone after the water whilst clinging round its neck as she couldn't get herself back in the saddle?
 
yes, that's the one, poor Lucinda, already muddy from being dumped in the ditch at the big trakhener, clinging on to get past the penalty zone.
i didn't know that about the gallopers, gosh. that far back Badminton was split into Little Badminton and Great Badminton sections.

btw, when Toddy won on his first attempt on Southern Comfort in 1980, he'd only bought the horse 3 months before, and it was Toddy's third ever 3-day event (they just said on the commentary), i don't think people nowadays appreciate how different the qualifications etc are now.
 
Things have changed so much. Originally you didn't have to qualify at all if I remember correctly!

Yep, it was in those days. They had a member of the hunt staff stationed at most of the jumps who would canter ahead blowing a whistle then return to the jump they were stationed at ready for the next one, those must have been fit horses! Was 1960 when my Mum first went (just checked!), every time we go to an event my Mum reminisces about how it used to be. Apparently they Queen used to wander round the trade stands and you'd find yourself looking at something in a tent beside a little lady in a head scarf and realise it was the Queen!
 
The shallow water is something else my Mum always comments on!

Re horse falls, it was Ginny Holgate riding at the Junior Europeans (I think) who had a horse fall with Dubonnet, but because she was riding on a team got back on and represented him at the jump, he stopped twice so was eliminated. But she said because she was riding for GB she felt she had to try to continue even after a purler of a fall but it turned out that Dubbonet had internal injuries.

The autobiographies of Ginny Leng, Lucinda Green and Mark Todd all make fascinating reading. It was MT who rode his horse around bare back before the final trot up only jumping off at the last second to get it through as it wasn't quite right.

Some things have changed for the better but I do prefer the old style courses to watch when it's going well.
 
Sanolly said:
Wow! Do the hunt staff still have a mounted part at events?
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nope. it was done back then because none of the course was roped at all so they did it to clear the course and possibly show the rider the way to the next fence? There were far fewer spectators and you were allowed to wander at will.
 
I think I've only sat on one horse in my life I'd even consider jumping those fences on!

Contrary to Kerilli I always really enjoyed the steeplechase, I think I always had a good time, and made the time easily, except at Bramham, where the turns were quite tight and there was a dip somewhere on the circuit. The continental ones were always more impressive, although I'm quite glad I never had to do a bank!

You also need to remember most of these horses would have been hopelessly outclassed by today's dressage, and the show-jumping was a lot less demanding than now too.

I think it was Jane Holderness Roddam who bashed her face in (or so spectators thought) but it was "only" a broken nose.

Anyone got a pic of that ditch fence 2 at Kiev?
 
the mounted hunt staff were there a lot more recently, a friend used to do it at Burghley. they were there to catch loose horses, more than anything else, and as a good PR exercise. i think it was bum-numbing though, and you needed a saint of a hunt horse to stand around for 5-6 hours and not get antsy. the horses' backs used to get sore too, if what i was told was true.
there was a bit of an incident one year at Burghley, at the end of the day iirc... someone had a dog on an extending lead, they let it out, not watching, and it did a lap of the hunt horse then came back, it's lead pulled tight round the horse's legs, not surprisingly the horse freaked out and ran into the Lower Trout Hatchery from the landing side of the fence. i've hated those flipping extending leads ever since.

Megabeast, i didn't remember that about Ginny, poor Dubonnet. i agree about the autobiographies, they are fascinating. must fish mine out again.
 
It was in Ginny - An Autobiography (published 1986). I bought it from a library sale a long long time ago, there's currently a copy on Amazon for 1p! I've read it so many times, was one of my favourite books growing up, she's so matter of fact about things.
 
yes, the sport was very different then, i agree about the dressage, very few horses could do it really well back then. the sj was definitely smaller too.
i didn't enjoy the 'chase because i had to push so hard to get the time, never nice. both Windsor and Bonn-Rodderberg had rock-hard ground (i wouldn't run on it now, but was younger and stupid and ill-advised) so every stride was a punishment. if i'd been on a TB type on good ground i wouldn't have minded so much!
the Kiev fence was an utter nightmare, fence 2 fgs and hugely influential. the stories about how the Russians rode it, and how everyone else rode it, were illuminating...
MB, i'll check, but i think i've got that one! ;) ;) ta.
 
Haha, the idea of "practising" over a fence like that, in cold blood, is laughable to me! Mind you, it was still a dictatorship in those days, so maybe those that didn't were charged with treason......
 
zefragile said:
I can't quite understand what that fence actually is!
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you, and half the horses that were ridden at it... :( :( :(

it was a socking great gappy parallel built in/over a ditch. this was the Euros 1973 in Kiev.
it was at the bottom of a really steep hill, and when they walked it, riders all decided to go the long way round, skirt the bottom of the hill so they could approach it on the flat (therefore in balance) but would therefore have to jump it on the angle (so, making the chuffing thing even wider).
the Russians all galloped straight down the hill at it and jumped it without a single boggle from their horses, hence the strong suspicion that they had been practising over it before the competition... a Russian won individual gold.
tigers eye, i agree, wouldn't want to jump it in cold blood at all. maybe they were promised a house, or a get-out-of-jail card for the Gulag, or something.
i caused absolute carnage. fence 2 fgs. unreal.
 
kerilli said:
umm, they changed them in '03.
shame, i think, i prefer to be able to see from the results, if possible, whether a horse had a stop or a pole, also i think for an eventer a stop should have higher penalties.
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I preferred the old scoring system! This is Eventing not Showjumping, it should be different

the water in the Lake at Badminton gets VERY deep if you go off your line towards the middle, and the route they used to come in and turn, encouraged them to go straight on into the deep bit. lots of horses jumped in well, had brake/steering failure on landing, and unwittingly charged straight into trouble. nobody stayed on at that point...
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LOL I remember horses going for a swim at the lake!

Wasn't there an Olympics where the water jump had "duck boards" or something along one side, and the 'home team' all jumped to the right (or left) going in and got through the water with no problems, whereas anyone who jumped in at a different point [over the jump] landed in chest deep water and turned a somersault? I seem to remember reading that in a book...


kerilli said:
yes, that's the one, poor Lucinda, already muddy from being dumped in the ditch at the big trakhener, clinging on to get past the penalty zone.
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I remember that! Did they get rid of the penalty zones as well...?
 
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