HA! No mushrooms next year...

kerilli

kerilli

Well-Known Member
Joined
1 April 2002
Messages
27,417
Location
Lovely Northamptonshire again!
Visit site
acc to H&H report, "course designer Mark Phillips confirmed that the mushrooms will be scrapped next year."
I'm still going to write a letter, to try to ensure that single mushrooms (and other skinnies with middle higher than sides) are banned permanently from all courses. Too many good horses fell badly, and while I know that riders should take into account the conditions, approach etc etc, they can't tell the horse how high it needs to jump - its eyes and judgement do that, and I think they were being tricked.
Rant over. Glad everyone's home safe and sound. Maybe Zara had a rant at her dad about it!
wink.gif
She'd be justified, looked as if she got very squashed.
 
So how many people fell there..cs there seemed to be loads. Do yuu know them all?

Thank god that there gone.
 
Thats definitely a good thing ,hardly saw a good clean jump through there.
Would of thought a lot of riders would of complained about it and very justified too!
Will look forward to reading your letter!
 
I would have loved to get a view from the take off side, were they dressed properly with a proper groundline, and what was the ground like - that was definitely the wettest part of the course.

The soft ground on the landing side didn't help, I think a couple might have recovered their footing if the ground had been better.

Glad to hear they're gone for next year.

Fiona
 
Totally agree with you - I was terrified as each rider approached it. Have to say, th ough the German girl had it coming - trot approach???
crazy.gif
confused.gif
crazy.gif
confused.gif
crazy.gif
confused.gif
crazy.gif
confused.gif


Thank goodness everyone seems ok -and delighted about WFP and Tam - hope all well overnight and here's to a good competition tomorrow
smile.gif
PS Gutted for Lucy W though
frown.gif
 
yes, the tiring horse should have been pulled up, but some who fell there looked great to that point, and Laura was one of them.
whatever the ground and approach are like, the riders can take them into account as much as possible but they can't tell the horse how high to jump, his eyes and judgement do this and i am positive that the curve of the mushroom was deceiving the horses into thinking it was 3" lower than it was.
very very glad everyone's okay.
 
Wonder if one day mushrooms will be removed from xc courses around the country? I can think of a particular nasty set I walked past on a local xc years ago. Person I was walking the course with said they're one of the worst types of fence to jump on a xc course!
 
Very pleased to see that they are to be scrapped. Exactly what we thought must happen after watching this years XC. Glad you are still going to write... go for it. Agree 100% with your sentiments.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, Zara, Matt W, Laura all spot on approaches. Anyway, it's not just the fallers it's the almost fallers, isn't it? Of which there were dozens...

[/ QUOTE ]

Agree 100%. Hardly anything jumped it well and there were at least another three that very nearly fell. Glad its going, I hated them last year and was surprised to see them back.
 
Interesting point about fences with higher middles and lower sides, particularly skinnies.

Somewhere on Youtube there is a BBC (I think) piece narrated by Clare Balding that's basically a "horse's-eye view" of approaching a xc fence. Given that horses focus by moving their heads (they have ramped retinas if anyone cares, rather than focusing primarily by muscular effort as we do) and that they have a relatively small area of binocular vision (part of judging depth) any fence that presents an optical illusion (from a horse's point of view) is suspect. If a horse is looking "around" the area it's jumping, not staring at the actual spot as we would, then one can see where fences like this might cause a problem . . .

It's one of those things that's probably doable, in that the horse can use other signals to judge, if conditions are fine so most of the time the horses cope. But because they're "just coping" if there are other factors in play, such as poor visibility, tiredness, or something distracting, it can drastically increase the chances of the horse misjudging and at that speed and that height . . .

It certainly bears looking into.
 
We walked the mushrooms fence (went back at the end of the day to have a proper look when we could walk right up to it).

Wasn't obvious why the horses were having so much trouble - downhill approach but with one stide level / slightly uphill before point of take-off. The ground seemed good, even right at the end of the day. The actual fence was massive - I thought it was far bigger 'in the flesh (wood)' than it looked on TV.

Interesting point about fences with middle higher than sides - there was definitely something funny about that fence.

Fingers crossed none of the injuries turn out to be too serious.
 
TarrSteps, horses don't have ramp retinas, that theory has been binned now iirc, the person who came up with it was working on a dead horse's eye which had started drying out and hence gave a false impression, i believe. (my vet told me this).
but horses have a blind spot in the middle, we all know that, so they focus to left and right of where they're going to jump. i am absolutely convinced that they thought that fence was about 3" lower than it actually was. i saw one horse all day actually give it any daylight, i think... the girl towards the end who yelled Hup!
a lot of the horses weren't tiring and were going great to that point.
i would like to see 'ball' fences (there was one of a globe years ago at the Worlds and a LOT of top horses left a leg at it, some fell) and all other rounded-topped skinnies banned.
 
[ QUOTE ]

horses have a blind spot in the middle, we all know that, so they focus to left and right of where they're going to jump. i am absolutely convinced that they thought that fence was about 3" lower than it actually was.

[/ QUOTE ]

This was my line of thought as well. It does make sense.
 
Very interesting about the retinas - thanks.
smile.gif
It still does beg some question about how they do focus, though, as they do not focus the same way we do. I guess it's not the easiest to study - one can hardly ask the horse if option a or option b is clearer.
smile.gif


It is one of those interesting questions though about how we think things *should* be, vs how things are, which crop up so often in horses. If the fences are jumping badly across the board - even if people aren't falling - then surely that merits attention? After all, it used to be standard to have hogs backs and trailing rails until it was pointed out that they a) didn't test anything and b) could be a recipe for disaster.

Interesting that wavy/convex showjumping planks so often cause problems - same issue I suppose.
 
Did anyone see Matt W's fall? Horrible as he approached it very well but his behaviour after he and the horse fell was absolutely appalling! He jumped up and threw his wip at the ground, then took his hat off and threw that into the ground too, Right next to the horse, all the time shouting fu@k very loudly.

The poor horse got up and whickered it was so shaken, covered in mud and had hurt its hind leg, luckily the jump judge had hold of it while he was throwing his strop and told him to calm down.

He then proceeded to undo the girth and flash very aggresively and walked off, horse in tow.

He patted it once as he walked away but I suspect this was only for the benefit of the crowd as we were all standing quietly with our mouths hanging open, not quite believing what we were seeing!

I understand he was frustrated as he was so near the end of the course but this behaviour was unacceptable and horrible to watch
frown.gif
 
ah, i didn't hear the swearing.
can't stand the guy myself. a friend of mine said she thought the fence judge had told him to pat the horse because everyone was watching...
i don't think i've ever seen anyone "pat" a horse that hard.
frown.gif
frown.gif

it was a shame though, he was riding beautifully and the horse was jumping like a star up till then.
 
'a friend of mine said she thought the fence judge had told him to pat the horse because everyone was watching...'


Absolutely, funny how both thought the same......

Tugged at the heart strings though when that poor horse whickered, realy upsetting I thought.
 
Just watched the MW fall as recorded that bit and was just
shocked.gif
at his reaction. A complete contrast to that of Daisy who walked off hugging Boris as though to say "sorry mate, but there's always tomorrow".

Would loved to have heard Tina's commentary on MW's fall & actions rather than Alice Plunket's! Don't think I've ever heard a horse whicker like that before either?! Poor thing looked absolutely scared stiff
frown.gif
 
MW deserved what he got, the horse didnt unfortunately
frown.gif
Hope Daisy and Boris are ok though
frown.gif
And of course Zara and Laura. My heart was in my mouth a few times I have to say. Felt so sorry for Joe Meyer and Black Andy too
frown.gif
 
Totally agree, you wouldn't be allowed to build a show jump higher in the middle than the sides. Everyone knows that you use fences like cross poles to make a horse jump higher as they see the height at the side, but never the other way around it seems completely wrong but there are alot of fences cross country like that[ ball shaped fences as skinnies]
 
Surely the way to study it would be to look at videos of multiple horses jumping XC fences that are higher in the middle (like that mushroom) and compare to video of horses jumping skinny fences that are wider at the sides.

Must be possible to look for a consistent pattern in the way they interpret the question?

The other point about those mushrooms was that the first one was actually quite square - more like a table in shape than a globe. The horses that were leaving a leg had no chance of sliding it over. The second mushroom (in the ditch) was much rounder on top.

I hope Matthew Wright gets some form of repurcussion for his actions - riders at that level with a British flag on their hats shouldn't get away with that!! (Not that anyone should get away with that at any level)

His first concern was clearly for the competition, not the welfare of his horse!

Daisy was an absolute contrast - hope Boris is OK.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top