John & Peppermill

But surely all the other teams had the same opportunity to rest their 4th horse? Well, I guess this must be covered in the rules so we'll haev to wait and see!
 
maybe he should have taken it in, jumped the first fence and then retired. whatever, that's what the rules are there for and the GB team should have read them before he withdrew. if they did they knew what was coming, and if they didn't, why the hell not!
 
Scores from this team competition count towards the individual. So as John hasnt jumped, he wont be in the individual final either I dont think
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no they dont this is not a nations cup like usual and even in a regualr nations cup you would only rest your fourth rider if you could not improve your score because all the others in your team were already clear. that obviously wasnt the case and if i were any of the other teams i would be doing my nut if pepper mill was allowed to participate further. even the individual riders jumped yesterday and quite frankly it will serve the brits right for not taking sound horses. i respectfully remind you that i did say several days ago there were rumours about peppermill and dont think the other teams dont know about them either
 
i don't think he can, because the qualification is the best 35 riders from round 1 (friday) and round 2 (not sure if yesterday or today), so as he has only jumped one round, his score can't count, as everyone else has had their score over two rounds. so, he can't go in the individual. i think...
 
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no they dont this is not a nations cup like usual and even in a regualr nations cup you would only rest your fourth rider if you could not improve your score because all the others in your team were already clear. that obviously wasnt the case and if i were any of the other teams i would be doing my nut if pepper mill was allowed to participate further. even the individual riders jumped yesterday and quite frankly it will serve the brits right for not taking sound horses. i respectfully remind you that i did say several days ago there were rumours about peppermill and dont think the other teams dont know about them either

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speaking as an outsider (what do I think of the human race? Nah!) I am still asking hither and yon, why it did not dawn on them to send sound horses. But no one seems to have a theory.
 
the only theory i'd put forward is the old "take a Whitaker even if they're on a donkey" one... not, i hasten to add, that either Portofino or Peppermill is a donkey, but if they're lame, they might as well be!
the eventers learnt the hard way that you need to take the soundest and toughest, not necessarily the most brilliant (if those have a slight doubt). i can think of 2 eventers who went lame at Olympic level following rumours of unsoundness, many years ago. (personally i think this is why poor Lucy Wiegersma didn't get her place back... her horse has a history of having silly things go wrong, which Tina's and Daisy's don't.)
 
Peppermill passed the trot up; i sincerely doubt he would have been jumped the other day if there was something wrong. As we all know, unfortunately, these things happen with horses. Just hope peppermill is ok and that there isn't too much damage done if he did tie up. Which isn't improbable considering the conditions in HK.
 
it makes me sick this whitakers could do no wrong attitude. i am no show jumping afficionado, but even i had heard about their issues so one would suppose the selectors must have also. as i pointed out before peppermills form has been ordinary apart from rome this season, if it had been an eventer you would be asking why that was well before shipping it to the games. and i am with you skewbald.
 
sadly halfstep showjumping trot ups are not quite like eventing ones and as any event groom will tell you a three legged donkey can be got right for one 25 meter trot if yu really have to.
 
Lucretia: re the brits not sending sound horses, what other horses would you have selected instead of Pepppermill? Peppermill and John would surely have been one of the favourites to win gold, as far as I can see there are no other horse/rider combinations that even come close. Worth the risk I would have said...
 
I don't like the Whitaker bashing! Ok so they may represent us a lot as a country but that is most likely because they have been around for years (hence unlikely to be affected by pressure) and normally have good horses and represent us well. I'm not saying they win all the time, nor am I saying that other riders wouldn't represent us well.

The england team yesterday all looked brilliant imo, relaxed, in control and a credit to our nation. Can't say that for some of the other countries who are there, some of the riders quite frankly were terrible. Again, not saying that I'm great, but then neither am I representing my country at the olympics.
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If John cannot compete, then commiserations (sp?!) to him and all the luck to our 3 strong team members who went fantastically yesterday, had very unlucky faults (esp tim in the first round). And luck also goes to the Irish rider competing for the individuals - not that he'll need it, he's going superbly and has all the luck of the Irish with him no doubt
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I know eventers always like to sl*g off showjumpers (and most likely vice versa, although I don't think showjumpers give a monkeys really!) but why can't everyone just get along for once?!
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*sends out feelings of peace and love to everyone*
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Surely then the issue should be with the selectors, not the Whitakers? If the eventing selectors have the balls to say no then why don't the SJ ones? BE dumped WFP from the Euros because he didn't have the form after all.

I don't understand this anti Whitaker bias I keep seeing; at the end of the day the selectors are the ones who make the decisions & they're the ones who must answer for this
 
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Bsja need to have a good inward look and think carefully about who they take and why

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hee hee, so does whoever selects the BE team!! Maybe pick some horses who don't think the point of sj is to take down as many as possible!
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*runs for cover!*
 
if you are not in you cannot win, so any sound horse would have done peter charles's, mondrian, geoff billingtons new one.... need i go on?
and lets not get romantically sentimantal, on this years form peppermill had no chance of a gold medal or one of any other colour. one double clear in a super leeague does not a champion make.
 
and i dont think its anti whitaker particularly but surely they must know if their horses arent right, and then shouldnt you say so before you get on the plane. by all accounts these horses both had significant problems before they shipped out.
 
It's all very well everyone dishing out criticism for selecting Peppermill, but no one is yet to suggest a beter combination send! John is probably the best rider in the world and Peppermill is probably one of the best horses in the world.

Imagine how aweful John must feel - he knows what a good chance he would have had and that he will have let the team and his owner down.

All this clap trap about trot ups for eventers Vs show jumpers is utter non-sense to! There aren't seperate criteria for them, the horses are either sound or they aren't and Peppermill was on the trot-up. If he really has got Azerteria (spelling?) then that's hardly lamenes, it's just tragic but it's what can happens when you take a horse into conditions such as those in HK.

I think the team deserve a break - they're doing the best they can and let's just hope that they have some jolly good luck this afternoon!

Fingers and toes crossed!
 
I am totally gutted for John and for the rest of the team as the pressure they must feel under now, well, I think we can all imagine!

I think the team looked fantastic yesterday, they all had good rounds and did us proud IMO. Nick was very unlucky, especially at the water, that should have been a 4 fault round tbh, very unlucky.

I don't think for a second there is any kind of bias going on, if there was why is Ben on the team? A young rider and young horse? The selectors have a tough job, they obviously picked what they deemed to be the best team AT THE TIME. Horses go lame, sh1t happens, that's the name of the game unfortunately.

I think instead of looking for dramas and pointing the finger of blame we should be cheering on the rest of the guys who are doing a grand job of representing our country at the moment.
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It's all very well everyone dishing out criticism for selecting Peppermill, but no one is yet to suggest a beter combination send!

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not wanting to get involved in this debate... but i think lucretia did a few posts ago
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Interesting comments by Mike Tucker, I also thought he could jump today as an eliminated rider can jump in the second round so why not a non starter?. As he said if John had just ridden in and got elimination at the first fence he could have jumped, they didn't do that as it would look ridiculous on international telly. I think they should have been allowed to jump today.
 
Lucretia you must have background information that the rest of us don't know. To the general show jumping fan, both Portofino and Peppermill were fine when they were shipped out. Portofino unfortunately did something and was intermittently lame. Peppermill might have tied up after the first SJ round. Crap, unlucky, but hardly unheard of? French Eventing team anyone???
 
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