Modern Pentathlon Vid Link

[piebaldsparkle]

Well I missed the mens riding yesterday, but by the looks of the vid, I didn't miss much.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/modern_pentathlon/7574994.stm

 

[ann-jen]

No you didn't - I watched it for about half an hour and it was pretty painful viewing.

Some people blamed the horses and some the awful riding. Personally I think if you are of Olympic standard you should be capable of placing the horse in a straight line to a fence and on a reasonable stride (although we all make bloopers from time to time!)

Maybe the horses weren't all the most genuine but some of them weren't bad and some of the riders looked petrified which doesn't help!
I think in this country - it tends to be people who already do a bit of riding but are good at other sports that tend to do pentathalon but in other countries I suspect that people who are good at the swimming/running etc are pushed into doing it when they aren't already horsemen which means that some of the riding displays were just plain awful and how someone didn't end up having a serious accident I don't know. I saw one chestnut horse - having been very poorly presented at a fence cartwheel over the fence and land on its head. The rider that was initially thrown to the side then got squashed as the horse rolled over to try to get up. The lad's foot was stuck in the stirrup and got dragged a step or two before it detached from the saddle and he fell in a heap. He then actually got back on the horse! (FEI rules obviously don't extend to pentathalon!) Fortunately they were both ok as it could of been so much worse. Some poor sod would more than likely then be allocated the chestnut to ride later on in the competition and no matter how good a rider they were I think it would be a challenge to try and coax that horse round after its last experience.
I think the sport needs to have a long look at itself to decide on the future - either the athletes need to really improve on their riding standard or perhaps the jumps need to be smaller and jump a course of say 1m rather than 1.20m as that is still a huge challenge for someone with limited riding experience, and perhaps give them a little more time to ride the horse and get used to its way of going. I wouldn't get on a strange horse and jump it round 1.20 and I've been riding since I was 5 and show-jump a lot!

 

[Ezme]

At universtiy level competitions we have 7minutes on a strange horse if your the first rider, 5 if your not, then the course is 3ft 6 max and our team (and i'm assuming others) have international riders on....

 

[ann-jen]

Yes my sister used to be on the University riding team as well and did something very similar but she had been riding all her life and had her own horse too.

 

[hellybelly6]

I notice how they did not show the horse which got caught in the wall walking afterwards obviously horribly lame after getting his leg caught in a block.

It was cruel and abusive to the animals, unnecessary and embarrassing.

I hope the horses are ok and will not be 'punished' for having bad riders on them.