Pau

Orangehorse

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Admittedly I have just looked on YouTube at the rather unedifying "best falls and refusals" but it looked a really hard track. Seems that one Swiss horse lost its life
(after the fall in the water I guess, poor thing). But even well known "names" were having problems.

Lots of skinnies on difficult lines.

Was it as bad as it looked?
 

Fragglerock

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The Swiss horse looks like it stumbled but I think it did the same earlier on the course as well which made me wonder if it wasn't quite right.
 

ihatework

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I watched replay last night, difficult to comment on the course from video as you just can’t gauge the angles. It’s a very different course to the British ones and with the caveat of the above, looked noticeably softer than the 2 B’s, it’s still 5* so never going to be easy and in general would attract a higher proportion of less experienced 5* horses.

The poor Swiss horse, Archie rocks 😢 He did slip earlier in the course but it looked like a pretty standard slip behind on a turn, which on a twisty course like that you do see. This horse seemed to do what 2 other horses did going into that water, they walked away, he didn’t. The fence combo looked perfectly fair but there was something about the speed that they hit the water that made those 3 stumble - they were almost identical and I don’t know why.

I don’t know what I feel about Jack Pinkney - huge mistake not to pull up but hindsight is a wonderful thing and Jack himself knows it. There is a part of me that wonders where the horses self preservation went though!! It was utterly bizarre and than god neither were badly hurt.
 

DiNozzo

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Where we've criticised riders for not pulling up (both here and Burghley) can I say well done to Felicity Collins at her first 5*? Couple of blow pasts on one of her rides and an early confidence loss on the other and she pulls them both safe and sound!
Lovely grown up statement from her on her Facebook page.
 

Templebar

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I don’t know what I feel about Jack Pinkney - huge mistake not to pull up but hindsight is a wonderful thing and Jack himself knows it. There is a part of me that wonders where the horses self preservation went though!! It was utterly bizarre and than god neither were badly hurt.

Such a shame about Archie Rocks, lovely horse and feel for all his connections. I'm sure Jack Pinkney will have learnt a lot from it and as always hindsight is such a wonderful thing. The horses self preservation though i think is pretty non existant. It seems if you read through the lines of some of these 5* horses that fly XC that they have a pretty major screw loose and that is why they are so good, they would scare the pants of most of us.
 

Trules

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Hiya, for my humble 2 pennethworty? i thought there were a lot of horrible accuracy questions which caused a lot of problems for many combinations. I dislike that cross country is turning into corners and skinnies and acute angles everywhere!
way too many of them at Pau imo!

Also agree that the horse that face planted the wall must be missing a brain cell or 2!
I’m Sure you wouldnt see a mare do that! There was a great big gap right next to the wall! Yikes!! X
 
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