Rio Eventing thoughts

[Orangehorse]

Well Done to Michael Jung and Sam, what a lovely horse and their success is well deserved. I liked the piece in H & H saying that Sam can be naughty, so he isn't just a robot. I wonder what Michael will do with him now? He can't really do any more can he? - World and double Olympic Champion - but looking at his show jumping round, he really seems to like competing.
It was Germany's first Gold Medal too, so there will be lots of publicity for eventing.

Someone commented that Mike Tucker was speculating about retirement for WFP. I seem to remember that William was talking about retiring after the London Olympics, so it isn't surprising that such thoughts have occurred.

The course - it was gruelling, but Ian Stark was right when he said that it was the riders making the mistakes, not the horses. I didn't watch the whole way through, but there were few horse falls I thought and I don't think anyone came down in the water fences at all. So mostly the mistakes were riders not getting the right line or the horses losing balance and trouble was well spread out amongst the teams, at least!

Humbling for the Brits of course, to be Also Rans rather than Victors, but the show jumping rounds were very good. The other nations have caught us up. Have to get up, get back on and look forward to the next Olympics.

 

[Jo_x]

WFP said to Mike Tucker shortly after that speculation that he's on for Tokyo.

I agree with Ian Stark's comments, I thought it was a good course, the fences themselves weren't awful but they forced riders to make mistakes.

Aside from the funding implications for us if we don't win medals, I think it makes for a much better sport all round if the medal winners aren't too predictable and it's not exactly the same countries each time. Makes for much more interesting watching.

I half wonder if Michael Jung might try his hand at winning a few medals in pure dressage or showjumping

 

[Goldenstar]

Michael Jungs performance was fantastic to get that second show jumping round out of that horse in that pressured situation was a demonstration riding of the highest order .
I have never seen better .

 

[teapot]

Err it wasn't Germany's first gold medal, it was France's and rightly deserved. It was a proper three day event though and that is certainly missing from the wider sport these days.

Humbling for the Brits indeed, given it's the first time since Atlanta that we've not won a medal. If Monday had gone better things would be very different, and of all the comments I've read since, the one about the gap between our team horses' last run xc and the top six individuals' last run is an interesting one...

 

[Clodagh]

We were rubbish across country. No excuses, for WFP and Pippa Funnell to miss a fence like they did was inexcusable, with their level of experience and the quality of their horses. I didn't see the the other two.
Michael Jung is in another class and just lovely to watch. The Aussies did well - I am a dual citizen so get to support them too.
The Fench deserved to win and I do with the commentators would learn how to pronounce 'Thibaut', if they get that wrong how many other foreign names are beyond them?

 

[Mooseontheloose]

I don't think it's a bad thing if funding for equestrian sports got a thorough overhaul after the Olympics anyway.
I have sometimes looked at names on World Class, both for eventing and SJ, and thought ?! Really?
What about getting some younger, less well heeled riders coming through. At this rate our SJ team for Tokyo will be drawing their pensions. It's great that riders can keep going, all power to Mark Todd, but UK seems slow getting young women into teams and team exposure, esp SJ.
It also seems, and I'm open to being corrected here as I'm far from knowledgeable on this matter, that if you only have one horse you're not looked at either, which means that someone who is very very good, maybe with youngsters coming on, won't get the help because they're considered a poor investment should one horse go wrong.
If a young rider can get a young horse up the grades, then chances are they can do it with others, and they should be getting the help too.
From the safety of my chair, I did get the impression that the UK team weren't totally 'on it', watching the Brazilian whose gonads must have been up near his thyroid wagon and kick and blast his horse on rather than give up might not have been pretty but demonstrated total commitment.

(I realise Jessica Mendoza is in the squad, but there are several other young show jumpers who just don't seem to get the same exposure)

 

[ihatework]

I thought it was a super competition.
The XC was influential as it should be and it was great to see multiple nations challenging for the top spot.

The British performance wasn't that bad! The dressage was okay, the odd error but nothing disastrous and our sj was really good.
The XC let us down a bit, for me it was only really Gemmas horse that looked a little lacking. WFP made a mistake but given the year he has had understandable. Pippa made a bad call not to circle at the frog - That error looked predictable from how he had travelled through previous water/combos (but being an armchair critic is easy!). Kitty dropped her flipping whip at fence 4. We took out 3 inexperienced horses at the level and were found a little wanting. In hindsight maybe Arctic Soul would have been a better choice and it would have been interesting to see what Allercome Ellie would have done.

I think funding for our British riders needs a complete overhaul. More needs to be spent on up and coming riders and we need ways to fund the good horses so owners / riders aren't selling on

 

[Mooseontheloose]

As soundness appears to have been a major issue in the selection process, ie several of the horses who might have gone were not fit, perhaps the process should start much earlier to ensure the horses have only the right amount of competition exposure before hand and are not risked too much too early.
Having said that Leonidas was an @rse at Barbury, so perhaps needed even more runs!

 

[Thistle]

I wonder if selectors chose team horses that have a better than average SJ record because the individual medals go to those who can SJ.

This may be why the XC let us down.

 

[Orangehorse]

Err it wasn't Germany's first gold medal, it was France's and rightly deserved. It was a proper three day event though and that is certainly missing from the wider sport these days.

Humbling for the Brits indeed, given it's the first time since Atlanta that we've not won a medal. If Monday had gone better things would be very different, and of all the comments I've read since, the one about the gap between our team horses' last run xc and the top six individuals' last run is an interesting one...

I looked this morning, Thursday, and Germany still only has one gold medal, so that is Micheal Jung's.

Did you mean it was France's first ever Gold in Eventing?

In a way it is surprising that they haven't done better before now as France has Samur the home of classical dressange and training. I think they are also rather keen on show jumping there too. All the French riders I have met have been rather gung-ho and brave so I guess they have [ut it all together. They have been doing very well in recent years, so it all came together on the day. Well done France.

 

[spottybotty]

We were rubbish across country. No excuses, for WFP and Pippa Funnell to miss a fence like they did was inexcusable, with their level of experience and the quality of their horses. I didn't see the the other two.
Michael Jung is in another class and just lovely to watch. The Aussies did well - I am a dual citizen so get to support them too.
The Fench deserved to win and I do with the commentators would learn how to pronounce 'Thibaut', if they get that wrong how many other foreign names are beyond them?

Really? team GB and France were the only team in the top 8 that didnt have a rider eliminated in the x country phase. Agree Michal Jung was brilliant.

 

[dixie]

I thought the GB team were okay and at least all 4 finished. None had any major problems xc and just minor blips. It could have been so different but that's eventing for you. I thought most of the horses actually looked pretty classy and was pleased they all went the straight routes. I remember several Olympics ago with I think Mary King and Karen Straker being told to play safe and it didn't make nice viewing and threw away our medal chances.

 

[Pebble101]

Initially I was disappointed with Pippa Funnell's riding towards the end, she looked like a sack of potatoes and didn't help the horse at all. However we did find out that she was ill afterwards so understandable.

I did have a moment of disbelief when Ian Stark thought WFP hadn't presented, I though that was very optimistic.

As Dixie pointed out we have lost medal before by playing safe. I don't think William would have won even without the stop.

 

[Lexi_]

Someone on the other thread (possibly teapot?) mentioned something about the score gap between us and Germany and it got me wondering about our competitiveness/speed across country...

I'm looking specifically at us and Germany here - in the team competition, our dressage scores were fairly close together (7.7 marks difference) and our SJ scores were identical with three clear rounds. Cross country, they had one clear and two rounds including refusals and we had three rounds including refusals. Yet we ended up 79.3 marks behind them. If my numbers are correct and you knock off the dressage difference and the extra refusal we had to count, that's over 50 penalties worth of time faults cross-country.

Don't know that I have any particular conclusions to draw from that, it just seems a really big difference! Sandra and Ingrid managed to have refusals and get back on their way with only minimal time faults and for whatever reason, we didn't. Did anyone ever find out anything about Kitty's refusal? I don't know how much time it wasted because I've still got no idea what happened.

 

[teapot]

No, someone else did the maths where we were way off in terms of closing the gap.

Perhaps few saw the stat about last runs of our horses compared to the top 6 as it was buried on fb. The team GB horses hadn't run xc competitively since the 9th June! Those in the top six were still running up to ten days before the Games started. I'm all for protecting horses but two months is a long time...

 

[Lexi_]

On a different note, I recommend listening to this week's edition of the Eventing Radio Show podcast and it's really interesting. Sam Watson is on talking about Equi Ratings and all the data they had at their fingertips vs what what was being talked about/shown on the tv coverage.

 

[sasquatch]

(I realise Jessica Mendoza is in the squad, but there are several other young show jumpers who just don't seem to get the same exposure)

she's also only the reserve - so won't be given a chance unless one of the other guys has a problem and has to withdraw.

One of the things I've noticed, looking at the other teams, they all seem to have the old experienced steadies, as well as the younger and up and coming riders who are being allowed to be given a chance.

The age of the combined British 4 SJers, (excluding the reserve) is 208 years old, with the average age being around 52!

 

[smja]

From the safety of my chair, I did get the impression that the UK team weren't totally 'on it', watching the Brazilian whose gonads must have been up near his thyroid wagon and kick and blast his horse on rather than give up might not have been pretty but demonstrated total commitment.

I was similarly impressed by the Japanese rider and Duke of Cavan - willpower and trust got them round. Not the prettiest but for me, embodied what the xc phase should be like; a true test of the partnership between rider and horse.

 

[KautoStar1]

Time for a selection rethink from BE. Irrespective of the ‘level’ of the Olympic 3DE, GB needs to treat it as a 4* competition and select horses and riders that are competing at that level. If you look at all the other nations, they are sending their best 4* combinations – none of them were riding 2 & 3* horses. They sent their best and they treated it like the major event that it is. The aim being to win.
Our selection process seems to have been based on riders with 4* horses, who when have suddenly become unavailable for whatever reason, those riders have remained on the team but with their second string horse, which in our case seems to have been horses not at 4* level. Yes you can blame rider error for some of the problems we saw but you could also argue that a consistent 4* horse has enough about it to get its self out of trouble when let down by its rider. Some of our horses were just very green and over faced. Of course, every horse at whatever level can have an off day and that was evident in Rio, BUT they all started out with their best.

Can you imagine, Nip Tuck gets injured and BD say to Carl Hester, its OK, you’re in form, just bring the next best horse you have, irrespective of the level its been competing at ! That simply wouldn’t happen. The selection would move onto the next appropriate horse and rider combo competing at GP level.

There is a reason Michael Jung wins so much, aside from his own ability - preparation and careful selection of the right horse for the competition. When he goes for the major championships he makes sure his best horses are prepared and more than up to the job.

 

[beryls2001]

As a competition, from the armchair eventer's viewpoint (ie mine ;-)), I think it was awesome. The XC course was nailbiting, I sat transfixed for hours. That course was EXACTLY what eventing needs - difficult enough to be interesting, safe enough not to cause serious injury. And then everything changed COMPLETELY during the showjumping again. I haven't watched such an exciting competition for absolute ages.

 

[Lexi_]

Time for a selection rethink from BE. Irrespective of the ‘level’ of the Olympic 3DE, GB needs to treat it as a 4* competition and select horses and riders that are competing at that level. If you look at all the other nations, they are sending their best 4* combinations – none of them were riding 2 & 3* horses. They sent their best and they treated it like the major event that it is. The aim being to win.
Our selection process seems to have been based on riders with 4* horses, who when have suddenly become unavailable for whatever reason, those riders have remained on the team but with their second string horse, which in our case seems to have been horses not at 4* level. Yes you can blame rider error for some of the problems we saw but you could also argue that a consistent 4* horse has enough about it to get its self out of trouble when let down by its rider. Some of our horses were just very green and over faced. Of course, every horse at whatever level can have an off day and that was evident in Rio, BUT they all started out with their best.

I think it might be more that the selectors just went for the solid 3* form, promising prospect horses as their first choices this time (with not a lot of other 4* horses available to them). GT wasn't ever going to take Arctic Soul, even before he got injured. She was always listed with Quicklook and Chico Bella. Kitty King was always in contention with Ceylor LAN - I wondered why Persimmon wasn't being talked about as on the shortlist but despite being great at Blair last year, actually he hasn't done a 4* either. Pippa - Sandman was her first choice before his injury but he's another that's only ever done 3*.

 

[Apercrumbie]

I think it might be more that the selectors just went for the solid 3* form, promising prospect horses as their first choices this time (with not a lot of other 4* horses available to them). GT wasn't ever going to take Arctic Soul, even before he got injured. She was always listed with Quicklook and Chico Bella. Kitty King was always in contention with Ceylor LAN - I wondered why Persimmon wasn't being talked about as on the shortlist but despite being great at Blair last year, actually he hasn't done a 4* either. Pippa - Sandman was her first choice before his injury but he's another that's only ever done 3*.

But I just don't buy this "up and coming" stuff if it involves selecting horses who aren't at 4*. We say there aren't enough combinations at that level, and you may be right - I was racking my brains for a better team selection, and while I could come up with better xc combinations, they would have seriously let the side down on either dressage or sj - but why do we not have a greater number of 4* combinations? We've had periods where we could have filled our squad several times over, why have we had to rely on some very green combinations? We clearly have some work to do as we are not producing enough top notch combinations.

ETA - absolutely loved the xc course. I thought it was the perfect balance - very challenging for an Olympic course but not dangerous. A great test and it exposed our weaknesses perfectly.

 

[Mooseontheloose]

I'm not sure I buy the point about picking good showjumpers so that they can move up on the individual placings. After all, with all the funding etc it's the TEAM we want to see do well, having an individual medal is a bonus, surely.

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

Sorry but the Brits were mediocre and gave a mediocre performance; other teams were better on the day - and got better results.

Better luck next time, one would hope.

No good everyone studying their Navels about it; what happened, happened.

 

[Apercrumbie]

Sorry but the Brits were mediocre and gave a mediocre performance; other teams were better on the day - and got better results.

Better luck next time, one would hope.

No good everyone studying their Navels about it; what happened, happened.

But surely the selectors, trainers etc do need to 'navel gaze' to work out what went wrong and what they can do to be better? I know that we are all armchair critics here but we can also question tactics, selection, performance - isn't that what people who enjoy sports do? Examine what happens?

 

[ihatework]

But I just don't buy this "up and coming" stuff if it involves selecting horses who aren't at 4*. We say there aren't enough combinations at that level, and you may be right - I was racking my brains for a better team selection, and while I could come up with better xc combinations, they would have seriously let the side down on either dressage or sj - but why do we not have a greater number of 4* combinations? We've had periods where we could have filled our squad several times over, why have we had to rely on some very green combinations? We clearly have some work to do as we are not producing enough top notch combinations.

ETA - absolutely loved the xc course. I thought it was the perfect balance - very challenging for an Olympic course but not dangerous. A great test and it exposed our weaknesses perfectly.

We lack depth of competitive 4* horses.
See my earlier comment on how funding needs to be spent!

 

[sasquatch]

As a competition, from the armchair eventer's viewpoint (ie mine ;-)), I think it was awesome. The XC course was nailbiting, I sat transfixed for hours. That course was EXACTLY what eventing needs - difficult enough to be interesting, safe enough not to cause serious injury. And then everything changed COMPLETELY during the showjumping again. I haven't watched such an exciting competition for absolute ages.

I agree! It was a competition where all 3 phases were equally important. Which made it exciting.

We saw Brazil drop down in the SJ because a rider fell off and Mark Todd have a SJ disaster, xc we saw some new faces get round, a course that was challenging and unpredictable as to who would do well when Tim Price slipped over, refusals were happening everywhere, the US lost 2 team members, people were eliminated then uneliminated and after dressage the leaderboards changed completely.

We also saw some nations we don't normally see completing as well as competing, and a mix of pro, semi pro and amateur riders.

I think on the note of Michael Jung and preparing his horses, you have to remember Sam was his second choice. I think he is just someone who knows his horses inside out, knows the sport inside out and is able to stay calm and think clearly under pressure. I think Michael Jung, as an athlete, is the eventing equivalent to Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Simone Biles etc., just one of those people who come into a sport and really excel within it.

 

[Mooseontheloose]

Well if a lot of the funding goes then quite a lot of people who may be doing quite nicely out of not gazing at their navels may find themselves at the job centre. That may be no bad thing.
During the commentary it was stated how long some of the main officials had been in their jobs, and to be honest I think it is time for a change. A football manager wouldn't last five minutes making mistakes in selecting a team.
I don't mean to sound harsh as I think it's an awful job, but perhaps a new perspective is needed and maybe we should get away from thinking about winning gold medals and think more about basic training which the foreign riders tend to get in spades.
Horses are horses and there are always quite correct excuses, but self evaluation and a bit of introspection never goes amiss.
I've been involved with different training for years, and the number of times I've been told that reflection and self evaluation are a load of B's is unbelievable. This is where I think a lot of people are resting on their laurels and not taking a true long look at their strengths and weaknesses.
Michael Jung, and others including WFP show that you can be a true all round horseman (horseperson?), accept training and carry on improving all the time.
Looking at riders at the lower levels of eventing, around the two star mark, demonstrates some really glaring gaps in education and knowledge. This is because the tendency is to train for competition, rather than as something useful in itself.

 

[Crazy_cat_lady]

We need to look at why Michael Jung is so successful on nearly every horse he sits on- think a lot is because he also competes in the individual disciplines as well. Would like to see him try the challenge of trying for the teams in pure sj and dressage.
Sam is one of those lifetime horses also so nice to see he does every phase in a plain snaffle and rarely a martingale.

 

[teapot]

Well we're getting a new performance manager/chef d'equipe so that's a start. Agree that the whole set up needs a shake up and maybe not winning an Olympic medal for the first time in twenty years will do that.

It would have been interesting to see how Allercombe Ellie would have gone, though she's only been round one 4*. Briarlands Matilda has been round a few albeit with not the most competitive results. Star Witness was long listed and was 8th and 7th as his first two 4*s... Then you go and look at the results and experience that made up the London team. What's happened in those four years?