Terrible biased reporting on Olympic Equestrian events.

I love the idea of a laser refusing to get in the water and ruining someone's dreams. In same vein, whilst rowing skulls arn't cheap, as Steve Redgrave said you don't need one to turn up at your local rowing club to learn to row, unlike pony club...
 
Cortez said:
I don't honestly think you can make dressage "available" to the average guy on the street though, any more than you can opera or ballet or other allegedly highbrow pursuits. You're either an aficionado (defined as someone who knows what "aficionado" means...) or you're not. The best they've come up with is "horse dancing", which isn't very helpful.
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Let me at 'em. I can explain 15th-century music performance practice issues to a complete n00b in under 30 seconds, let alone opera: dressage? Piece of cake. :D

No sport is cheap at Olympic level. At the very least, a sport requires time, to train and to compete, and time isn't cheap, in monetary terms and otherwise. This weird class thing you've got going on in the UK means that a lot of things (you list opera) are considered "elitist", which really aren't or shouldn't be. Considering that horses are actually far more accessible in the UK than in many other countries, I find this a bit bizarre!

I think a very important reason for keeping Equestrian in the Olympics, besides tradition, is that gender is irrelevant.
 
ycbm said:
I don't get this idea that sailing is as expensive as the equestrian sports?. It costs about ten grand to ship a live horse that far. I'll bet you can ship a dinghy for a fraction of that. And you don't have to have a team of grooms, vets, physios, farriers, and a ton of food to keep the dinghy going. I can't believe it costs a fraction of the money to provide a suitable sailing course as it does to build the equestrian facilities, either.

In sailing, they sail boats of the same class in the same race. So it is the best sailor who wins, not the best boat. That means that the problem with dressage, where very big money buys a better horse, doesn't exist to anything like the same extent in any other sport in the Olympics.For me, it's an extremely elitist sport at the top end, which has far too much money spent to include it for far too few countries to have any chance of a medal.
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the only school I attended that held and hosted their own regatta was a private school. Every person involved either owned their boat, or hired/rented it.

My brother sailed for a bit, but buying wetsuit, lifejacket etc all added up, as well as the cost of club membership, boat hire and the course he did. To continue to sail at higher levels, I can imagine it would be expensive in terms of insurance etc. and the cost of a boat be it to buy, or to hire.

On the flip side, I also know people who ride competitively without owning a horse, but through their own hard work are now able to ride some good horses for free or the cost of their rider insurance.

Is the transport funded by the rider/owner or is it paid for by the team/IOC?
 
Listening to the Olympic coverage on bbc radio this morning, I was furious.

Over the past day or so I have heard at least 300 times the story of the "old lady" ( in their opinion) winning some skulls rowing thingy, her team mate just an aside... Sure it's a nice story, but give it a rest already!!

I was just hoping for a glimmer of a mention of the dressage. Carl, Charlotte and the team are in my humble opinion excellent sports people, and truly an inspiration to many. Not just on how to be successful, but how it can be achieved through hard work, dedication and kindness.

They said a short list of sports where team Gb won medals, dressage was wedged in with trampolining, then sneered at. I was shocked! I know most people don't take the time to understand it, but surely most people can appreciate its only achieved through utmost dedication of horse and rider, over many many years of training.

Anyway, they then did pick on the dressage, only to go on and slag it. Saying it's not a sport, shouldn't be in the olypmics, it's human not horse Olympics. The "sport" commentator then went on to say the only real horse sport is racing... When asked if he watched the dressage he said no, and that why is it all about the rider and not the horse. The presenter helpfully tried to mention Valegro, by saying he was often described as a lovely "beast". After that I felt I was wrong to wish for some dressage coverage.

To me it's a sport which surpasses so many. Sure running in a straight line is hard training, as is swimming, cycling, rowing etc. They all require skill and hard work. But I can't think of a single sport as technically challenging as dressage is. The most basic of priciples like getting a horse to work over his back- is impossible to many of even experienced riders, yet this is just one of the very first steps for a dressage horse. The level they achieve is outstanding. If only it could be appreciated.
 
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sasquatch said:
Is the transport funded by the rider/owner or is it paid for by the team/IOC?
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IOC pay for the travel of team horses, it's up to individual nations to pay for the reserve horse that now travels (they didn't travel for London or Beijing I don't think). Think it was the event horse owners association that stumped up the cash for Billy the Red to travel.

alainax said:
To me it's a sport which surpasses so many. Sure running in a straight line is hard training, as is swimming, cycling, rowing etc. They all require skill and hard work. But I can't think of a single sport as technically challenging as dressage is. The most basic of priciples like getting a horse to work over his back- is impossible to many of even experienced riders, yet this is just one of the very first steps for a dressage horse. The level they achieve is outstanding. If only it could be appreciated.
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To play devil's advocate, unless you rode or understood horses, you wouldn't know what working a horse over its back means, let alone understand the level that they compete at. Dressage isn't accessible in that respect because to the untrained eye it's a guy in a top hat and tails going sideways on a horse and occasionally to music. There are people who ride who don't necessarily understand the Olympic equestrian sports - I was chatting to someone on Monday before a fun dressage test who didn't know there were different levels of three day eventing.

At least to the lay eye, eventing is a combination of 'move around an arena doing some sideways stuff and flicky leg stuff' before a round of fixed jumps in a certain time, then a round of knock down jumps in a certain time. It's an easy sport to understand and watch. Dressage? You can't say it's an easy sport to understand, especially not when you can't see scores immediately to get an idea of what's good or not.

I don't really understand diving or gymnastics but at least with live scoring you start to get an idea of what's good or not.
 
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teapot said:
IOC pay for the travel of team horses, it's up to individual nations to pay for the reserve horse that now travels (they didn't travel for London or Beijing I don't think). Think it was the event horse owners association that stumped up the cash for Billy the Red to travel.

I don't really understand diving or gymnastics but at least with live scoring you start to get an idea of what's good or not.
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Thank you teapot, I wasn't sure who paid for it but that makes sense :)
So the cost of transporting the horse, unless you are the reserve, is pretty irrelevant then as it is not the rider/owner paying.

Tbf, I think you've addressed another problem there - the leaderboards etc have been crap for the equestrian events.
I also notice on the commentary, they go on and on about the scores judges are giving for each movements, but surely if they had a pop-up graphic along the bottom it would work just as well? Say it comes up to say 'canter pirouette 7.4' or whatever for some of the 'bigger' movements like pirouettes, piaffe, passage, extended canter, lead changes etc.

I can't understand weightlifting at all, but I now know they have a snatch or a snap and a grab and reach or something similar. They had some lovely graphics with green and red arrows and an expert to speak about what it meant but all I can remember is that the guys all were very bow legged and I don't understand how the weights work and why they don't all lift the same weight per go and then just keep going that way.

I can't help but wonder if maybe new commentators would work? I know I have no problems when it comes to explaining dressage/jumping to people who don't know much (aka my gran who's horse experience comes down to 'oh what is the brown one doing', 'the white one had a stop are they eliminated?', 'do you have to put the pole back up?', 'why doesn't your horse dance like the ones on TV') but it's very hard to do as well. MT is unfortunately becoming an irritant this Olympics as he doesn't seem to really explain much. He's fine for the jumping and XC, but maybe for dressage we need someone else.

Dressage is something a lot of people who aren't horsey enjoy as they want to see the famous dancing horses, but when you have someone talking over and not explaining why a horse has spooked/what passage or the other fancy words mean and how the scoring works, it's very confusing.
 
I think travel costs are a bit of a moot point in terms of whether a sport's expensive or not. The eventers also flew out BA business class, I doubt they were individually paying!

The scoreboards have been bad, but that's an Olympic broadcaster issue, not a BBC one. Though if they can get the scores up for gymnastics and diving, why not show the scores of the various dressage judges? Then final marks and eventual percentage, it's not hard. As for commentary, I guess that comes down to cost and availability, and you need that balance of someone who knows what they're talking about and someone who can get the masses interested.

I went back and listened to the five live coverage of xc day. The mix of Chappers, Aggers and Tina worked really well. Some of the questions that Chappers asked Tina were fairly generic (how do you walk a course, do the horses come too, team orders, how do you approach a dangerous sport, what do you do if you have a problem on course etc) but if you had no idea what eventing was about, those questions and Tina's accessible and informed answers, plus Aggers doing the generic x is clear over the y jump really brought the sport alive, which for radio was fantastic.

I've not listened to any of the radio coverage of the dressage, but the tv definitely needs someone better than MT. Peter Storr's good but he's not the most inspiring to listen to.
 
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In any other sport at the Olympics, getting to the Olympics is a logical progression from being a talented youngster. This is not true of top level equestrian sport. You can be a seriously good rider, but until you are either accidentally or deliberately partnered with a seriously good horse, you will not progress. Then that horse has to stay sound and win, or you must have replacements available, or you will not progress. It doesn't matter how much talent you have, in the end progression to top level in equestrian sports is more about luck than talent. Yes, you have to have talent, but for everyone who has it there are hundreds more who will never get the chance to show that they have it.

I know we are all dedicated horse lovers on this forum, and I think it's blinding people to the obvious, (to me), truth that at top level equestrian sport is seriously elitist, and of very little interest to the woman in the street. Dancing dogs do it for them, not dancing horses.

It doesn't matter who pays any of the expenses of getting a team there. Someone has to. And in countries without a big equestrian following, that money is much harder to find, if it's possible at all. So decade after decade it's the same, rich, countries picking up the medals.
 
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Sailing is a phenomenally expensive sport, top class boats don't come cheap. Access to decent sailing venues, clubs coaching and so on are also expensive.
Latest technology is very pricey, plus being able to get round the world to sail in the right conditions and so on.
What struck me yesterday watching the rowers being interviewed was that their orthodontic dentistry alone probably cost more than I've spent on horses in my life, very lovely smiles and teeth.
As for dressage being appealing to the general public, after Greenwich a lot of people were entranced by it. I remember the black comedian Nathan Caton talking about it in a comedy sketch - but because he wanted to get back to see it not because he was knocking it.
I completely agree about the reporting. Yesterday's early news was full of the medals won by other athletes but then said Team GB were 'disappointed' not to hang on to their gold medal in the dressage!
Perhaps it is time for these equestrian sports to come out of the Olympics. There are wonderful Championships that these horses do already and without having to ship them half way round the world to do it. There's WEG (if it happens), Badminton, Burghley, Kentucky, Australian championships. Maybe we need to think laterally about this and consider things other than medals.
As for dressage, it's a subjective sport, like some of the gymnastics, and will always upset some. I think people who don't know about horses see the close ups of rowelled spurs, stewards checking for blood etc and think it's a real welfare issue. Perhaps we need to do more to bring people onside.
Lots to think about.
 
teapot said:
I love the idea of a laser refusing to get in the water and ruining someone's dreams. In same vein, whilst rowing skulls arn't cheap, as Steve Redgrave said you don't need one to turn up at your local rowing club to learn to row, unlike pony club...
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Actually when I was a teenager, I did join Pony Club without having my own horse or pony, and learned a lot at the dismounted activities and from helping out and watching others, although, to be fair, I did eventually get my own horse so could then join in the ridden side of things. At the branch of the Pony Club my daughter now belongs to, there are a lot of members who don't own their own ponies - some are on loan, and some are just 'borrowed' (so the member doesn't even incur the cost of keeping the animal). And, of course, these days many riding schools are 'Pony Club Centres' where children can join in Pony Club activities on riding school ponies. So whilst there are some costs involved, you don't necessarily need to own a horse/pony to join in.
 
Yes, but you can demonstrate your talent in a smaller and inexpensive boat. You can't do that on a horse. A friend of mine had a daughter selected for national training after sailing a dinghy that cost only hundreds of pounds and didn't need feeding, stabling, or ever go lame. I have another friend whose daughter plays hockey for the England juniors. Neither of these families are very rich and neither had any contacts in those sports.

To get noticed in equestrian sports you have to be sat on a horse that wins, whether by money or by massive luck. It doesn't matter how much talent you have, unless you get sat on that special horse, you'll get nowhere.
 
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Whether the lay person in the street listens or not, there is a big enough equestrian following in this country to warrant keeping equestrian sports in the olympics. Also considering that in London all three of the teams came 'home' with medals, plus the dressage team this year - yes the eventers didn't manage it this year but fifth is still respectable, and if the show jumping team get a medal as well then that's 5 medals between 6 opportunities. What other sport has that claim? It would be very interesting to hear other country's views on equestrian events being dropped - I can't see the Germans, the Dutch, the Aussies or the Kiwis being that happy?
 
I was annoyed by the constant 'Team GB had to settle for/could only manage silver' when bar one rider/horse combination it is a different team-no mention of that from what I saw.

The Beeb ran a short segment yesterday on synchronised swimming-how difficult it is physically with lactic acid build up etc and showed what happens underwater and it was quite eye opening. Something perhaps on how the equestrians keep fit and the amount of core strength they must have at the level would be good.

As for the likes of the Guardian, I am convinced more and more that its written and read by sad 30 year olds still living in their parent's basements and too busy blaming the class structure in the UK to get off their arses and achieve anything.

I think maybe equestrian events have had their time in the Olympics though, but more for the points raised above-I would miss the Olympic show jumping courses though!
 
Mince Pie said:
Whether the lay person in the street listens or not, there is a big enough equestrian following in this country to warrant keeping equestrian sports in the olympics. Also considering that in London all three of the teams came 'home' with medals, plus the dressage team this year - yes the eventers didn't manage it this year but fifth is still respectable, and if the show jumping team get a medal as well then that's 5 medals between 6 opportunities. What other sport has that claim? It would be very interesting to hear other country's views on equestrian events being dropped - I can't see the Germans, the Dutch, the Aussies or the Kiwis being that happy?
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Why should the Germans, Dutch, Australians, New Zealanders, Americans and British decide that Brazil should finance their competition? The Olympics is supposed to be open to the whole world.

PS go Mo! That's a real Olympian for me. A Somali refugee, falls over, picks himself up and still becomes the first British track and field athlete to ever win three gold medals. What a man!!
 
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I have tried to find that Telegraph link, it was on Facebook, but in a few days unless you save stuff it's hard to find posts.
What has made me mad is the sneering class conscious bit. Yes I know it's expensive and all the rest, but the Guardian is just making a joke about it. I don't mind so much if they treat it as a minority sport, report the result and move on, but they are just using it as another piece of evidence of an unequal society. That isn't really fair on the riders. Today they are having a "go" at Mo Fareh, saying he's involved in drugs and if he wasn't representing the UK he would be considered a cheat.
To go back to the dressage. It is hard for people to understand, I rode when I was younger and I know the movements and about training horses and whether one is balanced and going well , but even for me it is difficult to differentiate the outstanding from the very good. For a complete lay person this must be nigh on impossible, to them is it a person in funny clothes on a dancing horse. The commentators do not make it any easier, I haven't seen the coverage right from the beginning of each transmission, but some kind of explanation of the test and the movements might help. When it's the Grand National they have visuals to explain the course, something like that.
Years ago, when I was keen with ponies of my own, dressage wasn't televised on the Olympics at all, we just had people like Lorna Johnston? in the ruck, show jumping on the other hand was very popular and everyone seemed to watch that and understand the rules. No one sneered or made fun of dressage because it wasn't visible.
 
MotherOfChickens said:
The Beeb ran a short segment yesterday on synchronised swimming-how difficult it is physically with lactic acid build up etc and showed what happens underwater and it was quite eye opening. Something perhaps on how the equestrians keep fit and the amount of core strength they must have at the level would be good.
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They were going to do a piece on the dressage in the same programme but it just got dropped without explanation.
 
TGM said:
Actually when I was a teenager, I did join Pony Club without having my own horse or pony, and learned a lot at the dismounted activities and from helping out and watching others, although, to be fair, I did eventually get my own horse so could then join in the ridden side of things. At the branch of the Pony Club my daughter now belongs to, there are a lot of members who don't own their own ponies - some are on loan, and some are just 'borrowed' (so the member doesn't even incur the cost of keeping the animal). And, of course, these days many riding schools are 'Pony Club Centres' where children can join in Pony Club activities on riding school ponies. So whilst there are some costs involved, you don't necessarily need to own a horse/pony to join in.
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I was a PC member on a riding school horse. There were about 6 of us - we used to hack there and back (about an hour each way). There was another riding school in the area that also attended. There was a rosette given as the start of a rally for best turnout but they used to give one for private horses and one for riding school horses.
 
I think that riders do not state the obvious for non riders, as they assume too much knowledge, that of course non riders do not have.

I would say that all horses start the same, as foals galloping round the fields with their dam (sorry, Mummy). And it is the rider who takes that young horse and gets it used to being ridden, and then teaches it to respond to aids (sorry, signals) and then gradually over years and years of training the horse becomes stronger physically and able to understand obey the rider with just differences in body weight, light pressure of the rider's legs and fingers. Dressage training should be regarded as physiotherapy for the horse, to develop its muscles and physique and the exercises are a reflection of this. The competition is which combination of horse and rider does them best, like the gymnast's competitions.
 
ycbm said:
Yes, but you can demonstrate your talent in a smaller and inexpensive boat. You can't do that on a horse. A friend of mine had a daughter selected for national training after sailing a dinghy that cost only hundreds of pounds and didn't need feeding, stabling, or ever go lame. I have another friend whose daughter plays hockey for the England juniors. Neither of these families are very rich and neither had any contacts in those sports.

To get noticed in equestrian sports you have to be sat on a horse that wins, whether by money or by massive luck. It doesn't matter how much talent you have, unless you get sat on that special horse, you'll get nowhere.
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Again, I disagree. There were at least 2 ex-racehorses in the eventing competition, and there have been famous stories about horses who cost little to nothing and going out and winning Badminton etc.

Dressage and SJ is harder to get into, without a doubt, because a lot more of it comes down to the horse through breeding and you're less likely to see an OTTB or a pony crossbreed or even a horse owned or part owned by the rider - but would you say John Whittaker is part of the 'elite' or someone who was lucky to be sat on a special horse 30 odd years ago?

Whilst that's good for your friend, I feel like that is the exception rather than the rule. Like I said, the only school I have been too that held their own regatta and could afford to offer sailing to the kids, was the private school. The school that were very good competitive rowers were the very highly regarded 'rugby and hockey school' that owned a boat house on the river. Sailing, when it comes down to it, if you're not very very naturally talented, can be very expensive. Even if you buy a cheap boat, you have to pay to have the boat kept somewhere or for the trailer to get it home or not, the maintenance of the boat etc.
 
ycbm said:
Why should the Germans, Dutch, Australians, New Zealanders, Americans and British decide that Brazil should finance their competition? The Olympics is supposed to be open to the whole world.

PS go Mo! That's a real Olympian for me. A Somali refugee, falls over, picks himself up and still becomes the first British track and field athlete to ever win three gold medals. What a man!!
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Presumably if a country wants to host the Olympics they have to finance the whole package. They don't have to but it's part of their decision making process and it seems a lot of Brazilians were unhappy about the whole thing. The Brazilian eventers didn't do too badly!
 
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ycbm said:
To get noticed in equestrian sports you have to be sat on a horse that wins, whether by money or by massive luck. It doesn't matter how much talent you have, unless you get sat on that special horse, you'll get nowhere.
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I agree. I am sure we have all known some truly talented riders who have never got a look in because they didn't have the horses or the money. To believe that talent alone will get you to the top in equestrian is naive and unrealistic.
 
sasquatch said:
Dressage and SJ is harder to get into, without a doubt, because a lot more of it comes down to the horse through breeding and you're less likely to see an OTTB or a pony crossbreed or even a horse owned or part owned by the rider - but would you say John Whittaker is part of the 'elite' or someone who was lucky to be sat on a special horse 30 odd years ago?
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Yes, the Whittakers are now the elite. Comparing equestrianism now to 30/40 years ago is comparing apples to oranges.
 
The situation feeds on itself, as well. To be at the top you have to get into the five star shows. To get into the five star shows you have to be at the top. There's very little leeway for a talented youngster with only one horse, however good they may be, how hard they've worked, how talented they are. If they're not there with a string they're going to find it very difficult to get there.
The Whitakers are elite, talented, well known, ubiquitous, fantastic riders. John and Michael are well known names, have proved beyond doubt how good they are. But it's hard to get even near them, let alone get past them.
Perhaps they'd like to bypass a few of the five star shows and let a few more of those yapping at their heels in. Someone's got to take over when they eventually retire!
 
ycbm said:
Why should the Germans, Dutch, Australians, New Zealanders, Americans and British decide that Brazil should finance their competition? The Olympics is supposed to be open to the whole world.

PS go Mo! That's a real Olympian for me. A Somali refugee, falls over, picks himself up and still becomes the first British track and field athlete to ever win three gold medals. What a man!!
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I'm not suggesting they do, but are you saying that equestrian sports should be dropped purely so poorer countries can afford to host the games? Presumably Brazil knew what the costs of hosting the games would be before bidding?
 
I know someone who was a cycling world champion, the expense of competition is pretty hefty. If you are successful companies will sponsor you, others have to bear the expenses themselves.

Are any team riders on their own horses apart from Carl Hester? I think this has been discussed before and it was decided that to be a top class successful rider, winning at the top you need a) talent, b) hard work and willingness to be taught and learn, c) luck being in the right place at the right time. Money helps, but with horses you can only buy success up to a point.

Any good rider will soon find themselves being offered horses to ride. There is the owner who maybe will take their horse to Novice, but doesn't want to tackle the larger fences or owners who just like to have a horse but don't want to ride it, like a racehorse owner.
 
The days of a good young rider being offered horses to compete are nearly over. Horses capable of top jumping may well cost in excess of £100K. The top riders attract the top horses. That's the way of the world. It's very lucky when a young rider gets the ride on an international horse, and that's usually when they are a stable jockey so pretty good anyway.
The cost of taking a horse in eventing from Novice to four star is huge, in time, money effort and emotion. Not many owners of Novice horses can afford to do that. Wonderful if it happens.
 
Orangehorse said:
up to a point.

Any good rider will soon find themselves being offered horses to ride. There is the owner who maybe will take their horse to Novice, but doesn't want to tackle the larger fences or owners who just like to have a horse but don't want to ride it, like a racehorse owner.
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This just isn't true, unfortunately. And that's my point.

If you want to become a formula one racer, you can showcase your talent in a go kart, as Hamilton did. If you want to showcase your talent as a rider, you simply HAVE to be sat on a talented 'formula one' horse.

All karts can race. Not all horses, or even a fraction of them, can do their sport at top level.

No other sport compares, AFAIK, for how difficult it is to show how talented you are, in order to get the sponsorship you need to get further.
 
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i disagree that the equestrian sports are only for rich western countries. In eventing particularly many South American countries are on the up and Japan is nearly there.

As regards reaching stardom if you have ability but no money, perhaps BE, BD and BS should do more talent spotting at Pony Clubs and PC Centres where talented young people could be offered rides on good animals rather than having to buy them. The big football clubs go looking for talent from 6 and 7 year olds and coach from there.
 
millikins said:
i d

As regards reaching stardom if you have ability but no money, perhaps BE, BD and BS should do more talent spotting at Pony Clubs and PC Centres where talented young people could be offered rides on good animals rather than having to buy them. The big football clubs go looking for talent from 6 and 7 year olds and coach from there.
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Youve got to have rich enough parents to have any sort of pony bought and kept for you, - and it costs plenty of money even to compete at BD/BE/PC lower levels, keeping the horse, tack/clothes, transport etc. Football boots are cheap in comparison!!
 
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