The coffin-canter debate (further fuel to the fire)

[teapot]

Taken from LG's column in today's Telegraph:

"He achieved the unusual, by making many feel it was easy on their first look, only to find, on re-examination, that more difficulties became apparent. A shallow, 3ft-wide ditch that threaded its way through the course, being used at various intervals, proved the nemesis of many. And yet again, as at Burghley a fortnight ago, it was remarkable to see how many riders have risen to the top without fully understanding how to ride a 'coffin' canter – very slow and bouncy – or indeed even fully comprehending why it is, at times, so necessary."

Full article is here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/09/17/soluci117.xml

Thoughts? Think she does have a point - it was one the first things I was taught when I started riding on grass & over ditches and that's just me being a usual RS client

On another thought for the legend that Mary King is. Taken from Alan Smith column:

With typical modesty, King said: "It's easy when you've got a good horse."

She really is the face of BE isn't she? Modest, a bloody good rider and always gets the results especially under pressure

 

[Starbucks]

Yes Mary is a STAR!!! She seems such a lovely person too!

I originally said I didn't think it was forum members place to point out how bad the riding was, but it does appear that what they were saying was right!

Maybe people are not getting trained by the right people? Or feeling too much pressure to get round inside the time?

 

[Chestnut_filly14]

As a reliatively inexperienced XC rider (dressage is more my thing)

Can someone please explain exactly what a coffin canter is?

 

[Alibear]

Good article, Mary will love LG pointing this out, or not perhaps!

[ QUOTE ]
Britain's evergreen Mary King, at 46, old enough to be team newcomer Oliver Townend's mother, brought the 15-year-old Call Again Cavalier to his best to add individual silver to team gold

[/ QUOTE ]

 

[welshchick]

Lol, noticed that too!

 

[teapot]

Only LG could get away with it too!

 

[Santa_Claus]

coffin canter is a collceted canter basically. You bring the horse back on to its hock into a powerful but short stride so the horse gets extra time to see and evalutate the fence especially the ditch it will see at the last minute but still has enough power to jump through.

 

[lorenababbit]

[ QUOTE ]
coffin canter is a collceted canter basically. You bring the horse back on to its hock into a powerful but short stride so the horse gets extra time to see and evalutate the fence especially the ditch it will see at the last minute but still has enough power to jump through. [/quote

i am glad you wrote such a good descripti i was begining to hink it was a hoin as fast as ouc compleely unbalaned tg after watching some recent events! wellsaid.

 

[kerilli]

Mary King SO deserved an individual medal, shame it wasn't gold but NT was exceptional in all 3 phases, and deserved it more. I think she's the nicest eventer around (up against very stiff competition!), she is always smiling, patient with hordes of kids asking for her autograph, lovely to her horses... truly an inspiration to everyone eventing.
the speed some of the riders were taking on the fence at the top of the Slide was frightening... if ever a fence called for a coffin canter, it was that one! the slower and more controlled the approach, and the jump, ditto the landing, so some hope of a bit of control going down that fearsome hill!

i was taught "coffin canter" as a teenager, by a friend who started eventing before me and had found out the very hard way that the advice she'd been given on her 'looky' horse - namely, to go as fast as possible into a coffin cos then he won't have a chance to stop - wasn't the best...