She certainly delivered the goods. What a story! From Gladstone NJ, Sinead has worked with the O'Connors and recently spent time with William Fox-Pitt in the UK. WFP doesn't sound like the nurturing type (read here) but she must have gotten soemthin' out of it ;-).
Just to add to the discussion on "what happened" Saturday (was it really a disaster?), I sat next to an adanced rider on the plane last night. She felt that the course was very fair but that it demanded accuracy that some riders didn't produce. I mentioned how tired many of the horses looked, and she said that reports were that the footing was not great and it took a lot out of the horses and pulled a lot of shoes ( Kim Severson and Hamisch Cargill's mounts lost both fronts). So my friend's comment about the course being a disaster may still hold true -- but perhaps it was a natural disaster :-).
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I've been watching the cross country on the USEF Network, and there is a lot of talk about the footing. They have different commentator/riders coming and sharing the mike, and they all talk about the footing. So our wacky weather has even affected Rolex.
ReplyDeleteIf the footing was indeed that "sticky" it could account for much of what happened. Just watching, it was impossible to see that, so perhaps the horses were fit enough and the extra work of handling the ground made the difference.
ReplyDeleteI also tend to agree about the technicality of the course. There were a lot of rider decisions to be made and lots of questions for the horses. But again, that's the test of such a high level competition.
Suffice it to say, that with a few exceptions, the cream of the crop rose to the top and won...."twice!" *S*
Interesting listening to Boyd Martin's remarks about Kristi's horse, who is a Holsteiner, by the way. He said he had some problems there, and it was a bit easy to get gung-ho after the first corner.
ReplyDeleteYou don't see too many white gloves in stadium jumping, but with hands like that, why wouldn't you wear white gloves?! Beautiful ride!
ReplyDeleteA lovely round with a lovely rider! This horse is so light on his feet.
ReplyDeleteLol, clever wording :P I didn't think the course was that bad. It was a little technical for my liking. IMHO, the technicality should be saved for stadium, and XC ought to be used to let the horses loose.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I met a very nice lady this year who informed me that she failed the XC course designer (blanking on his name) on his pony club A levels way back when :P The things you learn! She also ran one of the oldest events in North America until she sold her farm a few years back.