I have just dried out following my tour of the Pan Am cross country course at Will O’ Wind Farm. I actually didn’t mind the rain that much. I had the course almost entirely to myself. Which turned out to be fortuitous for my bladder, when I realized after trying three different banks of locked porta-poopers that I’d have to seek relief by sneaking behind them in the long grass. I hope they haven’t lost the keys to all those johns, and I have to wonder where everyone else has been going to the bathroom over the past couple of days, including the riders who will have walked the course several times.
I wonder if they each have their own key.
I actually wasn’t completely alone out there. I arrived at both water jumps just as the water truck arrived to top them up. Apparently there has been a bit of a drainage issue, but the opposite of what most of us think of as a drainage issue, since the water complexes have been doing an excellent job of draining the water. Which of course is not desirable in a water jump.
The A element of the direct route at the second water at #20. My first pick for place to watch.
I’m sure someone out there will want to shoot me for my critique of the cross country course, but that’s never stopped me before – so I’ll just wade on in, pun fully intended. It seems awfully easy to me. I know it’s only a two star, but there just don’t seem to be any surprises, and the number of questions is far outnumbered by straightforward ‘gimme’ galloping fences. I’m thinking back four years to Guadalajara, and I think that course had some flaws that made it quite punishing. Certainly this course will not be guilty of that – and if I had to pick, obviously I’d rather see a slightly easy course than one that caused accidents or injuries unnecessarily.
In spite of the rolling terrain, very few obstacles are placed on anything other than relatively flat ground. There are some very nice decorative details and fence themes on the course, though I daresay if you are shopping for plastic flowers in a 100 km radius of Mono, you will find everyone sold out.
The classic keyhole. Every course has to have one.
The course designer, Wayne Copping, is from Australia. He would not have had much idea of the demographics of a Pan Am three-day-event, and would have had to depend on good direction from people who know about how the course needs to test the top teams while not killing the other end of the field. It does seem to me that he placed a few minor tests early in the course that may have been put there to weed out the weaker combinations (and if you have ever seen Pan Am Games cross country, you know there will be some cover-your-eyes situations out there tomorrow). There is a moderately difficult accuracy test at #4, and a very small trakehner #5 (the big trakehner comes later in the course), which I presume are there to snag anyone that really has no business on a two star course. If I’m reading the design tactics correctly, it seems like a good strategy when it comes to preventing accidents at the bigger, tougher complexes later on.
The little trakehner at 5. Nice beaver.
The problem I see with this course is that it really isn’t much of a test for solid two star horses – never mind the pair of four star horses we have on our team. I may eat my words tomorrow, but I’m guessing we will see quite a few clear rounds within the time.
The double corners at 16 are sure to cause a few glance offs.
Time penalties are going to mean a great deal tomorrow. The US is ahead of Canada by only .7 of a penalty, and Brazil, led by Ruy Fonseca, who is in first place after dressage, is just three points behind Canada. I won’t regurgitate results, when you can find them all right here.
When I decided to visit the cross country venue today, I did my best to go there knowing I might not get in at all. I was determined not to be unhappy if that is what happened, and not to whine about it on this blog. The media course walk was yesterday and I was warned that doing my own thing would be more or less impossible. So I was delighted when the venue manager was beckoned by radio to answer all my questions about access and parking for media tomorrow. And there was no question that I was welcome to go trudging around the course in the rain. I’d love to be able to say the volunteers were awesome, but there weren’t any on site today. So all I can say is that the security staff, OPP officers and Derek the venue manager were just lovely.
You may remember a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago in which I mentioned that Eventing is the best kept secret we in the equestrian world should be making no effort to keep. My conversation with a friendly and slightly bored OPP officer is a perfect case in point. I told him that he had plenty of excitement to look forward to tomorrow after the damp boredom of today, and he replied that unfortunately he will be off tomorrow. Having seen the course and learned a bit about what would take place on cross country, he said that even though he knew nothing about horses he would love to see the cross country. “I had no idea this sport even existed”, he said.
Cross country gets under way at 11 tomorrow, and will be all over just three hours later. With the horses at 4 minute intervals, it’s a pretty short day of action. I’ll be back at the end of the day with a report, before I head to the airport to fly home tomorrow night. And I can’t make any promises, but I’ve heard my FB hacker has a ticket to cross country tomorrow too.
