I am delighted to share with you today the insightful reflections of UK journalist extraordinaire Pippa Cuckson, who has much to say about this year’s Badminton, and the recent tragic deaths of Canadian Jordan McDonald and Benjamin Winter of Germany.
I’m even more delighted to be the first to reveal the news that Pippa will soon be joining the Horse-Canada.com stable as its newest blogger. For a taste of what’s to come from her, please read on.
A month is a long time in horse sport. With the benefit of 20-20 vision, you have to now wonder now if all the gung-ho remarks that “Badminton is back to where it should be” were appropriate.
The tragic events at Luhmuhlen, Germany, and Nunney, UK, last week were a cruel reminder that the random hand of fate plays the biggest part in grievous riding accidents. Jordan McDonald died after falling at what was regarded as one of the more innocuous fences at Nunney, while Benjamin Winter had already jumped clear inside the time before his second horse flipped over at a Luhmuhlen table.
If fence-difficulty alone was a contributory factor in injurious falls, Badminton 2014 should in theory have seen at least one. Some tweaking of Badminton’s cross-country before 2015 had already been mooted, but I suspect there will now be even more softening in the light of recent events.
We are also starting to hear of “broken” horses following Badminton and a lot of broken dreams.
Peter Atkins, the Australian from America, wrote openly about his confusion. Clark Montgomery soon gave up hopes of WEG selection. The British-based Texan pulled up his overnight leader Loughan Glen at Huntsman’s Close, an always notorious combination, and this year with a filled corner the size of a Sherman tank. Yet Glen had had “pinged” round Blenheim, a stiff “three-and-a-half star,” to finish third last September. For sure his horse was ready for the Badminton we had been conditioned to expect in the short format era.
Six-times Badminton winner Lucinda Green says you don’t know what horse you have till the next time, because they don’t all have the guts for it. How many will do Burghley, I wonder?
And what relevance would the new-look Badminton have for the upcoming world championship eventing at Haras du Pin, Rio 2016, or WEG 2018? Badminton usually plays a big part in selection decisions for British teams but this time only Pippa Funnell (Billy Beware) has made the cut from the top-placed. Three UK horses going to WEG – Chilli Morning (William Fox-Pitt), Black Tie (Oliver Townend) and High Kingdom (Zara Phillips) did not even start at Badminton.
Smarting last year from criticism that Badminton was no longer the supreme test, director Hugh Thomas handed his course-designing role to Guiseppe Della Chiesa. Guiseppe has often worked with Hugh as a Technical Delegate, but those who figured this would be a mere cosmetic collaboration got a shock.
I walked the course three weeks before, in glorious sunshine with footing like a billiard table. It was as if the spirit of Col Frank Weldon, designer in the 1970s heyday of long-format, had stalked Guiseppe around Badminton Park, making suggestions here and there: a formidable challenge even before making allowances for the rain guaranteed to kibosh any spring event in England.
As we now know, all but 35 of 78 starters fell by the wayside; the top three (Sam Griffiths, Oliver Townend and Harry Meade) were nowhere after dressage. The jumping test had virtually no alternatives and was complicated by a strong headwind and saturated footing. Few horses proved fit enough.
On the day, everyone said this was “true Badminton.” Even those who didn’t do well (when was the last time Mark Todd, Andrew Nicholson and William Fox-Pitt fell off in one day?) hoped Guiseppe would not lose his nerve, though I noted that apart from Townend and Meade, few under the age of 40 echoed that approbation. Guiseppe felt more attention should be paid to subtleties of running the course the opposite direction to last year, and the impact of the long drag up to a new water complex.
Badminton attracts 80,000 spectators on cross-country day but few got their money’s worth. Those in the second half of the course waited up to 20 minutes to see a horse, and when one finally lumbered into view it was invariably struggling. There are telling pictures of Quimbo over-jumping at the beefed-up Vicarage Vee; I’d wager he gave himself a real fright at the fence before, something you rarely see from the confidence-giving hands of Andrew Nicholson.
We are in a strange era now of extreme public sensitivities. The negative perceptions of spectators on the ground that might once have preoccupied organisers are now subsumed by the power of social media. The general public does not understand – indeed, why should it? – the nuances of the different horse sports. How can equestrians point the finger at the dire completion rates in Middle East endurance when a retirement/elimination rate over 50% was depicted as a badge of honour for Badminton?
Many readers will also have followed the outcry about Mary King’s two-month suspension after receiving a second warning for “dangerous” riding. King had already actioned her own decision to pull-up HMS King Joules at Bramham after he broke a frangible pin at a combination half way round, saying he felt “unruly.” The FEI only revealed additional concerns about Mary’s round and that judges had reported a series of “uncomfortable jumps” after an on-line petition was launched by fans wanting the ban lifted. But no explanation as to why the ground jury did not, in that case, try to stop her sooner.
Over the past 12 months, 130 yellow cards have been handed out in FEI eventing worldwide, half for “dangerous riding,” whose definition seems very wide. It ranges from subjectively judged matters of style and control, to objective matters like continuing after three refusals.
In one case, rope got tangled round a horse’s legs. Was the rider aware of his offence as it was happening? We don’t know. The brevity of notices on the FEI Tribunal website about yellow card recipients comes from a bygone era. The scant detail is not now enough to satisfy social media speculation about what happened and whether censure was justified.
Why no yellow cards at Badminton, where there were dozens of unedifying sights? Just because the awful weather affected everyone, does this mitigate a rider’s decision to continue in dangerous conditions? A review of the circumstances in which yellow warning cards are both issued and publicised seems overdue in eventing. New rules for endurance have set out in more detail the type of offences warranting a yellow card.
As a minor aside, who these days would attempt to breed eventers? Apart from the innumerable variables when deciding on any mating, you must second-guess what the sport will demand in 10 years’ time.
At Badminton, horses had to jump so big they landed almost “static” and took time to pick up. Maybe that is why such an astonishing number of top-placed horses came from show jumping lines.
The winner Paulank Brockagh is by Barcelona Olympic jumper Touchdown. The sire of Wild Lone (third) comes from Animo. Minos De Petra (fifth) is by a jumping son of Grand Veneur and Billy Beware (sixth) is by the world second ranked sire sire Kannan, the same as Nino Des Buissonnets. Alexander (eighth) is by New Balance, a son of the top Dutch jumping sire Indoctro; Ringwood Skyboy, is by the international jumping Holstein Courage II, a son of the great Capitol I. I could progress similarly through the Badminton top 20, but you’ve got the picture!
