I tried to think what I was going to say but in the end I have sat down at my computer without a thought to work from and I am typing from the heart.
I was all set Saturday with the blog written when the unbelievable news was released that Philippa Humphreys had died from injuries received during a fall at Jersey Fresh CCI***. I was a competitor myself and since then I have watched my friends and my daughter compete at the highest levels of the sport, and these continuing deaths are bewildering, personally terrifying and gut wrenching. I didn’t know Philippa personally as I had Jordan McDonald, but I had seen her around and admired her distinctive coloured horse. I was glued to EN’s twitter feed. and although I realized it must have been a bad fall with such a long stop on course, her death just had NOT occurred to me. When I turned on my iPad later in the day to be alerted to the tragic news I was deeply shocked. I felt so sorry for her family, it is an eventing mother’s worst nightmare come true and I know eventing families all around the world shuddered anew when they read the desperately sad reports on Saturday evening. The death of Skylar Decker’s horse in the two star was overshadowed by the human loss, but it is another tragedy laid at the door of our sport this past weekend.
I wonder if the long format had saving graces? Did it stop a lot of horses/riders from competing because of the gruelling task of getting a horse fit for a three day? Did less people compete therefore at the CCI level? Was it that statistically there were less falls from less starters on less competitions? The classes were certainly much smaller but in the UK the divisions and classes at the long format were as large as those we see now in NA and I don’t remember all these terrible accidents.
One thing I do know from my own personal experience, the type of horse we rode long format is different from the horses we ride today. There was less warmblood in them and they were generally feistier and more difficult to control in the dressage. Was that because we were not as good as the riders eventing today? I don’t think so, I think the vast improvements in the dressage phase are in large part due to the different type of horse we are using. The thoroughbreds who make it to the top levels of eventing today are very calm and in many cases with very good movement in order to be competitive against the warmbloods, they are not your average thoroughbred but rather the exceptions to the rule. The horses we ride cross country now don’t argue nearly so much, they are a ‘type’ that are bought originally for their athleticism, movement and obedience. Eventers had to be brave clever jumpers above all else, now they have to be just as good at much more difficult dressage tests and much more technical show jumping. Is that taking away from the fast thinking independent jumper that used to excel at the sport but may now be mentally unable to be sufficiently regulated to excel at dressage tests that include collection and flying changes?
I am aware I am getting old and my own experience is in the dark dim past. but I seem to see younger and younger horses at the upper levels. The horses seem to go up the levels like lightening sometimes going up two levels in a year. In ‘my time’, we did each level for a year. There was no Florida circuit and both in Canada and in the UK I produced my horses to do a level a year with most of them doing two years at Prelim because that was the level at which the horse learned the most about it’s job. Who does that nowadays? If a horse does well at Prelim in Florida it will probably go Intermediate later the same year. If not, it will certainly go Intermediate the following year. There is a great deal more ‘peer?’ pressure to upgrade as soon as you are winning or even before. Michael Jung rode a nine year old at WEG in 2014 and she was brilliant, but surely she should be seen as the startling exception and not the age that we want to see horses on championship four star courses.
The other thing that worries me is the time on the courses seems to be getting harder and harder to make. The very technical combinations require the riders to slow down and set up very exact lines. To make up for this they are galloping the big open fences without taking a pull in order to save a second. Big tables constitute a high percentage of those open galloping fences and big tables constitute a high percentage of the rotational falls and subsequent fatalities. At the ERM Chatsworth this past weekend they touted the fact that only one (and now two) horse and rider combinations have EVER made the time. Is that the right attitude for the TD and the course designer to have? Something for Chatsworth to be proud of? Not in my book. Surely the time should be doable and it should be doable safely, not by riding like a lunatic.
And while I am ranting, this new fad for pointy sharp topped jumps and cabins going into water and down onto drops is just begging to bruise and batter back legs. We all know that if the horse takes a look into water or a drop landing there is a good chance he is going to tap his stifles, that is why those fences have always traditionally been ROUND on top but now they are making them to high points, WHY DO THAT AT A FENCE THAT YOU KNOW THEY MIGHT EASILY SCRAPE THEIR STIFLES ON? To me they are nothing but stifle wreckers and this new course building trend needs to be nipped in the bud.
I think this past weekend has been bad for our sport, bad for Jersey Fresh, tragic for those personally involved and nothing about it merits the name ‘sport’. I could not bring myself to even look up the results on Sunday, I had absolutely no wish to even go there in my mind, as far as I was concerned, the event was abandoned on Saturday. R.I.P. Philippa, our hearts are very heavy with your loss.
