 |
[RC] Overridden - WEG - eliminations - Leonard.LiesensHi,
It is interesting to
read all comments on this subject.
Jus a few of my
own...
- a championship is
a race, not just a regular 100miles or a multi-day where each individual enters
the ride with his/her own objective and strategy. Here you have the pressure
coming from the chef d'equipe and from your partners in the team. Not all teams
have the same pressure on their shoulders, some are still there just because it
is nice to participate and this is good as well.
- the management of
the horse still belong to the rider. That's true, but don't forget that in many
teams, the federation considers that the horse is "leased" to the team. This
makes a big difference and can create a lot of pressure between the rider/owner
of the horse and the management staff of the team. Chefs d'equipes (I mean of
leading nations) come too a championship with a goal in mind... collecting
medals. They try to select the best possible individuals (rider and horse) and
prepare them for the deadline. They define also a riding strategy (like a coach
in football or ) and expect the rider to listen to their "orders". Sure that we
try to keep this principe "horse welfare is paramount" in the back of our head,
but the pressure is there and there is nothing to do to avoid that. Pressure
comes from your team, your chef d'equipe, your ego, the other competitors,
etc... The one who never made part of such an event can have diffuclties to
understand the whole process
- lameness... all
high level horses are lame!!! if they are trotted on a circle on a hard surface
or in deep sand or worse if they got flexion tests, most of them are slightly
lame. Why? Because they are champions they can manage the small problems, have a
better pain resistance, because their riders know about their weaknesses, and so
on. The good care and management (veterinarian, farrier, good riding, proper
conditioning) allow the horse to be ready and sound on the 'd'
day.
But everything can
happen and this is beyond the control of the rider. Then the horse ends up lame.
This is not related with riding the horse into the ground.
Examples : at
Aachen, a lot of paement and uneperienced riders/horses on this surface... they
a lot of falls or just slipping. Horse slips once, ok, twice, ok... after ten of
them, tendon strain, horse lame. Bad turn coming from a dirt road onto pavement,
horse slips and fall... lame.
A horse with some
arthtitic problems can support 80Kms and suddently become lame at the next
vetcheck. who's responsible?
WEG in several days
: please note that multi-days in Europe have the worst completion rate (Montcuq,
Barcelona). I'm not sure that this is the best way. 160Kms is still the ultimate
distance that every rider consider w<ith the highest
respect.
Horse not in a good
day. I noticed also the good horse management of Peter Toft and Meg Wade (and
the Aussies in general who vere unfortunate at Aachen). It deserved the highest
respect for the way they managed their horses and brought them to the finish
line. Europeans (I mean most of them) have lost this attitude, that's true. THey
will not take the time to stop for 10 minutes at the water point trying to relax
the horse for giving the chance to drink.
Voila... just my
thoughts
Leonard, Belgium
|