Officials
Here’s a great compilation of stories (courtesy of freelance writer Katherine Walcott) from some of our well-known officials and riders about what can and will go wrong on cross-country! ~ Emily
Sue Smithson wrote:
In my first 3-day back in the stone ages… Roads and Tracks went through a large cow pasture. The organizers thought they could pile a truckload of excellent alfalfa hay at the back for the cows and leave the gate open for the riders to trot through. The cows soon bored of the hay and of course wandered over to see what was going on. They blocked the gate and I couldn’t get through. Couldn’t “shoo” them away. Had to wait for the next couple of riders to pile up and somebody’s horse was cow broke enough to move the cows so we could get by. Finished the event, but with about 600 time penalties!
Seema Sonnad wrote:
I was doing a novice level event and as I came around the corner to the second to last fence, the fence judge stands up, yelling for me to stop.
So I do thinking there is a hold on course, or someone has fallen. In fact, the porta-john truck is tooling across the field directly in front of the jump! Apparently, they were a little unclear on the concept of horses galloping.
Ceci Flanagan-Snow fondly remembers a few stories:
1. In my very first, very low level, event I was riding a cute chestnut Arab/QH mare who stood about 15.2 (IF I stretched the tape). I was 5’9” tall with 35” inseam legs. Starting to get the picture of a tall, thin person with legs completely wrapped around the barrel of this little horse? I bought her because I’d been badly hurt in a horse accident and was working on re-building my confidence.
Anyway, we went to our little event. The Dressage portion was fine. Then it was time to compete cross country. The jumps were very low (<2’) and lots of little (dry) ditches. Blaze and I were having a lovely romp through the woods when we came to a small ditch that wasn’t QUITE bone dry. She slammed on the brakes, unseating me.In the back of my paralyzed-with-fear brain I could hear my coach’s instructions echoing “for God’s sake, do NOT fall off in the penalty zone!”. So, ever resourceful, I wrapped my arms and legs around her neck as she daintily stepped through the ditch, eyeballing the sides of the track for my mental markers for the end of the penalty zone.The jump judge was doubled over, laughing hysterically! I held on until I was out of the dreaded zone, then dropped my legs to the ground, re-mounted and carried on to a semi-respectable finish.
2. A few years later I had a new horse. O. D. (Overdraught – named for the state of my bank account ever since I got into horses)was a good, steady-eddy type of guy. I was still in the novice area (my preferences being for dressage – but a little eventingin the ‘fossils over fences’ division was ok with me). What I DID NOT know was that, in a previous life, O.D. had Evented at the Prelim. Level. We did our dressage test and were waiting in the warm-up area for the X-Country portion. My coach strongly suggested that I wake my lazy horse up or we’d all die of old age before we finished the course. I did a few gentle rocking horse canters and all was well (keep in mind that I have NO COURAGE WHATSOEVER.) She also said that, if we went clean cross country I was to give a ‘war whoop’when I got back.
Then, it was time to enter the dreaded start box. Once in, OD was a perfect gentleman – UNTIL they started the 10-second count-down. He morphed into a fire-breathing, snorting, surging 1300 pound pile driver just waiting for the ‘go’ signal. I remember hearing my coach screaming, “Grab mane!” I did.
OD’s butt hit the ground has we shot out of the start box.I don’t remember the first couple of jumps or the sharp right turn into the path through the woods. The next thing I remember was seeing a split in the path. The novice track bore left with some small <2’jumps. The Prelim. track bore right, directly into a >4’ drop jump! OD was determined to go to the drop jump.I grabbed the left rein with both hands and literally dragged him around the corner. Keep in mind that, up ‘til now, I’d been a dazed passenger exerting no control over this eventing machine! Luckily he turned and we proceeded along the rest of the course uneventfully – although at warp speed.
When we got back to the finish line, I remembered Alison’s parting instructions. After clearing the final jump, I dropped my reins (duh!), through my arms up in the air and, high on adrenalin, screamed “That’s better than SEX!” There was a TV camera from the local station focused on me at that exact moment and that somewhat exuberant clip made it onto the 5:00 news. It wouldn’t have been SO bad, except that I’d only been married a short time and my (now ‘ex,’ wonder why?) husband saw it on the news. Ooops.
I ‘retired’ from eventing after that episode and now stick to the more stately ‘dressage’ – but I do remember the exhilaration fondly sometimes!
Katherine Walcott added in her own story:
The first event I ever attended, I groomed for a fellow boarder at my barn. It rained three times: when my rider was in dressage, while she went cross-country and before stadium. It’s a wonder I stayed with the sport. While my rider was on cross-county, it poured. Biblical deluge.
She could barely see the jumps much less any direction signs. When she came over the last fence, she had no idea where the finish line was. She headed for a red spot, figuring that there wouldn’t be too many fools standing out in this, that the red spot was me holding her cooler, and that she’d intersect the finish line if she headed toward me. There wasn’t, it was, and she did.
Other times the horse found me. I groomed for a friend who rode a cute, speedy little mare, who loved to go cross-country. Make that adored to go cross-country. By the end of the course, the mare would be hypersonic and my friend would be hyperventilating. The mare would find me in the finish area, gallop up and pull to a stop in front of me. She didn’t say, Now get this clown off my back, but you could tell she was thinking it.
I am new to eventing and in search of a trainer in Area 5, specifically Texas, more specifically, from the Austin area to San Antonio. I have seen too many accidents/falls and thus I am searching for someone who has safety as a top priority. I know that anyone can hang a shingle out and claim to be a trainer so I am really trying to do my homework on this. I have searched the USEA’s website and reviewed their Certified Trainer list. It is limited in my specific search area so I though I would ask for input. Any advise or names of trainers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much.
Pete
You may not have noticed how variable event scheduling has become unless you travel and compete out of your home area. But the topic is really quite interesting to consider. Each eventing area seems to have a culture of its own. Good event organizers find it important to ‘know’ their ‘customers. While the hallmark of events are the characteristics and qualities of the cross-country courses, other aspects of the competition are also part of why or why not a rider chooses to ride in a particular event on a particular weekend. The event schedule is one such aspect.
Being an Area 2 organizer, an eventing official all over the country and a competitor who enjoys riding in events east of the Mississippi, I observe many different ways to set up an event. Clearly, what works for the western areas of 6, 7, 9, and 10 would not have the same appeal on the East Coast. A novice level competitor in Seattle thinks nothing of packing off to ride in a horse trial that is scheduled over three, sometimes four days plus travel time. Whereas a novice level rider in Area 2 would rarely consider enduring such a travel hardship unless for a championship. Indeed, the single day events in Area 2 are quite the norm. Riders typically ship in, compete in all three phases and are home in time for dinner! Maybe it is the ‘sooner I get it done, the better, so I can do the next thing on my list’ mentality that makes this type of schedule attractive to this part of the country.
Initial impressions aside, riders generally do not feel frantically rushed and truly enjoy the satisfaction that the phase just completed is the perfect preparation for the next phase to ride. Single day events have typically been run so that riders have 1 to 2 hours in between each phase, which allows for cooling out, mental downtime, and perhaps a final course walk of SJ or XC. Recently, organizers have begun experimenting with an even more compressed schedule. Riders complete their dressage phase and are then scheduled to show jump within the hour, usually in 45-50 minutes, allowing time for change of tack and warm up. They then finish with the cross country following anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes after the stadium phase. Riders have permission to ride stadium in cross-country attire, and many will use the stadium phase as a “warm-up” for cross-country. Having a few cross country portables for cross country warm up, in addition to the adjustable fences, is about all that horses and riders need before entering the start box.
This type of schedule does require advance planning, particularly when to walk both the jumping courses. And there are always some riders who want more time in-between phases and find their requests granted as long as they ask on their entry forms. The trick to success for riders is preparation and for organizers, adhering to the timetable plus scheduling in those time ‘buffers’ should the unexpected occur. But over the past several years since this type of schedule has been used, it has been met with favorable results. Riders generally like this format.
In addition to the one-day events, Area 2 also has the conventional 2-day horse trial, dressage and one jumping phase on Saturday with the final phase on Sunday. And there are some of the 3-day horse trials that remain well liked too. In case you are wondering how those riders with multiple horses manage, ask Phillip Dutton, Sally Cousins, Stephen Bradley or Sharon White. They like the ability to efficiently get all of their horses done in one day AND they all have the ground support to keep on schedule. Plus the organizers are willing to work with their preferences whether it is doing one horse entirely before going to the next or getting one phase done on all horses before proceeding. Either way can work and does! But this timetable is not for every rider or every organizer.
All organizers and riders are working towards the same goal of the event being a safe and successful one. But there are definitely reasons to look outside the box for a new idea that just might make the competition run more efficiently for both groups. Organizers do care about your thoughts and appreciate it when you share them on the competitor evaluation form. This is one of the best ways to communicate with a particular organizer what you like about their event as well as what you wish was different. By working together there is a greater chance for even the best event to be even better!
Also share your thoughts by replying about which format you prefer and why. As you rank events, how much does the scheduling influence your choice of where to compete?
Submitted by Gretchen Butts
Approximately 12 1/2 minutes. Please leave a comment to tell us what you think.
Pick up any equestrian magazine, review the Table of Contents and almost assuredly, you will find a topic related to injuries of horses….tendons, stifles, backs and so on. But how often do you find something written about rider injuries? Let’s look at this in more detail..All of equestrian sports are based on the relationship between two beings: horses and riders. Often injuries curtail the development of this relationship and slow the training progress. Much attention has been placed on horse injuries and health issues rather than rider injuries especially injuries not based on accidents. It is hard to believe that riders, like any other athletes are not plagued with health challenges. Yet, no national or international association, medical research group, equestrian magazine seem to pay continuous attention to this topic. Rider health is definitely a missing and critical part of the relationships’ success.
One of my students brought this to my attention, herself the recent victim of a spinal stress injury affecting her disks and potentially impacting her riding career from this point forward. Daphne is a smart gal, a learned academician, doctor of neurology and very much of a proactive person in taking charge of a problem and finding the optimal solution. Check out her own blog site (http://leimone.blogspot.com/) as she frustratingly sorts out her predicament. In our discussion of this recent development and how this will alter her spring competitive schedule, we both realized how little information exists in the monthly sources of our riding discipline.
Daphne has declared this purpose to put her personal blog into perspective: to bring attention to the topic of rider health challenges and to establish a conversation among all involved in equestrian sports. Furthermore, it will be interesting to survey how widespread rider injuries that are (accident based or not), and how these injuries affect training –physically and psychologically. Her blog is especially interested in discussing the recovery process and the psychology of recovery.
So this would be a call to anyone who has faced the problem of a rider injury—what it was, how you coped, and how it has influenced your riding to date. The emphasize is non-trauma rider injury. Everybody has fallen off and gotten a bloody nose, complained and recovered but the repetitive sub-trauma activity that creates long term implications is something nobody really talks about. Perhaps to be thought of it as the ‘carpal tunnel syndrome’ - rider’s version. Share on the USEA site, visit Daphne’s site if you wish but help us get this topic out of the shadows.
-Gretchen Butts
If you are then you are not alone. Whether you are an official, a steward or a competitor confusion does exist as to which bits are legal and allowed in national competitions.
The USEF Eventing Technical Committee has taken the stance that eventing in the U.S. must follow FEI Eventing Rules which in turn follow the FEI Dressage rules where applicable. As we have seen, rules can change during any given FEI year!
The FEI, according to emails sent last year to Axel Steiner, Janine Malone and finally Linda Zang who followed this issue up does NOT recognize the Butterfly Baucher bit as being legal. Our USEF national Dressage rules do. Conversely the FEI now allow the KK snaffle with the vertical small disc in the center of the roller piece, but the USEF National Dressage Committee does not. The FEI also does not allow the Dr. Bristol. Both Dressage and Eventing disciplines allow the Dr Bristol in our U.S. national competitions
My suggestion is that for USEF National Eventing Competitions we accept the same bits that USEF National Dressage competitions do in the interest of keeping it simple. After all the majority of our members do not compete in FEI competitions but they do cross over the discisplines at a national level. Once competitors get to the stage of entering an International Eventing competition one hopes that they know the rules or at least consult someone who does.
I would be interested in knowing how the competitors feel.
Loris Henry
FEI C Eventing Judge
USEF S Judge
Bad Behavior has blocked 336 access attempts in the last 7 days.