To think that equestrian events are ridiculous

This is an Icelandic horse. I can’t see this being able to go round an eventing course.

Most of it is ridiculous if you stop to think about it.

I

No Icelandic horses compete in eventing, show jumping or dressage at Olympic level so not sure what the point is?

In awe of the show jumpers. Can’t wait to jump some cross poles later 😂

Sorry, the cropped quote should say “with solo turnout”.

I was once given a private lesson in a very well trained dressage horse (county level though not Olympic standard)
I spent half the lesson getting the bloody thing to move at all!

When I went to work for a classical dressage rider I'd previously been riding 5 horses per day for work as well as competing my own in local level things including dressage and doing pretty well. I also couldn't get the horses to move at first and then couldn't get them to turn a circle, they'd head diagonally across the school instead 😆. I remember being so embarrassed but was assured this happens to nearly everyone at first.

One of mine has to go out on his own because he bullies the others. As long as he can see them he's OK. He prefers people to horses anyway.

Keeping horses with no solo turnout is terribly cruel for animals

To pick up on this side point, my horse has preferred being on her own. She gets stressed when crowded by other horses, or being unable to get away from them, so she goes out on her own. She’s been out with other horses but always grazes alone. So she has the next best thing which is horses in the next field with whom she can interact, but from whom she can walk away and they can’t follow her.

She regularly sleeps flat out in the field, deeply asleep. Horses, being flight animals, don’t do that unless they’re relaxed and feeling secure.

As with so many of the assumptions and statements made on this thread (usually by people who don’t know much about horses), it’s not a one size fits all rule. Horses for courses if you will.

And I don’t know why a previous poster was so denigrating about the idea that horses like music. My old horse used to nod along in time with the yard radio and my current horse knows ‘her’ freestyle music. She perks up when she hears it and powers off down the centre lines, but then she does love to show off!

This might be true that horses are the stars, and they deserve to be at least on par with the riders, but Olympics are for human competition.

Well put it this way you wouldn't get the horse to perform like that, nether would I and I have 35 years experience including some classical dressage experience, let alone be able to train or to that level in the first place

The worst thing about the Olympics so far is the amount of ignorant shite on social media about the equestrian events.

Fair play to all posters responding calmly and informatively about dressage and horses, all the faux ignorance - or to be honest real ignorance which I understand isn't people's fault - just pisses me off.

Stupid auto correct does not like the term eventer or eventing there!

During the first lockdown, a pile of riders took part in various team (even terms vs SJ vs dressage vs racers etc) challenges as a fund raiser for the NHS. One of the challenges was the plank. --Oliver Townend— Olympic gold medalist Oliver Townend planked for 15 odd minutes. Not going to be able to do that if you’re not already very fit!

As with all sports, fitness is honed to the sport - I’d bet your average even term for example could run a mile faster than a weightlifter, but obviously neither are going to be as a long distance runner as they specifically train for that. Riders have to have tremendous core strength as just ‘sitting there’ needs a fair amount of muscle tone - compare the riders position to that of a beginner, who struggles to sit up and not fall off even at a walk, let alone a more active pace. For XC, try crouching, legs apart for 10-12 mins (average length of a 4L or 5 XC course, this time was shortened for Tokyo for horse welfare). Then do (or imagining doing) that balanced on something constantly moving with regular large jolts. IIRC Sam Watson (an Irish team rider) mentioned on an equiratings podcast that his heart rate will go 200bpm + during XC.

Who has done that?

It’s a bit like saying gravity does all the work in the diving events.

Sorry to hijack your comment but this kind of contradict other horsey posters claiming that horses want to do it all by themselves and just love dancing to music.

Now I know you're being deliberately obtuse, OP. Nothing that that poster says contradicts the facts that horses display all the movements of dressage in the wild, only at a less refined level, or that many horses enjoy the process of learning to produce such movements on a rider's cue.

As for relative fitness...let's see a rider take on an archer or a golfer, shall we? I know who my money would be on.

‘The horse does all the work’
So if I put you on a dressage trained horse you’d be good to go then??
I’m not a dressage fan but this kind of comment is nonsense.

Erm, as Olympic sports go, I think you'll find that the Equestrian events have been part of the Olympics for rather longer than many of the current sports. So it would be a very recent decision to decide that they no longer 'belonged' in the competition because those with neither interest nor understanding think they should be there.

Or is that ok because it's 'new ' money ?

You are not wrong.

All about 'old' money showing off their very expensive horses and not allowing 'new' money in, let alone 'common' people.

It's all about the horses as well. Beautiful animals. But very much a 'haves vs a have nots' event. I won't even call it a sport since the horse does all of the work.

@MyAnacondaMight as an ex modern pentathlete, I can absolutely agree. My dad used to call it "blood sports". Symptom of a change from riders to swimmers IMO. Painful to watch!