How do they choose the horses for Modern Pentathlon?

[DazzlePaintedBattlePants]

Just watched the German competitor leave the arena in tears at the Tokyo Olympics after a fairly horrific showjumping round, where the horse was being a complete sod. I’m fairly sure the horses are assigned randomly to the competitors but where do they come from? Do the organisers phone up their mates and ask for the stroppiest horses going?

I get that horsemanship is obviously the important skill to demonstrate but the horses are a fairly large confounding variable😂

@Rapidash

She rode appallingly. She missed every time - meaning that she couldn't judge the distance required so that the horse could jump the fence, so I'm not surprised he said no thank you.

I've seen that tense shoulders, crying, and everything going horribly wrong many times - usually it's 12 year old children though - not people apparently capable of jumping 1m20 courses.

I loved the grey though - he was an absolute gem! I'd love a go on that one

I adored that grey too, beautiful moves.

The beautiful grey was called Jhon.

I didn’t see one of them Pat the horse after their round.

If the horse had been physically injured in its first round, it would have had to have been retired, maybe a distressed horse should be considered as injured.

@JayAlfredPrufrock

I didn’t see one of them Pat the horse after their round.

Lots of them definitely did.

Seems a miracle that the German rider got that horse over the fences she did, given the state of her from the start. Would be very interesting to know how she handled her 20 minute familiarisation session.

I did hear that the German competitor could have selected a different horse after seeing its performance in the first round, but it would have been from the reserve pool of unselected horses and she chase not to 🤷‍♀️

Chose

@JayAlfredPrufrock

I didn’t see one of them Pat the horse after their round.

some did. the ones who did better in the riding part around the course.

Her mistake was not retiring the horse as soon as it was obvious that the poor thing was mega distressed.

That’s good

I wonder if the same horses will be used for the men tomorrow.

I did wonder what had happened in that 20 minutes before she entered the arena. The rider had clearly got herself worked up into quite a panic and the horse knew it.

Quite a few of the riders were treating the horse like a piece of equipment - no rapport with their horse, jumping straight off at the end with no pat or thank you to the groom. Horrible.

Kate French patted her horse I noticed.

Amazing thread, I've learnt so much.

I came on here with a view that it was really bad luck for the poor German lady to get a dud horse and the whole process was completely unfair.

Just shows how wrong you can be. Such a shame for the poor horse.

I think they do use the same horses.

@JaffavsCookie

The german girl rode appallingly, really unsympathetic and very self centred. He needed a rub down the neck and sweet nothings whispering in his ear. We used to do this at uni competitions, i had the fun of being on the GB uni team a couple of years on the go ( many moons ago) and we would rock up and jump courses of similar difficulty to the modern pentathletes with 15 mins warm up on a strange horse. Some of them look like they hardly practice this phase.

Yup anyone who tried competing in the BUSA league has done pretty much the same thing and mostly people did much better- although there were definitely some car crashes there too

I doubt that horse is having nightmares

Well my Show jumping pony jumped for fun and was a real school master and had (previous to me) taken his young rider to the top.

He had the most amazing temperament, was bomb proof, Yet after I sold him they put him on loan to someone who took him in the ring and fucked him up, even managed to tip him over, he never jumped again and was quite flighty after that too

They are sensitive animals that shouldn't be treated and ridden in the way some of them were.

@Feduperika

I wonder if the same horses will be used for the men tomorrow.

Yes they use the same horses

I'll be there to drool over the lovely grey and to hope Saint Boy is back again

@PricklesAndSpikes

The beautiful grey was called Jhon.

Yes dd told me he was called Jon

And Beauty was lovely too

In fact the calibre of horses was pretty good on the whole

I was horrified at the bit it was wearing. It seemed a bit much to put a gag in a horse being ridden by random people. No wonder he wouldn't go forwards.

It must be very difficult going in on a horse that has had its confidence knocked in an earlier round that day or the day before

@Bryonyshcmyony

Most of the horses were absolute saints That horse went badly in the first round and the German rider would have had a chance to change her ride, not sure why she didn't.

Some of them come from the UK under the auspices of Jabeena Maslin who has forgotten more about show jumping than I'll ever know.

God, that’s a blast from the past! Jabeena was my instructor for a bit She used to come and do weekly clinics at our yard and was terrifying I think I did more prep in the lead up to a lesson with her than I did before competing!

Are you from the SW as well..?

Apparently the horse has been removed from the pool for tomorrow.

Now imagining him in a pool.

Where is everybody watching the showjumping element of the MP?
I saw Kate French and a clip of the German rider plus Claire Balding trying to explain why sitting on a horse sobbing then expecting it to jump wasn't a good plan.
I'd love to watch a few more of the men's though.

I'd have thought that to get to this standard you'd have to get loads of practice at coaxing strange horses round a course. I had visions of them spending four years rocking up at various local riding schools and asking for their stroppiest horse.

While I realise it’s high stakes for the rider, my sympathies are entirely with the horse.
Goodness knows what had happened during her warm up as she came in already sobbing and the horse was clearly so distressed and should have been withdrawn.

Trying to force him to jump when something was clearly wrong, whipping him and then her coach actually punching the horse - awful.

I do understand how disappointed she must have been but if you’re going to ride horses you should have compassion. When you see the way the show jumpers and event riders treat their horses, they always put the horse first.