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😂

I'm a fencer and actually have no problem with taking athletes and teaching them to fence - most are clearly trained to do a few things very well, which is all you need for 1 hit! Would probably struggle against a pure fencer over 15, 5 could go either way but in 1 hit epee a well trained pentathlete will do well!

Riding is different, but you could learn to ride well as a fit young adult, assuming you were willing to prioritise it. Plenty of unfit 40 year olds learn so it's all about priorities!

@randomsabreuse

I'm a fencer and actually have no problem with taking athletes and teaching them to fence - most are clearly trained to do a few things very well, which is all you need for 1 hit! Would probably struggle against a pure fencer over 15, 5 could go either way but in 1 hit epee a well trained pentathlete will do well!

Riding is different, but you could learn to ride well as a fit young adult, assuming you were willing to prioritise it. Plenty of unfit 40 year olds learn so it's all about priorities!

You will never learn to be a really good rider unless you've done it when young

You can learn to fence and shoot as an older person though.

You can still learn to be competent enough to take a schoolmaster around a course well within its capabilities as an adult.

I know a modern pentathlete.

Riding weakest sport. Bit scared of horses. Worked really hard as very committed and incredibly driven by winning. Improved massively.

I was heart broken for that pooe horse, spurs, whips, punch in the face.........

Punch in the face? I missed that.

Based on all the reports, I expected the horse to have been punched in the face. Instead it was a ‘punch’ with the fleshy underside of your hand on the bum… which would have been a lot more like a pat on the bum.

Not saying the coach didn’t deserve to be removed for all the things she told the rider to do, but the ‘punch’ wasn’t really the punch it has been made out to be.

The riders should all be better though, and despite some of the horses being accomplished, I wonder whether these were the right horses to choose?!? I mean… using normal riding horses with normal bits that can jump 1.2m fences is one thing (they exist!!!) — using proper ex professional show jumping horses another. Many of them are very ‘hot’, regardless of the age, and I wouldn’t put people on them who don’t ride horses every single day. And I’m sure these people don’t do that.

I have never heard of a pentathlon before.
How does it work? Are these riders not experienced?

Sheesh @MyLifeNow20. Google is your friend.

@MyLifeNow20

I have never heard of a pentathlon before. How does it work? Are these riders not experienced?

For both pentathlons the idea is that the competitors are supposed to be very good at 5 disciplines but not as good as the best people who only do any single discipline....so yes they should be very good riders but not at elite showjumping standard.For me the big difference is that if you misuse a foil or epee, then you may hurt yourself or your opponent but the tool is only a tool and can't be hurt...same with a gun. Horses are not tools and should be respected as living sentient beings, not "things" who can be made to do someones will by abuse.

Cant believe I have never heard of it! so They are not these peoples horses?

nope, there are a pool of horses and you draw a number to pick your horse.

@Lightkeeper

Based on all the reports, I expected the horse to have been punched in the face. Instead it was a ‘punch’ with the fleshy underside of your hand on the bum… which would have been a lot more like a pat on the bum.

Not saying the coach didn’t deserve to be removed for all the things she told the rider to do, but the ‘punch’ wasn’t really the punch it has been made out to be.

The riders should all be better though, and despite some of the horses being accomplished, I wonder whether these were the right horses to choose?!? I mean… using normal riding horses with normal bits that can jump 1.2m fences is one thing (they exist!!!) — using proper ex professional show jumping horses another. Many of them are very ‘hot’, regardless of the age, and I wouldn’t put people on them who don’t ride horses every single day. And I’m sure these people don’t do that.

What i saw from the footage was ZERO care or concern for the horse. Just two women who put winning over everything. I'd like to slap both of them hard and ban them from competitive events permanently

If it had been my horse I would have decked the German rider.

But what are the chances of the female and male British gold medal winners drawing the same horse?

Serendipity

I'm not sure there are that many horses who will happily hunt round a 1.2m track in a simple snaffle with an inexperienced rider on board tbh - 1.2m is what, pony club B test standard jumping portion?

I competed my pony in PC Open eventing, which is 1.05-1.10 in new money? That felt fucking huge at times, and I was riding multiple horses in addition to my own and had an instructor/coach on hand at all times.

The spurs in modern pentathlon definitely need to go though - I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've genuinely needed to use them.

Actually, I've just looked it up and PC B test jumping is 90cm

I'm sure it used to be bigger!

godmum56

What i saw from the footage was ZERO care or concern for the horse. Just two women who put winning over everything. I'd like to slap both of them hard and ban them from competitive events permanently

I don’t disagree with that. But the punch people talk about is not what people think about when headlines say she punched a horse.

@Rapidash

I'm not sure there are that many horses who will happily hunt round a 1.2m track in a simple snaffle with an inexperienced rider on board tbh - 1.2m is what, pony club B test standard jumping portion?

I competed my pony in PC Open eventing, which is 1.05-1.10 in new money? That felt fucking huge at times, and I was riding multiple horses in addition to my own and had an instructor/coach on hand at all times.

The spurs in modern pentathlon definitely need to go though - I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've genuinely needed to use them.

Well, I wouldn’t put inexperienced riders on potentially hot horses with harsh bits. That’s just asking for trouble…

Ok, it might be hard to find 18 such horses in Japan… which again tells me they should lower the fences maybe or just switch to mountain bikes…

As a non horsey person it felt like a demonstration of all the different ways of making a mistake and really made me appreciate the skill of the eventing and showjumping teams.

I did like it when they said that Jo always learns a few words so that she can talk to the horse in the language of wherever it's from
That seems better than the German approach.

I found it interesting that some of the clearly less experienced riders sat quietly and didn’t try to bully the horse and they got round with a some faults but not much fuss, so it was achievable with the right mindset.

I think the time allowed for the course was questionable, especially with the rain at the start of the women’s competition and the heat and humidity. It encouraged reckless riding.

It was easier for some in the men’s competition because they rode horses who had successfully jumped the exact same course the day before! Essentially the women did the hard bit with those horses and it made it look as though the men were a better standard. That made me a bit cross, they could have made the course a bit different or changed the obstacles.

I’ve noticed before in Olympics events (e.g. women’s snowboard slopestyle in Korea springs to mind) that women’s events either get used as a guinea pig or are run in less safe conditions because they want to schedule the men’s on days with higher viewing times, like the weekend, etc. and don’t change the schedule.

With regard to having all elements of the modern pentathlon in the same venue, I noticed that there were sudden loud noises coming from presumably other venues nearby. Not great for horses trying to focus on the jumps.

@Feduperika

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

What does your statement imply?

She rode like crap and got the result she got, it's the olympics ffs. if she could ride well she wouldn't have had such a disaster.

I don't understand why you want to bring the sex of the rider into the debate.

Well it was interesting to see that they had different horses for the men. The men were better than the women - in terms of actually getting round. Stronger and braver I think not necessarily better riders.

I didn't see a single example of a horse being ridden well and still refusing to jump or behaving badly. Most of the horses were absolute saints and well capable of jumping 120, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of horses. Drilling down, a lot were older European horses that had gone to Japan five or so years ago. The Japanese did pretty well in the equestrian events altogether, so can't really criticise the calibre of horses.

*some different horses

@snowqu33n - agree; the riders who acknowledged they didn’t know it all and get busy with their hands and spurs did much better - the first rider on John had reins like washing lines - the horse carried her around beautifully on auto pilot.