Olympic showjumping is on!

Ignore this post if you don't care about horses. Seriously. It's a big showjumping qualifiers review on the Olympics first phase of SJ. Because I can't contain myself. I'll talk between excited updates about the sport and some of the points on it.

OLN announcers start the qualifiers off with "all eyes are on Canada after the Gold in Beijing." Showjumping has started. They started off with a beautiful speech about the four Canadian SJers, special mention to my favorite Eric Lamaze and before-mentioned Ian Miller. Both brilliant riders along with one of Eric's students. They also gave a very depressing message, "though we have three of the four from Beijing, we are missing one great horse. Talking of course, of the tragic loss of Hickstead."

It is tragic, for he was truly a great horse. You don't often see a horse that good paired with a rider that good, and together they were unstoppable. However, you have to remember that Eric is still an amazing rider and I have no doubt that he will keep on top with his aggressive but quiet riding. No doubt the man will have an emotional ride today, with how much he loved Hickstead and remembering taking what he did with that horse in the last Olympics, and my thoughts and cheers are with them.

"All of the riders I know of either have a personal trainer or frequents the gym. This is not a "the horse does all the work" sport, they are all extremely fit." Exactly! Horse riding is a grueling sport that requires crazy amounts of strength, and it's insulting when a rider hears that the horse does all the work. It's also sad to hear a rider lose credibility when his well-known horse is no longer in the competition.

Alright!

Canada's first round is Jill Henselwood and has one rail down. Young horse, very flighty with a tossy head but inexperience for the animal had him flying around the ring and not paying close enough attention to his hind end. Also slightly overtime so has a total of 5 penalties. All in all a disappointing first round for Canada but still, Jill is an excellent rider with a good, solid leg and gave it a huge effort. The horse was just running out too much. Fingers crossed that she makes it through with the rest of them!

Now watching a man from France on a very good but very flighty horse. If the horse got a trainer to calm him down, he would be a much smoother, more efficient ride. He's freaking right out before each jump and kicking his hind legs WAY out over every jump. This is why SJ annoys me sometimes. Such potential ignored because he's making it over anyways.

Every time I see a hint of a red coat I panic. I'm going to flip over this couch when Lamaze hits the ring...

That being said, all of the colors of coats are screwing me up. It's weird to see greens and oranges in the coats. And off collar colors. It's usually only black, navy, and red.

Watching a guy from Columbia who was coached by Lamaze, and you can tell. Quality riding. This guy needs to teach everyone from everywhere. Needs a bit of work on his landings, though, flopping down in front of the horse's gait at the end. However, his hands are quiet and in control, and never catching the bit or letting the reins flop. Very nice.

There's one person who got 12 faults vs Henselwood's 5. Unfortunately I'm hoping for a lot of those, I'd love to see that woman through to SJ day 2 for sure! Faults are given in time, refusals and rails down. Each fence where a rail goes down is 4 faults, each time 4 seconds over the allotted time or any fraction thereof (1s = 1 fault, 4s = 1 fault, 5s = 2 faults, 8s = 2 faults, etc). Refusals are 4 faults and the rider has a second chance. If the horse refuses a second time they are disqualified. If they completely stop before a fence they have to wait for the all clear to continue, and if they don't they are automatically disqualified.

You're usually only going to see two types of fences in this, that is oxers and verticals. Verticals are thin and hard to judge for the horse, oxers are thick and hard to jump.

This is a vertical. You'll see most horses give their nose a wiggle before these, and bob their head up and down more approaching them to help them focus and judge it properly. The issues with these, regardless of height, is the fact that they are so hard for the horse to see right in front of them, and so the horse has to trust the rider to set them up properly a good distance away, and that is where you'll see the head bob to judge the height. In short: rider communicates the takeoff point, horse controls the height.



(also, interrupting the lesson: They won't stop talking about Hickstead! It's making me want to cry. I miss that horse. So much.)

Anyways. This is an oxer. It's a lot easier for the horse to see, and so they're a lot better at judging the height of it, but it's a lot wider so it's harder to clear. It's harder for the horse because it's bigger, and harder for the rider to keep good form because it's a lot wider of an arc, so harder on the legs and harder to keep the hands soft on the landing. You see a lot of sub-par riders catch the horse in the mouth at the end of these, and so horses with those riders can become unpredictable, tending to want to refuse or prop before these fences for fear of their gums.



Oxers can be filled with slats or decoration as well, which helps solidify it in the horse's eyes. Unfortunately it can be cause for some spooking too, if the decoration or slats are too colorful or decorated. Most pro jumps have a sponsor and BIG design with plants and colors and designs, giving cause for the horses to spook. It gives the competition another challenge in keeping the horses calm and ready for anything.

Here is a look at Calgary's famous Spruce Meadows, showing the crazy decoration that goes into these things.


Up next for Canada is Lamaze's student Tiffany Foster! Beautiful, beautiful rider just like her teacher. Solid leg, great landing and staying comfortably in the center of balance. Heels are driven down to the ground and super quiet hands. Horse well in control and paying close attention. However, two rails down, eight faults. Fingers once more crossed that she will make it through, but it's looking to be more in the bottom scores. Looks like Henselwood has a chance of making it through, lots of people coming through with faults. They told a story about how Foster had actually broken her back years ago, and doctors thought she wouldn't walk again. Who woulda thought that amazing woman would go on to not only compete in Olympic SJ but have beautiful form doing it.

They keep putting so much weight on Hickstead's death, I think Eric really needs this new horse to perform to the fullest. Otherwise, if he doesn't come through clean, they're going to pin it on the death of his horse and add to the horse-does-everything vision. Yikes. No pressure or anything, Eric...

OLN, if you make me miss my hero because of your stupidly long commercial breaks, I am going to rip you a new one. Just so you know. Thrumming my fingers in impatience right now. Okay. Seriously. It keeps cutting back to the Olympics to interview like bikers and stuff and then goes back to commercials. Even just went all "this Olympic games sponsored by...." and then SURPRISE CAR COMMERCIAL. I'm going to flip all sorts of shit. Oh. Okay. It's back.

Watched Swedish jumper Lisen Fredricson and her horse Matrix eat dirt. Scary moment, she went right into the next fence and her horse flailed right through the rails. Luckily horse and rider are up and walking alright and competition is on. Horse was hot and flailing and skittering around the track even before the bell, so a bit of a predictable accident.

Omg I'm going to have a heart attack guys. He's coming up! I'm so excited. I'm going to pee my pants.

As soon as I typed that THEY CUT TO COMMERCIAL AGAIN. DANGIT. Also they left for commercial saying "keep in mind, to compete later today, Canada's Eric Lamaze." I FREAKING KNOW OLN. I KNOW. OKAY. NOW STOP SHOWING COMMERCIALS. PLEASE.

AH. HE'S NEXT. Holy crap. It's 5:30 in the morning, I've stayed up all night for these next two minutes.

Okay. Deep breath. Watching the legend is go.

YES! Clear round, perfect, flawless, measured. Him and Hickstead used to just rip through courses at crazy speeds, but the mare is young and inexperienced. He paced her perfectly, snuck in under the time. I was a little concerned at the slow speed but should have known with this expert rider that all was well. Completely effortless. Though they kept calling the mare "a Hickstead in the making." Again. Too much focus on the horse. Give this mare some credit of her own!

Can't wait to see him in the second round. I'm going to lose it over this competition.

All that's left is to sit back and enjoy Ian Miller's performance, and I can go off and catch a sleep cycle before getting back to writing. While I'm on that subject, tip for you people who are looking for a quick fix for an all-nighter; 4 hours of sleep = 1 sleep cycle. If you set an alarm for 4 hours after going to sleep you'll get one full sleep cycle and will be able to get up better than if you got, say, 5 hours.

Anyways. 6:30am and waiting on Ian Miller.

Oh no. A rail down for Ian. But let's give it up for him breaking a world record! 10 Olympic competition, what an amazing record. But again, keeping all fingers crossed for all Canadians into the next round. Will update on that later. I have to go to bed now. John's girlfriend just came downstairs looking to crash on the couch and was all pissy that I was in the basement instead.

Uh, excuse me, my house, I'll chill wherever I want!

This just in! All four Canadians made it into the next qualifiers! WHOOOOOO!