DeRosa Daily Equestrian Olympic News
Horsesdaily Veteran Olympic Reporter Diana DeRosa Brings Us Into Her World

A Shortened Distance is a New Kind of Three Days

Tryon and Poggio have been competing for over ten years and she remembers when the cross country was 13½ minutes long with the same amount of jumping efforts.  “That extra time gives the horse a chance to gallop off the bridle and relax,” explained Tryon, “but in this course there was no chance to relax.”

This course was not the type of course that these horses are used to because all the jumps came up so fast and for some it rattled their horses, which was the case for Poggio.  “It made my horse hyper sensitive.”

Although Gina only had 16.80 time penalties she agreed that the course “rode like we thought it was going to ride.  It was impossible to make the time.  We expected everything to come at you fast and it did.   It was a challenging course but fair.”

McKinlaigh was helped along because “he has an enormous stride,” explained Gina who added that this combined with his rideability made a huge difference.  “My goal was to be as smooth as possible and to use the turns to set up the jumps.” 

Gina explained that McKinlaigh has the ability to get a rhythm and keep it even approaching and over the jumps, which means he loses less time than most horses negotiating the fences.   “He can jump well from his galloping stride.”

While Gina had a lot of confidence in her mount, when she heard that Poggio was eliminated after the fall “I felt a lot of pressure and I knew I had to go out and get a clean round.”  Even though she knew they could do that, she also wanted to be cautious and not take anything for granted.  “I paid attention to every jump.”

Phillip agreed with both Gina and Amy but he had an added problem because he rode near the end of the field of 68 horses.  “The ground was getting cut up by the end of the day.  That and the shortened course made it hard to get in a good rhythm and stay there.”

Dutton explained that it wasn’t just the fences that posed the problems but the undulating terrain and the footing.  Yet another problem was in their training.  Originally they’d been told they would be jumping a 10 minute course but it wasn’t until after they arrived that they found out it was only eight minutes.  Had they known that they might have trained their horses differently.

It Was A Great Day for Eventing