Yesterday was cross-country at Wits End Horse Trials in Ontario, Canada. [Results] Bruce Lamb was having a nice round with his horse Gamble, when he mistakenly thought he missed jump 6. At least he had his course map handy! NOTE: some foul language involved, you may want to turn your speakers down.
Bruce explains:
WARNING: Lots of swearing on this one. Gamble was great — but I can’t count. I got over fence #6 and then started looking for fence #6. I could see fence #7, but I needed to find fence #6. Eventually, I pulled out my map and realized that I had already done fence 6 and I screamed off to the Beaver (fence #7). But Gamble did everything I asked of him. Fence #5 (“Into Space”), Fence #9b (4’6″ brush drop), Fence 19 – drop into water) — all no problems. He was a star — it was just pilot error that as the problem. My mental error cost me 70 seconds. If I hadn’t screwed up, I would have had zero time penalties instead of 26.8 (0.4 seconds per second over optimal time) and would have been 2nd place instead of 10th. I didn’t follow the procedure I normally did in memorizing the route and it cost me! We’ll chalk this one up to experience — and I will ensure that I have two ways of remembering the course just in case I mess up on the first one.
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Horse Nation shared a video over the weekend that was took good not to repost here. These gentle giants raced across two furlongs Saturday at Lingfield Park Racecourse in Surrey, England to raise awareness for the breed. What’s not to love about fast-flying feathers?!
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