It feels slightly anticlimactic to have the weekend’s US CIC3* wrapped up Saturday night, but nonetheless there is still great eventing action going on this Sunday around Eventing Nation. Coren’s post has links to all the live scores, so scroll down for your viewing pleasure.
Here is a video from Saturday at Morven Park when Sally Cousins and Robber Barron rode through a freak hail storm that cropped up in Virginia. Rain, snow, or hail–nothing can stop Sally Cousins and The Robber Barron.
On an unrelated note, Ali’s win at Galway was one of the more interesting scoring reversals in recent memory because it was related to the application of national versus FEI rules rather than an interpretation of the rules. Under national rules (which were originally applied), Ali would have been given 2 time penalties for a false start. However, since the competition was a CIC3*, FEI rules applied, and they don’t have a false start penalty. An EN reader looked up the FEI rules and posted them in the comments to Coren’s post:
FEI rules – article 529 (1.1) and (1.3)
1. Starting
1.1 ATHLETES at the start of the Cross Country Obstacles phase must be
under the control of a starter and may not deliberately start until instructed
to do so, under penalty of elimination, at the discretion of the Ground Jury.
The horse does not have to stand absolutely immobile, but the athlete must
not get any advantage from a flying start. Each athlete should be given
reasonable warning before the time he is due to start, but it is the athlete’s
responsibility to ensure that he is ready to start at the correct time.…
1.3 IF AN ATHLETE starts early on Cross Country, his time will be
recorded from the moment he crossed the start line.For the full rules on starting see page 51 and p.52 or the FEI rules
For me, the key point is that the rules were properly applied in the end, and everyone can go home feeling like the person who won should have won. The fact that it took the scoring an hour and a half to reflect that is a lot better than getting things wrong permanently.
Some of the confusion was created when the online scores went from provisional to final and then back to provisional. Scott from StartBox scoring explained to me that there is an automatic timer on the online scores to set them as ‘provisional’ until 45 minutes after the last score is posted. After this period for inquiries, the scores go to ‘final’ and if any changes are then made they automatically go back to ‘provisional’ for another 45 minutes, which explains the live scores happenings of Saturday afternoon. StartBox does an absolutely brilliant job with the live scores and I appreciated the explanation from Scott.
Go eventing.
