"" George Morris ""= Great International Show Jumping Rider and Coach ( Trainer of both Rider and Horse ). You American International Show Jumping Riders, "" CAN RIDE SHOW JUMPERS "" Very, Very Well "". Breezie Madden etc, etc, etc We Need The Breeders to Breed the Top Jumping Horses. There are plenty of Riders Worldwide but not many Top Horses for them riders to ride. No Great Horses anymore. Top jumping horses Don't Last Long Now at the Top. Burn out, and That Dame Sand jumping surfaces. Not Natural like Grass / Turf surfaces. Sand is Hard on the front Joints of horse. Q. Why not More wood type surfaces ?!! And Replace every year. I Don't like Sand a horse jumping constantly on Sand affects their Joints over time. Only commonsense. More GRASS Based NATURAL forget about rain. Get your Arena workers to look after it like Aachen and Dublin and Hucksters. Them three have great Arenas. But do you know what's under Aachen and RDS Dublin Arenas ? Special Drainage Systems. And Multi-Layers of graded stone to drain the rain. AAchen CHIO 5 star show in July each year. Had a cut away model of the drainage system / surface / Arena. On display at Aachen you can see a photo in Google Images. Sand is an Artificial surface not Natural for The Horses to be Jumping On, week in, weekout. Wreck's their Joints ( Vet's Bills !! Wrecks Your pocket ).
Hickstead was only 16.0 hh (2008 Olympic Gold with Eric Lamaze (CAN). Jappeloup (SF) was only 15.2 1/2 hh (1.59 m) he and Pierre Durand (FRA) a Lawyer by profession, were Olympic Champions (1988 Gold) and 1968 Olympic Champions were the full Thoroughbred ex-race horse " SNOWBOUND " ( 16.0 hh ) and the great William Steinkraus (USA). 1968 Olympic Silver in Mexico at altitude was the smallest and in opinion the Great ever, an Irish bred pony (14.2 hh - some say 14.3 hh), called " STROLLER " age 16 and ridden by 21 y.o. Marion Coakes (GBR). 1968 Olympic Bronze was Mister Softee an Irish bred chestnut gelding ridden by a great horseman David Broome (GBR). That 1968 Olympic Track ( course) the 2nd round was the biggest ever built. Eight (8) Puissance type fences. Google Image Search for: 1968 Olympic fence and see Bernie Traurig standing in between a recreation of the " massive oxer " that the 2nd round horses & riders were asked to jump. Shouldn't have been allowed. Snowbound & W.S. did not clear that oxer but it was their only fault. Stroller "had the Guts to attempt the Massive Oxer" but had it down and an other (8 faults in the 2nd Rnd). So Stroller & M.C. was only 4 faults behind the Gold medalists.
So many Grand Prix horses, back then all the way up until now, are in the 15.0hhs. Laura Kraut had a horse that was 15.1, and my Grand Prix horse is 15.1 also.
Our solo who was ridden by Australian Bill roycroft was only around 15hh. He was tiny. An Olympic horse who competed in everything. He was the little horse who could
As a child I saw D’ Inzeo at Wembley - he were very cruel to his horses .He kicked The Rock in the stomach after not going clear. Would not get away with that now, this was in the early sixties. He was not unique, there was much abuse in those days sorry to say from some British riders too. Dirty tack, cruel bits, and out of sight some very nasty training methods .
Aaawww, The Rock was a favorite of mine, that's awful. Don't even want to think of what happened to him after this round. I always thought these top people were, you know, nice, and loved the horses. This makes me sad.
@@janisrebecca6981 - Pat Smythe's assistant has written about the cruel methods used by some riders/trainers back in the day - she also notes that Pat never ever used such methods - which does not surprise anyone imo!!
Also an eventing modern day legend in teddy o'connor(ridden by Karen o'connor=no relation!) Who amazed all in 2007 at 14 1/2 hands on the grueling cross country at Rolex Kentucky. He proved he was no flash in the pan by winning the pan American games and a team and individual gold medal. A phenomenen
