On Tuesday, August 12th I went with a friend of mine to watch the Eventing Show-Jumping at the Olympic Equestrian games here in Hong Kong. The event was held in Sha Tin, near the racetrack, at a beautiful small stadium built just for this event.
My friend, Casey, is an accomplished rider, so it was great to have her with me for my first time at the Olympics. We left the apartment (she lives in Branksome too) at around 5:15, took a taxi to the Admiralty MTR Station, and from there traveled by MTR to University. From there we hopped on the Olympic shuttle bus and in no time we were at the stadium. It took us about an hour total.
The directions to the stadium were very well marked. The shuttle buses ran frequently so there was very little waiting. The volunteers were well-trained and helpful! It made the first part of our Olympic experience so pleasant! Security moved rapidly, and once through security they gave us an assortment of goodies – a rain poncho, an Olympic flag with a flashing light on top, an Olympic fan, and little cardboard binoculars. I can’t wait to see what kinds of goodies we get when I go to the dressage event tonight!
After going through the gates we entered a large courtyard. There were food and beverage stands, an area where you could get your picture taken with one of the Olympic mascots, and a souvenir store. Except for the store the lines for everything moved quickly. We stood in line to get water, beer (!) and some snacks and then headed for our seats.
My seats were AMAZING. We were very close (row 6) and could see a couple of the jumps very, very well. The trade-off was that we couldn’t see the whole course and unfortunately we were sitting right in front of the video screen, so we couldn’t see that either. Oh well. My seats are different every night so it will be fun to try out different viewpoints.
Show-jumping involves horses jumping a series of jumps in a set amount of time. They incur penalties for dropping a rail (making a rail fall off of a jump) or for running over the time limit. They have to jump the jumps in a certain order, but they can make choices about what “line” they take to a jump. In some cases there were shorter lines they could take to try to save time, but at the same time often a shorter line meant that it was hard to get a horse “collected” or ready for the jump, so they were in greater danger of dropping a rail.
There is also always the danger that a horse will refuse a jump, which basically means that they stop in front of the jump and refuse to jump it. One refusal is okay; the rider can ride a circle in front of the jump and try again. Two refusals means the horse is eliminated. I think there was only one elimination in the show-jumping phase during the evening. There were surprisingly few refusals, and no-one fell off or were injured, thank God. I’ve had plenty of refusals in my horseback riding experiences. It’s not unusual if a horse refuses to end up jumping the jump on your own without the horse. Momentum keeps the rider going even when the horse has stopped, not a pleasant experience!
The eventing show-jumping phase has jumps that are at a lower level of difficulty than the show-jumping we will see later on next week. These horses are pretty amazing, since they have to be proficient in both dressage, cross-country AND show-jumping. The dressage and show-jumping horses for the rest of the Olympics are specialists in their particular sport, so the challenges will be greater.
Some highlights for me were:
Listening to the radio commentary over this nifty little attachment I bought for my iPod that turns it into a radio receiver. It was very helpful for me to be able to listen to the commentary.
Watching the American riders. One of them was very good and got the silver in the individual competition.
Watching both the very good riders that rode almost faultless rounds, and the riders that messed up completely. I was in awe of the riders that approached perfection, but I actually think I enjoyed the riders that made mistakes more. At the level that I used to ride, which was MILES below what these riders can do, I’ve done every mistake that they made, and of course many many more. I know how hard it is when a horse refuses not to fall off, to calm down and collect yourself and your horse and try again. I know how easy it is to forget the jump order (none of them did that!) and go off course. I know the sinking feeling if your horse knocks a rail off the jump. And there really is nothing worse than getting a distance to a jump wrong and having your poor horse go ahead and jump the jump anyway, and then because you’re so out of sync, ending up hitting the poor animal in the mouth with your hands (through the bit) or thumping them on their backs with your big fat butt!
The Australian and German fans. They were so gung-ho for their horses and their teams, as well they should have been, since their teams took the silver and the gold medals respectively. They painted their faces and their hair with the national colors. They waved their national flags. The Aussies yelled their funny “oi oi oi” cheer. Some Aussie guy bought a huge bag of Aussie baseball caps and threw them to crowd. I got one for Lee!
We left around 10 pm, when there was a break between the team jumping and the individual jumpers. There were medals both for the teams and for the individuals. There was going to be an hour’s break between the two events so it seemed like the perfect time to go. We were home by eleven.
I’m going to one of the dressage events tonight. I can’t wait to see the dressage. Some people say dressage is boring, but I’ve never thought so. I’ve never seen a really good dressage event. I’ve watched my teacher in Texas practice on her horse and I thought that was really amazing. I’ve watched the fun dressage show that Colby had for her students, where most of us had a really hard time running our tests, and a couple of the horses just completely freaked out. This will be a whole different animal, if you know what I mean!
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