Equestrian: Riders rue Badminton course changes

New Zealand riders led the criticism yesterday of the Badminton cross country course, arguing it had too many twists and turns and could be tough on horses.

Andrew Nicholson, regarded as one of the world's best cross country riders, said it was time Badminton director and course designer Hugh Thomas gave up.

"He's gone from one extreme to another. It's Hugh trying to prove a point with his own scoring system."

What has caused the problem is a new system for scoring the dressage and cross country tests.

Dressage marks are spread over many points, rather than just a few or even half points, as was the case until now.

To compensate, time penalties on the cross country course have been greatly increased - so a good dressage horse must also prove its stamina - as have penalties for jumping mistakes and falls.

But the show jumping penalties remain unchanged, meaning a horse could knock half a dozen rails down and still win a major competition.

Riders say the end result would see competitors pulling out of the cross country if they made an error because the high penalties would rule a rider out of contention, and there would be no point risking the horse at later jumps.

Three-time winner Mark Todd was best-placed of the New Zealanders after the first day of dressage yesterday, lying sixth on his young horse Word For Word.

He was 15 points behind the early leader, Pippa Funnell and Supreme Rock, of Britain, on 64 penalties.

He will be one of the last to ride on Friday afternoon (Saturday morning, NZ time), on his second horse and main chance Broadcast News.

Nicholson, riding Merillion, was eighth while world champion Blyth Tait and his world and Olympic champion Ready Teddy were well down the field in 22nd place.

Catriona McLeod, on Win For Me, was 16th.

She described the new scoring system as "dreadful".

"All along it's been the welfare of the horse, the welfare of the horse. But you don't come to a three-day event not to have a go. I hope it's revised at the end of the year."

The 1999 Badminton cross country course, which riders will tackle on Saturday, has been described as extremely twisty with a lot of turns. There are few straight lines either on the approach or through the jumps.

The extra turns will slow the horses, as riders must get the horse's balance and stride correct, but competitors like Nicholson have said they are worried mistakes will be made as people push too hard to stay within the 12-minute time limit for the 7km course.

For every second over the time limit, one penalty will be incurred.

Nicholson said that while the cross country course needed to be made more difficult after more and more horses were completing their rounds clear and inside the allowed time, the organisers had overdone it.

"The roping of the course has made it difficult to get a line to the fences, and horses have to get the right stride very quickly.

"You don't have a chance to change stride, and it's going to be even more difficult when you're going very fast."

Nicholson said that with the time penalties so severe riders would have little choice but to push their horses around the course quickly to stay in contention. That was when mistakes would occur, he said.

Tait and Todd agreed with Nicholson.

Todd said getting as many as 17 horses around the course inside the allowed time, like last year, was "crazy", and also expressed doubts about the course.

"He's built the course to suit his new scoring system," Todd said.

"Hopefully it should suit my two, who are quite nippy and not too strong. But it won't suit the big, pulling horses." - NZPA