Lucinda's comment about Toytown getting it wrong in the SJ.

[kerilli]

Was anyone else surprised by this? Lucinda (who i have enormous respect for, she's a great rider, a great trainer and usually tells it just how it is!) wrote:
"Poor Zara Phillips had to contend with Toytown having a blond moment as he spooked on take-off and landed in the middle of a show jump. I like to blame the rider if possible, but this was a rare incident of horse miscalculation."
Umm, with all due respect to Zara, who is also a great rider (i wish i rode that well), i think the horse, like many others, landed a bit short over the previous small oxer, she then rode for a normal 4 strides, and just didn't get the distance. basically, she missed. i don't think it was the horse's fault at all! okay, if he'd had his brain in (or been more used to his rider missing!) he could have flung himself in the air from the spot he was at, but i don't think it was his fault.
Mary nearly did the same thing, realised 2 strides away that she was off the fence, and went for a brave long one... thank goodness!
what does everyone else think? and i really am not criticising either of them... maybe the editors at the Telegraph rehashed her words. hmm.

[seabiscuit]

I think that is a huge insult to Toytown. I think that Zara was not going in any sort of a rythym whatsoever and sat there like a rag doll when she should have been pushing forwards fast and quick to try make that four strides. She landed short at the oxer before so she must have realised that she was not going to make the distance.

[kerilli]

that's what i thought. they were fine till that point, she made a big mistake. to blame it all on the horse (Zara didn't, i believe) is very unfair of Lucinda!

[seabiscuit]

It really is unfair of her to say something like that I agree! A horse like Toytown does not have 'blonde moments' they know their job backwards!

[xspiralx]

Totally agree, she missed, not his fault.

[severnmiles]

But I saw more than one rider 'get it wrong' but their horses helped them out and either fiddled strides or went on a very long one!

As he came to the jump I thought he was looking at the crowd behind the fence.

[reynold]

agree with SM - Toytown could have helped his rider out a bit more - and certainly didn't need to knock the d**n thing down at the 2nd attempt.

so I reckon it was 50:50 - maybe more zara at first attemp and more tt at 2nd attempt.

either way - Lucinda was wrong.

[SpottedCat]

From what I remember, I actually think he came to the fence before wrong too - it looked like he either went disunited or came back to trot for a couple of strides, then landed and was going nowhere. Think TBH it was a combination of the two (Zara and the horse!). As Zara was clearly gutted, and has worked so hard on Toytown's SJ, and must have been thrilled he did not blow up in the dressage, perhaps Lucinda is giving her the benefit of the doubt - after all it would be rubbing salt in the wound to read in a national paper that a highly respected horsewoman like Lucinda is saying 'and if she'd just done X it may have been ok'.

Do you see what I mean? Trying to soften the blow a bit, given that also the world's media are obsessive about the Royals and would not have missed a chance for a Daily Mail moment...

[Weezy]

As soon as she landed over the oxer I said out loud "ride forwards Zara" and I had my hands over my face as she sat and faffed a bit - TT could deffo have helped her out more, but for me it was just an unfortunate "oooooh *****" minute from both rider and horse.

[Rambo]

I actually said to OH as she came round the turn to the upright that she had started riding him backwards. It was no surprise that she missed at the oxer therefore. TT was about 3/4's of a stride short at the oxer and to those who think he could or should have gone from there, I might just remind you that the fence was 1.30m with a good spread on it.....even though it didn't look much more than a Newcomers on TV due to the width of the poles

Actually, I watched about the last 6 or 7 showjump and was quite shocked at how poor some of it was...the obvious exception was the winner, Nicholas Touzaint, who rode a SJ'ers round on a horse that looked like a SJ'er