See Why This Is The Most Dangerous Sport For Men & Women And Horses

okay I start psyching myself up just just the adrenaline starts pulling but at the same time I can't get nervous and the legs can't turn to jelly so I take a few breaths and calm down okay Goose the horse is starting to dance a little bit because he knows what's going on so I talk to him a little bit Stan Patty okay Gray you know we'll be out there in a minute are they calling me five four three two one let's go this is the second day of the Lexington Kentucky three-day competition five four three two one go the first day was a dressage test the third day will be a show jumping test both of medium difficulty but this is endurance day and it's the most difficult it's divided into four phases this is Phase B the Steeplechase a two mile course with 10 obstacles for the best score it must not only be written cleanly five three two one go but at a very fast 26 miles per hour before this comes phase a six miles of roads and tracks after this steeple chase Riders will go on to phase C another nine miles in these first three phases Riders make every effort to conserve their horse's strength the danger is so great that after phase C the rules require the horse be given a rest [Music] walk him you have about 14 minutes till you start I'll give you three minute warnings you go out at 50. bets and show officials check the horse to see if he's fit to continue they checked temperature pulse respiration I mean just walking for a little bit Grooms keep the horse moving so that he will not stiffen up or get chilled let me see him Pam half a minute to keep him walking two boys Mike Plum has a hard time leaving his horse to the care of his assistants his Grooms say that he cannot overcome the urge to do everything himself we watched him jog as he came in you know in the locker room they they put on the band music and they get you all stirred up and here you've got to pretty much do it yourself you've got you've got phase a and phase B and phase C to kind of get you ready but the cross country is the meat and that's where you have to go out of there on fire on fire but thinking just before I get on the horse just before the cross-country phase itself I'm watching the horse I want to see what vibrations do I get off it what kind of look does he have in his eye does he look as if he has a little hot coal buried in there glowing with fire I don't care if he's sweating or dry I want to know what his spiritual qualities are because this is a this event is a crucible and if it is done properly it burns away everything that is false and unreal about your training and it reveals what was correct and pure and proper in how you prepared that horse three two one go Torrance begins phase D it's only about five miles long but within that five miles there are 25 fixed obstacles each in its own way extremely difficult and challenging and Horse and Rider must maintain an average speed of 21 miles per hour it's one of the most grueling tests in equestrian sport originally a Cavalry test was meant to simulate Battlefield conditions you might have three or four fences in a row and what will make the fence ride well the fence when I say defense I mean the whole combination ride well is whether the rider can be so accurate through the combination the combination will not be easy and whether he can adjust his speed for that particular type of combination and keep the speed and not be able to let his eye waver one way or the other because amenity does his horse will follow his eye and go off you've got to be very quick you've got to think in the air when the horse leaves the ground you've got to say oh I'm wrong it sounds like it happens to slow motion it happens in Split seconds Jim Wofford foreign [Applause] Torrance Watkins approaches the sinkhole here the horse must jump down into a dark ditch turn sharply then jump back out again you've got to find out where the rough fences are the fences that have caused trouble you may have to change your route to a couple of jumps because of bad footing or because of the fact that you have read the course wrong when you walked it it's very easy to be overconfident I go off and let your guard off that's dangerous you've got to consider and ride each jump there are no gifts everybody feels it's not going to happen to them they're not going to wreck you know it's going to happen eventually but when we go out there we don't believe it is last year I had a misfortune here where I jumped up on the bank very aggressively he hooked it and it was just like you hung us up by a meat hook and I knew at that moment you know it was good Night Irene and I sort of sat up fed in the rains because we are unfortunately in some ways I never try to bail out I always you know wait I'm always waiting for the miracle you know I don't want the 60 penalty so I'm going to ride that guy until he buries me and you know I was sort of up there you know thinking at the brief moment you know come on guys show me a miracle and the Miracle he showed me was I could survive the wreck no I've never felt the fear never beforehand yes you get a little bit afraid you think about it a little bit but then you say I got to put that out of my mind because if you ride with a fear something's going to happen if you go out there with that in your mind then you're probably riding for a fall foreign [Applause] approaches the water jump these are especially unnerving for the horse because he can't judge the depth of the water foreign [Applause] between you and the ground when things are going bad or when the horse makes a mistake foreign [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Applause] Karen stives [Applause] the worst accidents occur when the horse falls on the rider over there and personally contact KSP Kentucky State Police advised him we'll need an escort off post over Karen stive's heart stopped [Music] cardiopulmonary resuscitation was administered Karen revived and was brought to a nearby hospital to be treated for a severe concussion amazingly she was back riding again within a month may I just Matt please but you've got blood all over your personality I'll take the race saddle down for better I I guess I had it coming to me because he he slipped a little bit all the way around but he slipped there and he just hooked it and I almost stayed on but I know I couldn't grab it around the neck and her hung in there as long as I could well I think the good thing about it is that he hurt himself pretty good so you failed it yeah and I almost pulled him up but I thought Jesus let's see how tough he is and he went down to that water and jumped right in and that's a stopper yeah Torrance Watkins at the Lexington Bank [Applause] [Applause] it's a marvelous thing because you and the horse become one being but you're out there on cross country and the fences come up fast the horse has never seen them he knows that I'll never put him in a bad place it may look like it's impossible to get through there but he knows that if I say you can do it there gray do it this way then he'll do it complete absolutely trusts me marvelous feeling [Applause] [Applause] Jim Wofford finished the course with a good time did I hear them call me for a refusal someplace or was that somebody else I guess one of the magical parts of the sport is being able to go out there and it it's like uh climbing Everest it's there you're gonna do it you know you're going to face elements you know you're gonna face dangers that normal people wouldn't do but it's something you have to do Torrance and her horse Southern Comfort cleared all the jumps without a ball or refusal lovely course it's a wonderful time okay I'm afraid it's clean and very fast it's almost out of this world it's something nobody can bring you down because you've just accomplished something between you and your horse and a horse that was supposed to be bigger than you and bigger and of course it is um can easily pull you out of the sky and land you on the ground hard um the feeling having done it right is obviously a feeling of tremendous accomplishment tremendous pride in the horse and yourself but then there's that feeling that is very personal to me and I really can't describe it it's like being in an airplane and looking at it soft fluffy pink thunderheads you know it's you can't describe it [Applause] not only did Kim Wallace and the Gray Goose jump every fence cleanly they also rode the four faces without a Time fault it was a nearly perfect ride as close as possible thank you oh thank you goodbye you were a star it's not a star okay I'm naughty rich not to ask you a few questions the chorus obviously you just said it was wonderful yeah oh it's marvelous you come away from that so excited and so ecstatic it takes you the whole rest of the day to come down you just talk to anybody you can find about it it's just marvelous oh so much and the winner of the Gladstone trophy here is 1982 Kentucky three-day event number 14 The Gray Goose written by Kim Wallace a tour of 46.6 Lexington Tampa and Gladstone with a climaxes of a series of competitions to choose the next United States equestrian teams

Channel: David Hoffman

Views: 68,795

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Id: rUOe46VMCzY

Length: 17min 56sec (1076 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2023