For any riders who might have been trying to glean some insight into Mike Etherington-Smith’s 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games cross-country course, he tried not to give away too many clues with this year’s revamped track. Although the 2009 and 2010 events are gearing up to the WEG, Etherington-Smith wanted to keep his cards close to his chest for 2010.
“My issue was to avoid giving too much away in terms of what I’m planning to do [at the WEG],” said Etherington-Smith, who plans to retire after the WEG. “The WEG track is planned, and it will be fenced off next week and new footing will be put in. The footing is most important, and we’re going to be looking at some pretty spectacular footing, I sincerely hope.”
The Head of the Lake and the Hollow will be used by both the driving and eventing competitions, and Etherington-Smith reworked the Lake this year in preparation for that situation. “I’ve been wanting to reshape the Lake for a while, to give it more room, improve the viewing and take a few trees out,” he said.
His job as a course designer, he said, is getting harder and harder in terms of challenging the world’s best riders and separating the best horses from the rest of the pack.
“The skinny fences are not skinny anymore, when you have horses who will gallop down and jump a single barrel in the middle of a field,” he said. “The long routes never take as long as you as a designer want them to take,” he added. “They may waste 6 or 7 seconds max, when you want them to take 20 seconds, but it’s a bloody difficult thing to do.”
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He said he doesn’t design with a specific number of clear rounds in mind: “The sport is about achieving a standard, and I just pose the questions. If 10 riders get around inside the time, that’s fine. If 20 do it, that means they’re up to the standard. If they’re coming with a greener horse, I like to watch them grow and benefit from the experience of the course.”
This year, with an optimum time of 11:00, 10 riders made the time over the 30 fences (45 jumping efforts). The Double Diamonds corners at fence 22ABCD caused the most problems, with Bruce Davidson picking up 20 penalties aboard Jam there, as did Madeline Blackman on Gordonstown. Barbara Crabo had two stops there, resulting in an elimination since she’d already stopped once at the Sunken Road (fence 13ABCD). And Jennifer Wooten-DaFoe and The Good Witch fell there.
The Sunken Road was also responsible for Sandra Donnelly’s first stop on Buenos Aires (she was later eliminated for a fall at the Hollow) and Tara Ziegler’s first stop on Buckingham Place.
In addition to Donnelly, the Hollow at fence 21ABCD caused a problem for Diana Burnett, who had a run-out there with Manny, and Tamra Smith, who incurred 20 penalties with Chaos Theory.
The HSBC Classic Series Normandy Bank at fence 25ABCD proved to have an influential triple brush as its final element, and William Fox-Pitt had a run-out here with Navigator, as did Jan Byyny with Syd Kent and Smith and Chaos Theory.
