Michael Etherington-Smith’s eventing cross-country course at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games didn’t produce any of those gut-wrenching, truly awful moments for which the sport of eventing is occasionally known; yet it still managed to prevent 19 of the 79 starters from finishing the 28-fence course.

We can’t say Mike didn’t warn us. In my previous blog post, I shared his warnings about the “tricky” fence 7ABC, the Walnut Hall Corner. The four-foot ditch at 7B claimed its share of victims who came over the rails at 7A too flat and fast to regroup before the ditch, resulting in runouts or, in at least one case, an unplanned slide to the lip of the ditch. 

Many of the eliminations resulted from three refusals and (thankfully) not from injuries. I’d tell you exactly how many except that, when last I checked, officials were still puzzling out the exact tally of penalties and time faults and therefore had not yet released the official list of results. But I can tell you that, of the US team, Boyd Martin on Neville Bardos and Phillip Dutton on Woodburn went clean. Karen O’Connor on Mandiba had 0.8 time fault. Becky Holder on Courageous Comet (competing as an individual) had 3.2 time faults. And Buck Davidson on BallyNoe Castle RM had 20 jump faults and 26 time faults