Doing a little browsing trying to keep up on my equestrian news.

William Fox-Pitt (GBR) is very strong in the 2008 HSBC FEI Classics rankings. He is 25 points clear of Phillip Dutton (USA), who was not able to improve on his score even thoug he was second at Burghley because he had to withdraw his horse Woodburn before the final horse inspection.

Trying to spice up this forum a little I don't know much about eventing but it sure seems like a very demanding sport. How is on the horses. I mean there are some really serious drops and how does that bear on the horses legs.

Well anyway just trying to learn a little more.

RP

Thanks for the update. I previously Evented, now I like to relax and NOT break the rest of my bones! haha

Yes, after the Americans put in that awful showing @ the Oylmpics it did change the leader board a bit.
Another reason is that the Americans only have a select few competitions that actually qualify them for points. Were the Europeans have multiple qualifiers.
Not to take anything away from William-he deserves to be were he's @.

The wear and tear on both horse and rider is always an issue, but not much more than other demanding sports. The good thing is that the governing body is always taking in active rider imput and trying to change the sport for the better.

The drops have had the actual heights lowered and must have ground sloping away from the jump on the landing side, so that they do not hit a flat surface on landing,thus less concussion on the front end. Same for water, the jump in is actually used to send the horses forward in an arc instead of straight down, then the water has to be a certain depth.
There really are alot of technical aspects to it.
And @ the upper levels with the bigger fences, those horses have a whole support team, Chiropractors,massage,accupuncture, tendons/ligaments are routinely checked with MRI/ultrasound just to make sure everything is good. They actually have sports centers for horses. If you can find one in your area, take a tour, they are really cool.

...Equine chiropractors, massage, acupuncture...wow wouldn't my horse just be in heaven.