I've just gotten my first look at the Olympic course, as the riders are 
beginning one of the qualifying rounds for the individual competition on 
Sunday.  If I understand correctly, this round counts both as part of the 
Team Competition (Nations Cup) and as a qualifier for the individual.  
First of all, from a 'decorating' standpoint, this course *looks* great.  
There are a lot of witty 'American' touches to the fences -- my two favorites 
are the 'beach' fence with the lifeguard towers on the standards (yes, it's a 
Liverpool, what else?), and the vertical which has its rails in a fan shape 
and a space shuttle for one of the standards.  There's also a blue wall with 
a replica of Mt. Rushmore at the base, a triple combination with a pair of 
white plank fences and a red Kentucky barn, and other fun stuff.  Lots of 
stuff for a green horse to look at and say "whoa -- what's that?", and 
confusing stuff even for the experienced horse, so the horses will really 
have to listen to their riders to get around okay.  
The big 'monster' challenge so far (aside from the obvious ones like the 
triple combination) seems to be coming at a fence where the riders have the 
option of going to the right and riding over a white solid block wall, or to 
the left and jumping under a huge white archway over a flimsy-looking 
vertical plank wall with little 'ironwork' pointed caps all across it (the 
decorations are made of rubber).  [I described it from the riders' POV --  as 
the camera shows you the riders coming over the fence from the other side, 
you'll see the white wall on the left and arch/gate on the right.]
Two riders so far have come to grief here, both by trying to go in one less 
stride to the fence than the horses wanted to.  The first rider, the leader 
for the German team, fell off after his horse put in the extra stride and 
could not complete the course.  I couldn't really see from the slow-motion, 
but I suspect he was stepped on after his fall; he left the course holding 
his wrist in a way that suggested it was broken, and I'm pretty sure I saw 
blood.  The second rider took the other way over and his horse scraped the 
top layer of blocks off the wall.  I'm sure this fence will continue to be a 
problem as it must be harder for the horses to 'zero in on' -- if you decide 
to take your horse over the wall instead of the gate, it's an easier jump, 
but you'll have this big hulking archway going by on your left, distracting 
your horse.  
The course is very demanding -- it requires a lot of precise riding to get 
the distances just so, and constantly switches back and forth between 
verticals and spread fences, so the horses not only have to have the scope to 
jump both speads and heights, they will also have to be very responsive as 
far as lenghthening and shortening their stride.  It's tough, but on the 
whole it seems to be honest.  
Lead-off rider for the US team is Peter Leone, who has bounced back from a 
twelve-fault 'introductory' round the other day, and put in a solid round 
with just four faults.  And that's all the news so far -- they showed about 
six-to-eight rounds and then whizzed off to cover rhythmic gymnastics.
--- QM v1.31 
---------------