Footing
Good footing is very important to most eventers, as it helps decrease the wear-and-tear the sport has on their horses and avoid injury that may occur due to deep or slippery ground. The rider should always take care to note the footing while walking the course, and adjust the planned route to avoid patches that are especially boggy, slippery, or rough, and to avoid holes that may be present.
Footing is never used to make a course more difficult (for example, a fence is never purposely placed in a boggy area or one with sharp rocks). Instead, most competitions go out of their way to keep the footing safe, and many of the larger events may "groom" the footing to get it to the appropriate firmness.
Read more about this topic: Cross-country Equestrianism, Course
Famous quotes containing the word footing:
“As a tiger may lose its footing on soft ground, so people may be tripped up by sweet words.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Flowers laugh before thee upon their beds
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Blind fear that seeing reason leads finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear. To fear the worst oft cures the worst.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)