Glups! I'm not a pro or anything like that! It's not my place to rule! At all!
But I agree with you. The horse does not have happy eyes. He looks scared. And it's not the 1st time I've noticed she may have a hard hand. She also seems to have a tendency to put herself forward, and to go ahead than the horse when jumping (I don't know how you say that in english, sorry...)
I've noticed thought that she's started FINALLY! to hold her reins like a normal person. Some months ago she still used to hold them in a grip with all her fingers together, but she's surprised me here with her little finger outside the reins! did anyone else notice that?
I can't believe she was ever in competition holding her reins like that! I hadn't been checking this forum. Good on her for fixing that and holding them correctly, but how on earth did her coach EVER put her in high level competition if she couldn't master something that basic?
I feel like a lot of people here think that when Charlotte's equestrian career is criticized, it's a criticism of her personally. It's not at all- I actually rather like Charlotte- and I hate seeing her putting herself in danger and doing damage to talented horses. And make no mistake, that's what she's doing.
There's a reason you can't skip steps in horseback riding and why you have to do a ton of repetitive drills on basic things before you begin to think about showjumping. You need to develop your seat and your balance and you need to use your hands correctly, and the only way to do that is tons of practice on the flat. Right now, Charlotte's not capable of helping her horses through the course. Based on these pictures, her balance isn't what it should be and she doesn't have a good feel for the horse's mouth. The result is a scared rider and a scared/annoyed horse who isn't sure what it's supposed to do.
She treats riding like it's a glamorous thing to do (she's made statements to that effect and her partnership with Gucci has emphasized that quite a bit) but the thing is: it's not. It's glamorous in the show ring, but if you're a real rider, that's about 1% of the time you spend doing this. Riding is a lot of canter circles and working on transitions and timing and conditioning rides and lunging and training and hitting the dirt and getting grass drool all over yourself when you lead your horse in and being sweaty and covered in horse hair. And it also means spending time bonding with your horse by helping with its care- you need to be a partnership and you need to trust each other. It's a sport that requires real passion for the animals and everything related to them, and I just don't see that from her. That's not a personal failing on her part, but it's an indication that she really needs to make a decision and either focus on the other parts of her career or truly commit herself to her riding and go back to drilling on basics for awhile before she shows again. (And when she does show again, it should be at a more appropriate level)
Oh, and trepstep, you're right about her being ahead of the horse on jumps a lot of the time- which I think is really contributing to her poor results.
Oh, and I'm sorry to keep bombing the thread with replies, but I thought that some of the people who like to visit this thread but don't know much about riding might enjoy this wikipedia article on the jumping position-
Jumping position - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It explains some of the problems that can be caused by bad position, which we've been talking about with Charlotte.