L AST Sunday's Express Eventing competition at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff has prompted very mixed reactions from all quarters.

Of course, losing any horse is a tragedy, but to lose a national treasure like Call Again Cavalier in such a public arena was just horrific. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to Mary and to Cavvy's owners, Eddie and Sue Davies, who have suffered a double tragedy this year – they also lost their hugely talented young show jumping stallion, Pikap, in a fall.

It's probably no consolation that the accident could have occurred anywhere – in my opinion neither the nature of the competition, the fence design nor the ground conditions were at fault – it was just one of those ghastly things.

Setting aside the loss of Cavvy, there were a number of things that struck me about the competition and the day as a whole – some good, some not so good.

One of the most peculiar – and enjoyable – aspects of the competition was that the riders (and our equine partners) were really made to feel like the stars of the show. We were treated like royalty and feted like A-listers – being wined and dined in a posh hotel the night before a big competition certainly beats roughing it in the back of the lorry with some pasta!

The competition was billed as a stellar gathering of Eventing's elite – the most highly competitive field seen anywhere in years – which, indeed, it was. But herein lies my biggest problem with the competition as it manifested itself this weekend: the best riders in the world were made to look like muppets. I'm not entirely sure of the statistics, but I think five of the 19 starters were eliminated for errors of course and I think every rider had at least one moment of navigational crisis.

My own came half-way through the course when I almost collided with the show jumping "pen" that was in the middle of the arena – that awful moment of indecision... left, right, left, right, no – left!

Of course, it can be argued that some of the best riders in the world were muppets on this occasion – after all, learning the track is a very basic prerequisite. However, I feel that the riders didn't really have enough time to get familiar with a very complex and fast track.

Unfortunately this was unavoidable on this occasion – due to the rugby international the day before, the course building team weren't able to get on to the pitch to start their work until 7pm. They did an absolutely incredible job to produce the course for us to inspect at 6am the following day – albeit with work still in progress.

It wasn't until lunch that the riders were able to get an inspection of the finished article – barely enough time to let it all sink in.

Watching those who did manage to jump the fences in the right order, it became obvious to me that this was not a young horse's game. It required from the horses the awareness and savvy that only comes with years of experience, and the acceptance that if the rider is pointing at it, it must be alright.

Having watched the first eight horses go, I decided that I needed to adopt a "safety first" policy – any notion of breaking land speed records went right out the window. I needed to give Shaabrak enough time in front of the fences to assess what he was doing and work it all out.

In the outcome I think this policy worked – both Shaabrak and I enjoyed our round, and apart from nearly colliding with the "pen", we didn't have any hairy moments.

We were well and truly beaten by Ollie Townend – by some 40 seconds. He was the best man on the day and there was no way I would have gone fast enough to catch him under those circumstances. He thoroughly deserved to take home the £100,000 and I was very satisfied to settle for £50,000 and a happy horse!

There has been much speculation as to the long term future of this type of format. From where I'm sitting, it's a concept that really could work. I don't think that on this particular occasion it was totally successful, but then the organising team never pretended they would get it all right first time.

However, I imagine the immediate future of the competition, the Express Eventing International Cup, will as much be determined by the rate of recovery of the global economy as it will by public opinion – big ideas need big backers and it may be a day or two yet before one of those comes along.