But William Fox-Pitt and his horse Tamarillo are not afraid of a challenge and attacked the fixed rails, yawning ditches and steep banks with gusto and won.
BBC: SPORT | Olympics 2004 | Equestrian | Road to Athens: William Fox-Pitt
Its colour comes not from pollution but from mud and sunlight as the Darling slowly wends its way between narrow, steep banks to meet the Murray River and then the ocean 2, 400km south.
For an unforgettable experience, take a night walk to the arched cave and waterfall at Natural Bridge under the western ramparts of the Springbrook plateau, which is alight with fairy-like blue-green lights given off by the millions of bioluminescent glow worms that line the cave roof and the steep earth banks along the rainforest path.
Gleision Colliery, in operation since 1993, works coal under a very steep hillside above the banks of the river Tawe.
For months, ever since the euro started its steep fall, investment banks have been beating the drum about the attractiveness of German stocks.
FORBES: German Soccer Disappoints But The Stocks Still Shine
As the wide sweep of the Neretva river runs down from the high ground, it enters the city of Mostar where it narrows between steep-sided river banks.
Minc said he wants to stop construction of homes in high-risk areas, such as river banks or steep mountain slopes -- a practice that he said was encouraged by previous governments.
The idea is to pick up mortgages at a steep discount from the banks and leave the owners in their homes by offering them new loans with reduced interest payments and principal amounts.
Allowing AIG to fail could have panicked small investors, forced banks to take steep write-downs, and introduced a terrifying new phase to the financial crisis.
Across Europe, bank shares have been pounded by renewed concerns about Europe's financial health a rout that continued Friday with a steep selloff in Spanish and Italian banks.
Banks have been riding a steep yield curve, meaning they borrow money at virtually no cost from the government and lend it out or invest it in higher-earning assets, profiting from the difference.
As a result, worries about the European banking sector have meant another round of steep losses in equities, with shares of some French banks posting double-digit percentage losses.
FORBES: Most-Active Comex Gold Touches $1,800 For First Time On Euro-Zone Debt Worries
European bank stocks suffered steep declines in the past few weeks, leaving even strong banks like Deutsche Bank AG and Barclays PLC down 30% or more so far this month.
Steep falls in interest rates in Poland and the Czech Republic have squeezed the banks' net interest income.
As banks make these loans that they're making now at this steep yield curve, they'll become more and more eager to make more loans, which will then ripple out through the world and will have an expansive world that's exactly the reverse of the function that got us here.
But the Federal Reserve had already started raising short-term interest rates, flattening the yield curve, the difference between short and long rates. (Since banks borrow short and lend long, their margins are higher when the curve is steep.) When this began eating into lenders' profits, they reacted by pushing subprime rates back up.
That includes steep rises in a tax on financial transactions, and in a turnover tax, now to be extended to banks.
The Federal Reserve is out with the conditions for its 2013 stress tests and the scenarios banks will consider this year include another deep recession that comes with a surge in unemployment and a steep decline in the equity market.
FORBES: Fed Stress Test's Worst-Case Scenario: Unemployment Tops 10%, Stock Market Cut In Half
When the yield curve is steep that is, when long-term rates are much higher than short-term rates banks can make some tidy profits.
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