Why isn’t WEF, Hampton Classic, Devon etc. set at 1.6 m? I was under the impression, at least when I was showing more, that if you wanted to jump International heights in the GP you went to WEF, national to HITS Ocala. Are they dumbing down WEF and the major shows? Is that why there can be 70 in the GP which were were some weeks last year?
If so, that’s an easy fix and we can provide experience over big and challenging tracks domestically. Tell the course designers to ramp it up, literally.
Teams need experience jumping big, complicated tracks. I believe that jumping fewer weekends of harder courses on top horses would be a great benefit for our teams. They all have other horses so they will still have plenty of jumping efforts to practice at lower heights.
If we could recreate an Americas version of the Super League over here, we would make things easier for our horses. Those travel miles back and forth over the Atlantic can’t be easy and puts our horses at a disadvantage at those competitions unless they go super early – and most pros can’t afford to take that much time away from home. A European tour is a lot more daunting and expensive a commitment for US riders than, of course, Europeans. Not just the expense but the opportunity costs of lost work at home. No one can afford to do that without a trust fund (or the sponsor equivalent).
We can’t expect a kid who is jumping the highest she has ever jumped to do any better than Reed did, in fact it is a testament to her talent she did as well as she did. I find it hard to believe we sent someone over there who had never jumped that high in competition before. I hope that was exaggeration by the press. If not, it was unfair to her. We need to set some Olympic-sized courses here so our team members can practice. I’d imagine the Europeans get to jump this big at Aachen, etc.
The gymnasts sure weren’t doing new flips they’d never landed at home for the first time at the Olympics. There is no reason why we should be either.
