I’d honestly love to see them add a nations cup to the 4* division. We need a proper destination nations cup event in the US and I’d think there would be a mutual benefit to both the 4* and the 5* in terms of quality international entries.
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I mind if the safety of the horse/rider is compromised due to the rider’s inexperience. In most horse sports, you show one or two levels below where you school at home. Obviously that doesn’t apply when you get to the very top of your discipline. But a newb at the level making level-appropriate rookie mistakes is completely different than running a completely unprepared horse. I don’t see how the trainer of horse and rider is relevant in this equation except that one would hope the trainer gives realistic feedback and would not encourage a student to enter an event they weren’t ready for.
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I have thought for 20 years that the FEI has been systematically excluding amateurs. But I have never seen anyone put it in writing!
The FEI’s new qualifications include requiring certain amounts of points or finishes or categorization as their cutoff. The one horse amateur is going to struggle to get in. As already proven with Louise Harwood, who’s completed Badminton 6 times and started at 21 five-star events, was not qualified for Badminton due to the FEI tightening the qualification rules.
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I was thinking that too. I’ve been watching the Badminton highlight series they have on Badminton TV and you can really see over the years how tightening the qualifications has improved the riders who show up to tackle it. There were definitely horses and riders entering who could have used a few more seasons. Even some big name riders talk about how maybe they entered too early when rides go wrong and that maybe the horses weren’t quite ready.
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