This would be some interesting data to see…that reining has overtaken all equestrian sports worldwide 
I’d love to see the source on that for sure! Mostly because if I google that on the internet, I find that endurance, carriage driving, reining and dressage are all listed in some way as one of the fastest growing equestrian disciplines.
Not to say that it isn’t a fast growing new sport in other countries. But I highly doubt it’s overtaken all other equestrian sport everywhere.
[QUOTE=ponyjumper4;3484528]
Actually, it’s pretty true. I know one of the top reiners in the US, who is also a judge and won many world titles. This is the best breeding year he’s had, selling all his weanlings born (about 18 or so) to clients overseas. He travels over to Europe frequently to clinic. He’s got trips to the UK and Italy coming up. When I was at his place about a week ago, he had just had a client from Italy leave, and had from the Netherlands I think there. The market is huge over there.[/QUOTE]
I agree that there are some reining enthusiasts in Europe. But do you have any idea how many Hanoverians alone are bred in Germany alone each year? Not to mention all other WBs, all countries? Plus other breeds not used for reining? That showjumping is the second most popular sport in England next to football (so empirically reining is at least not more popular there??)
I say get rid of water polo, archery, golf and basketball first! Those are the worse most boring junk I have ever witnessed. Yes I hate basketball 
However the rest are ridiculous. I am sure there are others that are just as bad but, that is all I can think of.
Dressage is beautiful and lovely to watch, so what if not everyone understands it. I watch all sorts of things on tv I don’t quite understand but, there I am watching it learning about it.
To take the horses out of the olympics is just showing how bad the olympics have allowed themselves to get. Just look at the selection committee CHINA!! For crying out loud a communist animal hating people torturing country gets to host the olympics. Way to go.
Outside of the fact that I have spent my entire life riding, am too old to pick up any other sport and thus if they take it out of the olympics poof there goes my dream of ever participating…
Seriously,
I think we have taken a bit of a hit in the past few games since there’s seemingly always been some kind of issue with how the horses would cope with the heat. For barcelona there was instead some kind of equine flu concerns if I remember correctly. We are simply a little more high maintenance. It might be for the best if we skipped out on it and just did our own thing.
I’m not surprised that spectators were low this time. A, I don’t see riding being the most popular sport in china and B the horses were 4 hrs away from the rest of the games. I think there will be a big difference in those aspects for London and after that we’ll see I guess.
On a more fun and for shits and giggles note…
I’m not entirely sure what the format was for the olympics but it could perhaps make sence to change things up a little and make it more wiever friendly?
Take dressage and compare it with gymnastics fex. Perhaps take the top six for he finals. Switch things up to a few rotations of isolated movements.
Line em up and have them show their extended trot one after the other. Line em up again and do some tempis across the ring!
Score inbetween and end with a 2min kur to music. That would surely make it more interesting?
Let the team class be a pas de quattre! To music of course and with matching polowraps.
Do the jumping qualifying rounds in heats of ten and let the 2 top scores from each heath plus the four best scores move on. Run the final like the WEG with 4 riders on each others horses. Maybe even bring it up a notch and do a quick course change between trips too? Or go straight into showing against the clock?
For the nations cup, have the entire team on course at the same time and let them do 1/4 of it each with a baton handoff. Do the qualifyers based on faults and then go straight into a timed event for the finals.
While we’re at it, lets reinstall the highjump. That’s exciting!
I don’t have any stupid ideas for eventing yet but they will surely come. Ha ha!
Ok I gave it five and revisited Team chase style comes to mind, the entire team goes at the same time and all riders have to be in the penalty zone at once. If a horse refuses the team can dismount and make a collective effort to throw him over to the other side. Only the three best scores count so the team can also opt to leave the weak link in the dust and let him ride home on the subway.
Or, here’s an interesting twist. Team is 4 riders, travelling together. For each obstacle 3 riders score will count. The 4th rider can sit out or be on standby if another rider encounters problems.
And the moral of the story is… don’t drink and think! Ha ha!
One of the reasons I like the Olympics is that we will all of a sudden see a bunch of quirky sports (and for some reason we get really into them too if one of ours succeed!) like bow and arrow or curling in the winter.
People we don’t normally care about and whos face we would not recognize (despite the fact that they have already won everything imaginable at their own WEGtype events) all of a sudden become national heroes. I love that aspect of it.
Maybe not so much for the US with their huge medal count in all the traditional events, but for a small country like Sweden the Olympics can really lift an athlete or sport out of obscurity for a few minutes if they bring a medal home.
Rolf Goerans silver in the Olympics gave the sport in Sweden a lot more press then the team silver we got at the WEG a few years back.
I would be sad to see this opportunity for riding to be recognized at a national level in smaller countries go away.
Or, they can run it like Survivor or The Apprentice and let the riders vote eachother off the island.
[QUOTE=msrobin;3484573]
I say get rid of water polo, archery, golf and basketball first! Those are the worse most boring junk I have ever witnessed. Yes I hate basketball :).[/QUOTE]
This is the exact mentality that people have when they think of equestrian sports. So, if you don’t want people to think that about OUR sport, maybe we all shouldn’t think this way about all the other sports!
Every sport is unique in tradition and if you are a true sports fan, you can appreciate them all. The Olympics are about celebrating SPORT in general, even the obscure ones - they only happen every few years so enjoy the randomness and then you can forget about it for the rest of the time.
P.S. Golf has not been an Olympic sport since the early 1900’s and has not been voted back into Olympics yet again.
[QUOTE=Equibrit;3483612]
I REALLY don’t think you would. Go check out the video from the men’s modern pentathlon in Hong Kong.[/QUOTE]
Oh come on: tell me you wouldn’t be taking bets from all comers if, say, McClain drew, say, Shutterfly! :lol:
#msrobin
Personally I don’t think it’s as much about an event being boring for some.
As I said before I got stupid, riding has had problems conforming and we are sometimes a bit more highmaintenance then a lot of other sports. This may be our downfall.
I think that some sports doesn’t belong in the Olympics. If only a very small number of countries are interested or able to sport a competitive team for a certain event, thats an out for me. Cricket comes to mind, so does softball. Or if the top athletes are not interested in competing, golf fex. If the sport doesn’t need, want or warrant to be in the Olympics then why bother.
There’s a lot of sports I find boring to watch that still has a lot of competitive players across the world who believe that participating in the Olympics is a high honor and who dream of and work hard their entire life to be given that opportunity.
As I said in my other more serious post, the beauty in the Olympics for me is the opportunity a smaller more obscure sport has to gain national recognition and awaken the national pride in a country.
If I remember correctly, a female swimmer from (insert African country with a lot of disturbance) caused something almost equivalent to a cease fire when she got a medal in Sydney. Swimming is most likely an obscure and seldom watched sport there but her country united for a few days in their pride to be on the Olympic stage. That’s what the Olympic spirit is for me.
#yankeelawyer
YES! Brilliant idea!
Now how do we get ourselves in a power position with the IOC? And can we sell the television rights to VH1?
I must say, after these last Olympics, I’m for dropping horse sports. Too much insane drama for the horses…
The reining figures are correct.
The subjectivity bit is also correct.
there are now enough countries competing to get the required numbers.However, it is highly unlikely that equestrian will stay if any of the original 3 disciplines go.
Oh and in relation to the spectators…ENTIRELY the fault of the ticketing and BOCOG…it was outrageous!
from the EFA website
This was an amazing Games for Equestrian, with many surprises. The organisers and officials are to be congratulated for an overall excellent job, made a little easier when money is no object and volunteers aplenty. Hong Kong did not (and could not) get a truly Olympic feel, however, and spectator numbers regularly dwindled with each break in the daily (nightly) program. One now wonders why BOCOG did not make more tickets available to overseas applicants who knew what kind of sport to expect when going to the venue
Great point- London wants to preserve what they have. When I read that the equestrian events were going to be held in temporary stadiums on the Unesco World Heritage Site, that gave me pause. My husband and I were looking at the London Olympic site to see about attending. I wouldn’t want a World Heritage site degraded or extensively impaired for a 13 day event. The restoration will cost as much or more than the building of the temporary stadiums. Can’t they find a place to build a complex so London (or spot nearby) can bid for the WEG?
I am quite happy that horse sports will never find popular support amongst the masses. It means we will probably never have to;
Wear sequins.
Make public appearances at grocery stores.
Appear in People Magazine.
Make TV commercials.
Give clinics to large middle aged housewives.
Witness more horse abuse.
etc, etc, etc.
I am quite happy that horse sports will never find popular support amongst the masses. It means we will probably never have to;
Wear sequins.
Make public appearances at grocery stores.
Appear in People Magazine.
Make TV commercials.
Have “Viagra” embroidered on a saddle pad.
Give clinics to large middle aged housewives.
Witness more horse abuse.
etc, etc, etc.
IMHO, we’d be better off ditching the graft, corruption, and politics (after all, the three ARE synonymous) of the Olympics and holding the WEG every two years.
As far as coverage, by 2016, most households should be equipped with entertainment centers capable of online streaming.
The numbers come from the AQHA, who has a HUGE data base.THey keep track of ALL breed & discipline orgs world wide. National & International companies send their employees there to see how to run their businesses.It is AMAZING!!!:yes: They have 2 zip codes for mail!
Reining is judged subjectively, BUT not as subjectively as dressage.There is no place for judges preference. Reining is juged against an ideal.The judges are held accountable for their scores by video. EVERYBODY can tie. EVEN first place, which results in a run off!!:yes:
If a judge is off from everybody else by more than 3 points on a run, they get asked WHY. If it happens repeatedly,they get reviewed, and put on probation, which means their scores get watched. Runs are videoed so, when they get called in, they have a video running & they have to answer to that as well as the NRHA liason.
They also have to renew very often, maybe even anually, but I am not sure on that fact.
So, yes it is subjective, but, not like any other judged horse sport I have ever done!:winkgrin:
If you watch the good ones, they are fun to watch & you CAN tell who is good & who is better pretty darn easily!:yes::winkgrin::yes::winkgrin:
Oh, one last thing–your horse does NOT have to be a 10+++ mover to win!!!
THE highest scoring horse so far… let’s just say, he moves like his daddy, Custom Crome! :D:lol:
Reining doesn’t interest me one iota, sorry. I wouldn’t buy a ticket to see it at the olympics or weg.
Yes the dressage judging needs sorting, i’m not sure half marks or drop scores are the answer though.
[QUOTE=fiona;3485084]
Reining doesn’t interest me one iota, sorry. I wouldn’t buy a ticket to see it at the olympics or weg.
Yes the dressage judging needs sorting, i’m not sure half marks or drop scores are the answer though.[/QUOTE]
But at least for the FTM half scores have to be introduced. Why…, because untill today when a rider scores a 7 and an 8 for a certain movement. It’s up to the (mood of) judge if (s)he reward this with a 7 or an 8 at the end of the test, while it should be 7.5
Theo
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