Interesting COTH Report About Eventing Seminar

[bornfreenowexpensive]

Marigold—My point is the ERQI is NOT perfect (and the developers will agree—-you will always have outliers) and has no place in rule making. It SHOULD be just a guideline. That honestly is NOT needed by anyone with knowledge, experience and ounce of judgement. So because of the outliers…my opinion is it has very little use other than for commentary in media and just a guideline that may make some people think (but most don’t need it at all) and it absolutely has no use in rules.

[Marigold]

@bornfreenowexpensive

Marigold—My point is the ERQI is NOT perfect (and the developers will agree—-you will always have outliers) and has no place in rule making. It SHOULD be just a guideline. That honestly is NOT needed by anyone with knowledge, experience and ounce of judgement. So because of the outliers…my opinion is it has very little use other than for commentary in media and just a guideline that may make some people think (but most don’t need it at all) and it absolutely has no use in rules.

I completely agree that ERQI is not perfect (and I do know that the developers agree - there is always room for improvement, especially with analytical tools). I disagree that it has no place in rule making.

I think it is critical enough to keep the riskier riders off course that I do not mind if the side effect is that a few of us get caught up having to run our capable horses a few more times at a lower level. It’s not ideal, but that is the trade-off I am more comfortable with. You have plenty of knowledge, experience, and judgement - many, many others (I would argue the majority) do not have that level of education. There are horses out there that should not be, and I would like to see something done about that. If that is at your expense or my expense or a ULR’s expense, I regret that but it does not change my preference.

^^all of the above is, of course, my opinion. I know you differ and that is perfectly alright.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

Marigold…the problem with your view to me is that ERQI is on horses…not riders. In my example earlier…the RIDER was the issue, not the horse. She did the same thing on multiple horses. Again…you cannot legislate good judgment. More rules is not the answer to anything IMO.

[Marigold]

@bornfreenowexpensive

Marigold…the problem with your view to me is that ERQI is on horses…not riders. In my example earlier…the RIDER was the issue, not the horse. She did the same thing on multiple horses. Again…you cannot legislate good judgment. More rules is not the answer to anything IMO.

I should have been more careful in my typing - I do know it is on the horses, not the riders, and I do stand by my support of its use regardless. Quoted my earlier post below as I believe it covers my perspective on the horse vs. rider point, even in the specific lease instance to which you refer.

@Marigold

As far as I’m concerned, that situation should have a poor ERQI. The horse, in his current training situation (aka with his current rider) presents an elevated risk when he leaves the start box. That may be the fault of the rider, and not the fault of the horse, but it’s still a statistical fact and is worth considering. If it is important to you that the horse maintains a green ERQI at higher levels so that he can immediately move back up after the lease ends, perhaps consider choosing a more experienced rider. I know if my horse had competed confidently through Prelim, and then spent a year at Novice getting pulled off jumps in the last second of his approach (so close to the fence it was marked as a 20, or in the middle of a combination), I would still want to take some time re-establishing him at the lower levels to be sure he still knew he was supposed to go between the flags. If he now second-guesses his take-off and I move him right back to Prelim, that’s a dangerous situation - which is exactly what ERQI is trying to point out. If we aren’t training them, we are untraining them and all that.

Once again, I acknowledge this is simply my personal opinion on the tool, and fully respect that your opinion is different. We won’t all agree on everything, least of all risk tolerance.