Eventing, I suspect, is just too rough and tumble for modern American riders.
But then thereās the very popular American football.
that is an interesting comment. I have only in the last couple of years become a fan of football. But I am noticing many injuries every week, someone is knocked out for the whole year. But they go back for more. Tua has had several concussions, but he may come back and play. That happened about the same time as Lizās accident. The big difference, of course besides the money, is the riders are individuals, and football players are part of a team. They want to play, but what if like Tua you are facing a concussion constantly. I am thinking about Boyd having 2 falls this weekend, but he grimly goes on. There are many similarities of football players and top riders.
I believe the system we have here discourages much effort above preliminary. A good preliminary rider/trainer can build a very robust business and make a good living.
Itās the economics of the game limiting American riders. For the same reason a lot of jumpers see no need to go to Europe anymore or even try for the US team when they can make bank competing at Wellington or the other major circuits around the US.
Watch some Rugby! At least only the ball carrier can be tackled.
@Willesdon, rugby, really? My Welsh husband was just lamenting early onset dementia in rugby players yesterday. The British press has covered the issue extensively in recent months.
Also, Iām interested in how much time youāve spent in the United States and how much in-person exposure you have to American grassroots eventing. My guess is very little to none. At the grassroots level, my eventing peers are largely balancing demanding careers, hour-long commutes, and family obligations, but they still train relentlessly, provide expert care to their horses, and offer support to their fellow competitors. I have good friends who have come back to eventing after scary, expensive injuries, the loss of a horse, difficult pregnancies, etc. I have been to more than one cross country outing where riders have bleary eyes from working overnight shifts at the hospital the night before. These friends compete in the pouring rain and the blazing sun, with the only concern being the quality of the footing for the horses. We fall and we get right back on, to try again. We might lack a lot of things, but grit and fortitude are not among them.
Upper level eventing in the US has some obvious performance/pipeline issues, for sure. Iām not expert enough to weigh in on the root cause of those issues. But I know my own eventing community well enough that I cannot let your blanket claims about āmodern American ridersā go unanswered. Applying labels like that is often foolish, and particularly so when youāre discussing a big, diverse country.
It is true in every nation that the grass roots are the largest part of Eventing and that the participation of amateurs at the lower levels keeps the entire sport running. No disrespect intended. Iām an amateur myself! But there are very few Americans coming through to the upper levels: I find @RAyers comment here to be interesting. Not speaking of Western, which doesnāt really exist in Europe, the biggest group of American riders appears to be Hunters, which is chalk and cheese compared to Eventing, and the emphasis is on ālooking just rightā rather than āget it doneā. Different strokes for different folks. Sorry if I offended you.
Itās both in hunters, because if you donāt āget it doneā you arenāt going to pin. When you consider it that way, itās both easier (terrain and questions) and harder (you canāt just get over jump hook or crook, you actually have to get there correctly).
There are a number of geographic, financial, and cultural factors that make it a lot harder to go up the eventing ranks in the US than in the UK or Europe. Just getting to an event is much harder depending on where you live, especially when you get above Prelim. There have been a number of efforts recently to address the pipeline and literally zero of them have identified āUS riders are wimpsā as a root cause. You donāt have to agree with the US system but uninformed generalizations donāt really add much to the conversation.
The vast majority of our English riders get their start in H/J barns before branching off into other disciplines. Itās just another difference between the US and UK systems. Several of our successful upper level event riders have a hunter background. Mia Farley is a good recent example, sheās one of our most promising young riders and her hunter education clearly hasnāt slowed her down. From a proās perspective, thereās a lot more money to be made in hunters and jumpers than in eventing. Look at Doug Payne - heās an accomplished eventer whoās moving into H/J full time because it offers better money, less travel, and a more predictable schedule, among other factors.
And despite your dismissal of it, hunters is a legit discipline with itās own pros and cons, just like eventing. Itās popular because a lot of people enjoy it for what it is, not because they couldnāt hack it in a ārealā discipline.
@dmveventer, very well said. And @endlessclimb, excellent point about the hunters - itās much harder than it looks to ride those beautiful rounds!
Itās difficult to understand if you arenāt in this country, but the difference in geography between the US and the UK cannot be overstated (which does also funnel into cost, though Americans do okay in terms of access to those resources). Quoting @dmveventer, who said it well:
This is putting it conservatively. With the exception of parts of the Florida season, for which many upper level event riders leave their homes and home businesses for months on end, upper level eventing in the US is spread over distances measured in tens of hours. There are six 4L events in the entire country. They are in Paso Robles, California; Mill Spring, North Carolina; Kalispell, Montana; Leesburg, Virginia; Temecula, California; and Myakka City, Florida. Those events, in order, are separated by drives of 36 hours, 36 hours, 34 hours, 38 hours, and 37 hours.
If you were to group them (California, Montana, and California again in Group A, North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida in Group B) you now only have three 4L chances per year and they are separated by drives of either 21 hours and 20 hours or 7 hours and 15 hours.
Paso Robles and Temecula are both in California, but even they are separated by 5 hours and those are the closest two upper level events in the country.
I suspect folks in other countries think that the distances are reasonable, because the same names pop up at every event, or because events are within one country or even one state, but it just isnāt the case. Even assuming you live in an area where you can access good training and good training facilities, and even assuming you had unlimited financial resources, actually transporting your horse to venues that will allow you to gain qualifications and move up the sport is asking an awful lot of your horse. If something goes wrong, your option is pretty much to drive multiple days to the other side of the country. There are major barriers to entry to the upper levels of the sport in this country - I hope others realize their relative privilege.
As noted, this country is HUGE. I almost traverse Europe to get to Rebecca Farm from where I live, or to Galway where the 2028 games are held. When I did the upper levels, there were 12 Advanced courses available, which meant to get enough qualifications every drive was going to be between 2,000 and 6,000 miles round trip. My poor truck has 530,000 miles on it!
My trainer just finished qualifying to run the 5*s and she has done multiple 6,000 mile trips to the east coast, spending 6 months on the road for the past several years. That means nobody is home to train clients and their horses, which means she canāt have much income. The same happened when my ābrotherā went to the World Cup in 1987. He finished 9th, had to sell the horse to pay bills and his business had collapsed because he was gone for a year.
Itās about the economics, not about bravery or grit.
Distance and the economics certainly are a big problem. From Lexington, VA (Virginia Horse Center) to Indio CA is 2381 miles. From Badminton horse trials to Moscow Russia is 1922 miles. If you went from Falmouth England to inverness Scotland, that is just 700 miles. Just to give an idea of how much bigger the US is versus the EU.
As Read pointed out the economics can be daunting to take a horse cross country for an event. Going to event that takes less than a day driving versus having to ship or fly a horse is quite the difference financially speaking, never mind the loss of training/economic income.
I have always advocated for young riders who aspire to the 5* level, to get a job in England. You can compete more often at a higher level of competition.
I do think one of the issues that the US has is many riders coming up, except for the occasional trail ride, are ring bound. As I have said before, I primarily fox hunt but evented in the past. The average age in the hunt field is getting pretty high and we are losing a lot of territory to development. So the population of riders who are used to riding any natural cross country is dropping quickly. Wofford, Emerson and the like (the old timers) bemoaned that many times in the past.
Welcome to the club. The last hunter/jumper show I competed at (Thunderbird Show Park) cost me $2500 and I was the groom, stall cleaner and rider. Showing is just expensive.
The geography really cannot be understated. The proof is in the pudding, that our best often go overseas to train - it is cheaper for them to fly their horses over than it is for them to campaign in the states. Not only that, there are more venues and more opportunities to choose from overseas. The logistics are simply easier when everything is at your fingertips.
The other creeping factor that cannot be understated is the loss of land to development and its connection the increasing costs of horsekeeping. It is not that the US does not have talent. It is that those talents are funneled into limited geography or never discovered at all, because campaigning at the UL is so prohibitively expensive that only the wealthy really have an honest crack at it.
Further to [quote=ābeowulf, post:56, topic:797390ā]
The other creeping factor that cannot be understated is the loss of land to development
[/quote]
Full circleā¦ itās more expensive to own a property to run an event on as those properties are scarcer and further away from populated areasā¦
I agree with your points on the reasons for the pros switching to the HJ world. We have lost so many events in the past 10 years.
I donāt blame them. It isnāt just Doug that has switched over. I can think of two others off the top of my head: Justine Dutton (4*) - Full Time switch and Ashlynn Meuchel (5*) - Moved over with Emporium, still competing and coaching but at the lower levels. Ashlynn did a Ringside Chat with COTH about it.
There has been a huge push to do the jumper shows. The courses have become more technical in eventing SJ. I see a lot of my friends posting from WEC and Tryon with their UL horses. Itās good cross training and with WEC, itās a beautiful facility that you can pop over and just run a few courses.
The loss of events and the rising costs have such a big play here too. We lost Jersey Fresh, Red Hills, Richmond, the original Fork, the 4*L at FH which was moved to Morven but the entries arenāt what they used to be. Poplar isnāt running FEI anymore.
Is Chatt still planning on stepping back after next year? Pine Top had FEI divisions (2017? Think it was a one off) but is just running the national levels now. I know Iām missing a lot but again these are the ones I know and stand out.
As another poster mentioned, you can make a living at 2* and below. A good living without the added travel and costs of an UL horse. Boarding costs have gone up, land owners are selling, and eventing has gotten expensive. Fuel to drive to all these events, hay and grain, vet bills. It all adds up.
The price of horses has risen too and itās gotten more technical and competitive. So maybe your horse that got a 40 in dressage, a fast clean XC, and then pulled 4 rails in SJ isnāt worth the entries and the time. Maybe someone with those UL ambitions got priced out at prelim because they canāt justify traveling and taking a week off work for the event.
Sorry to get off track. I appreciated your last point on Hunters. The derbys are some of my favorite things to watch. Some stunning riding and horses. Will Coleman won a derby at WEC which was really cool. Good article about it:
This is so true. My Pony Club struggles to support anyone wanting to go for an Eventing certification primarily because we have to haul somewhere to do the jumping in the open phase. We used to have a barn locally that had a small cross country field, but they dismantled it last year for liability reasons and now itās probably an hour drive to a place that can support even small cross country jumps. We are in a āhorseyā area, but hunter/jumper barns have a stranglehold.
I am not disagreeing about your overall point about US geography, but if you are talking about āupper level eventsā, you should include the Maryland 5* (Fair Hill), and the Lexington Kentucky 5*. The distance from Fair Hill to Morven is about 3 hours or less, and the distance from Lexington KY to Tryon NC is about 6 hours.
Agreed, but my post was made in the context of āAmericans coming through to top levelā (as in, Americans who need 4Ls in order to qualify to go 5*). Once you have your qualifications then Maryland and Kentucky can become a part of keeping them, but to qualify to get there in the first place is a huge geographical ask.