Honestly and truly. Do people who are beginner golfers say “I’m going to be in the PGA someday?” Or if you’re an amateur race car driver is it a common goal to drive in the Indy 500?
Why does it seem that I hear “my goal is to do a Grand Prix” over and over again in the horse world? It doesn’t seem to matter how far from reality this “dream” really is, I’ve heard it throughout my own riding career from
others. Teenagers, adults, beginners, even people in their first week of lessons. On this board at least once a month and twice even right now.
What is it about a Grand Prix that is so alluring yet somehow seems so accessible to the average rider that that becomes their dream? The top of the top echelon in any sport is exactly that. So I’m wondering, is this a phenomena unique to the horse world, or is every Joe Schmo downhill skiier thinking they are the next Picabo Street?
I ponder this question every time I see it. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the horse factor plays an incredible role in how successful a rider can be - let’s be honest, I’m sure all Grand Prix riders are great, but I am betting there are some cases where without the horseflesh, some folks would have no business in that class based on skills alone.
In every other sport, you have to be the best. There’s no opportunity to rely on someone else (well, team sports, maybe, but you can’t make the top team if you aren’t awesome yourself). Maybe it’s the Harry and Snowman or rags-to-riches type stories that inspire people, I’m not sure.
I also think this “goal” comes from inexperienced riders most often who haven’t yet had their healthy dose of reality. I don’t mean this to sound rude, I really don’t! Just my take on the issue.
I think this is totally normal. Wait until your kid starts playing soccer. Half the field seems convinced their 4 yo chasing butterflies instead of the ball is David Beckham. And basketball…and then there are all the little maestros scraping their violins who will play at Carnegie someday…and if you are none of these you think your geeky child will be Carl Sagan. Because you love them. Then they grow up a bit and they have dreams for themselves too, maybe different than yours, but dreams just the same you’ll try to support. Reality strikes them soon enough.
I think it is because GP level, both in jumpers and dressage, is actually pretty accessible and obtainable when compared to other sports.
In most sports you have to be exceptional to compete in the top of the sport. In the horse world you don’t. Almost every AA show will have a GP class, and as long as you pay the nom fee they don’t care who enters. I know adult ammys who lease a horse for a season for the only purpose of competing in 1.50 or 1.60. That is their dream. I also know people on horses that weren’t expected to be as good as they are (tbs, etc) compete in GP classes. They aren’t winning every class or taking the HITS 1mil but they are living their dream.
Heck yes…all the delusional high school athletes who think they will get full ride scholarships to college in basketball and football, get drafted by the Pros as a Junior and don’t plan for anything else. How about their parents who push, push, push at a very young age because they dream of being a Super Bowl parent until the kid tears up a knee at 15.
I think it’s worse with social media but it’s certainly out there. Golf too, my neighbors are out in the lawn with their 7 year old for hours practicing his putting and haul him to the range and a private coach 3 times a week. No way that kid and his school friends came up with that one.
Lofty goals are good but there’s too much instant gratification and Millenial " I want it now" out there. Even in the workplace where new, young workers openly complain they are paid less and don’t get the more desirable shifts and assignments then those there much longer.
Good point about GP riders that were superstars only on one horse, that they didn’t own, that slipped into relative obscurity when it sold out from under them or it broke. Having been around a few at that level, it’s tougher on the horses and dead serious for the riders, it’s not fun or permanent status. These kids have no idea what it takes.
And of course there’s show business. Have a wastrel family member who barely finished high school because she was going to be a superstar singer. Too good for vocal lessons or dinner theatre jobs she was offered. Too bad her mother financed her for years blowing her savings to create a 37 year old sports bar server. Its the parents who feed the delusions by never saying no and the " you can be anything you want if you keep trying". No you can’t. And there’s no point feeding a kids delusions because you don’t want to discourage them by saying you can’t afford it. They need to be told the truth. Say no.
Really don’t blame some of the kids who ask that same old question every year on here, they get that entitlement from somewhere along with some enabling.
I think it might be excessive to be calling having big dreams “entitlement,” as much fun as it is to throw shade at millenials.
Of course kids don’t have an idea of what it takes to get to (and stay at) that level; most people on this forum don’t either. Watching the upper level and wanting to get there isn’t unique to this sport - sure, it might be easier in the sense that if you have all the money in the world, you can probably buy yourself something that can cart you around without ultimately resulting with you leaving in a helicopter, but that’s rare at the GP level.
Even on this forum, you see people advising that you can get an OTTB and make it up, and if you get lucky, you’ll have something special at the end. Sure, there are some kids who want it handed to them, but for every one of those, there are 5 more who would do anything to get on the road to getting there. This sport is becoming more and more out of reach financially - getting started the way Margie Engle did is difficult or impossible at this point for your average kid.
You can give a gentle reality check without assuming that every kid who asks about getting to the GP level is entitled and a brat. I think in any sport, you’ll have the hungry ones wanting to get to the top. It’s the most visible. And in a lot of ways, it is more accessible than the tippy top of other sports because there are so many variations in what’s considered a prix. Depending on where kiddo is from, a GP might only be 1.40m and still called that, or 1.45m but really there are only 2 verticals that are 1.45m and the rest of the class is 1.35m-1.40m. It IS more attainable than some of the other sports.
I wonder, too, if it’s often about exposure. If anyone has experience with horses at all, it’s usually show jumping, and the idea of a Grand Prix crosses between sports. Honestly you have to be in the sport for a while to realize that you have other options - maybe you end up wanting to do the Medals or become a Derby star, but random person off the street with no horse show knowledge has no idea what those are.
I’ve known a few kids who had that dream, plus the wanting to be a trainer thing, and then realized that certain horses were hard and jumping around fast was scary. You just don’t know what you don’t know until you’re in the game.
Aspiring for the upper levels is in no way unique to show jumping. The only difference is that many riders can stay at the GP level far longer then in most other sports. It’s also clear from a younger age in most other sports whether someone is “Grand Prix/Olympic/Pro Sport quality”.
I grew up in a hockey town. Every guy was going to the NHL. By highschool the pool had shrunk a little. By the end of highschool there were only a handful pursuing the dream. One made it, he played a few games for San Jose.
I was also a Varsity cross country skier. Everyone on the team dreamed of skiing for Canada at the Vancouver games. One girl made it.
Lots of people realize at a young age that finances will keep them from the top. Parents can’t afford to pay for rep hockey, new skis, new pony, etc. The ones who keep dreaming seem to be the ones with finances who only have to contend with “talent”. Obviously there are some who are very talented and who keep striving to find a way to pay for it, but those are becoming fewer.
The rest of us settle for pick up games, house league, the 3’6" hunters. become weekend warriors, etc.
No different than middle school kids having big dreams of going to the NCAA tournament, the NBA, NFL, NHL, NPSL, the olympics etc. No matter the sport there are always going to be those with lofty and unrealistic dreams. Hell, I wanted to compete at Rolex as a kid even though deep down I knew that I’d never be up to par for that. Eventually most of us realize that there is more to riding and horsemanship than just being known as a great rider in the top shows and we can be happy with meeting other goals that while challenging are not out of reach.
Then again, how many of us here when actually FACED with a big 1.50 jumping cringes and says, ABSOLUTELY NO WAY! (We’re out here, too! haha. I know my limits. Though, I’d love to RIDE a GP horse…over smaller fences. :))
Nothing, though, compares with the sheer number of eventers who believe they already have the next “team horse” and will be jumping around Rolex next spring (or whatever it is/will be called).
The thing about eventing, though, is that the Rolex dream does seem to come to fruition more frequently than in some of the other equestrian disciplines. Every high schooler with an OTTB project hopes to make it up the levels just like Libby Head and Sir Rockstar.
I don’t think doing a Grand Prix in show jumping is at all the same as racing in the Indy 500. There are Grand Prix classes every weekend all over the country and some are far less difficult than others (eg. Longine GCT vs the Winter Series in Katy) so to many people achieving that level appears attainable. Add to that kids see other “kids” showing in those classes and winning (Brian Moggre comes to mind) which contributes to the perception that it’s achievable. If kids at your own barn or amateur riders that you know are showing in Grand Prix that would contribute to the perception that “I” could do it, too. I don’t know anyone who has raced in the Indy 500 nor do I know an Olympic skier. I like to drive cars and I’ve skied some in my life, but those goals never seemed remotely attainable to me. However, I own a horse whose parents both showed in Grand Prix or at least 1.4m classes so it wouldn’t be crazy to think I could do that with my horse (however it is crazy and I have no desire to ever jump in a class with jumps that large).
OP, I am glad you started this thread as the thread that inspired it is bugging me.
I don’t think there is anything unusual about kids having dreams. Watching the Masters last week-end, my husband reminisced about his childhood days practicing “golf” with a table leg and a yam can and dreaming golf dreams.
As they get older, most kids figure some things out. By the time they get to be high school aged, they have a lot more realistic grasp of what it takes to achieve their particular dream - be it the Masters or the event formerly referred to as Rolex or the 5* GP. Most adjust their dreams to be more in line with their talent and their opportunities. Instead of playing soccer in the Premier League, it becomes having the opportunity to play collegiately somewhere.
What bugs me is when kids or adults are of an age where they seem like they can and should know what is realistic and what is not - but they don’t. Like a high school junior or senior who includes in their bio that their goal is to ride in the Olympics but hasn’t shown past 1st level dressage or jumped over 2’9". Or someone who is supposedly about to graduate from college whose goal is the GPs.
OK so to add to this for a moment, what exactly is the point of mentioning to the folks who have lofty goals the actual realities and gravitational pulls? Do you do it to feel better for not being a person aiming for Gp? Does it bother people to see folks who don’t ride as well but have the ability (in horse or funds) to keep rising up the ladder?
I guess it’s just hard for me to understand why the sensation I’m getting from this thread is that people are coming in kind of pushing back a bit on those who want to aim high. I think we all have had something for us that was a reach but would we have been more likely to strive for it if all the input around us had not been how this goal was inappropriate or not realistic, or out of our reach, period? Life already kicks us in the pants. Success, failure, dreams achieved, others lost, horses of our dreams turning into nightmarish bad luck. I mean it all happens to everyone on some level.
What I don’t feel from this is a genuine sympathy that those who dream big are willing to take on much bigger highs and possible lows. Reaching the Grand Prix level in Jumpers or Dressage takes A LOT, of everything, but mostly it takes the will to walk by all those who said you can’t and find it within yourself to only listen to your own voice saying “Yes I can.”
Also I mean how many people who are enjoying a sport and doing well are ever going to proudly announce, “I just want to be mediocre and rise to a level that I can afford.”
It just is in us to dream and wish for bigger things. And I support everyone who believes in the fantasy enough to try.
I certainly was one of those kids … and bits of the dream remain with me.
I’m not bothered by kids (or adults) aiming high - our sport is better for it! But I think it’s good to get people thinking about intermediate goals, to have a sense of the size of the journey, and to know a bit about how it could go to prevent pointless missteps and just prevent kids from ending up needlessly on the scrap heap.
I think kids who are 20 and jumping 2’ need to understand where they are relative to others just so they aren’t led down horrific paths, people sweet talking them with their olympic dreams and then exploiting their labor or their bodies. I think there’s value in knowing where they need to get to for those directions to be realistic - that for example, it’s not obvious that if you want to ride FEI, your odds are probably better as an amateur with a six-figure salary than they are as a groom.
Most horse-related literature fills us with unrealistic paths of simply having enough passion and we’ll ride our own horse to a win in the Kentucky Derby. The realistic fiction (one I suggest is Last Junior Year by Barbara Morgenroth) doesn’t have the same traction or availability.
I think when we’re young we have rose-colored glasses about what it’s like to work with horses as your job and it’s easy, loving horses, to make choices that preclude you from getting out and changing to a different career.
I am grateful to the trainer who sat down and had a very frank talk with me, when I was a junior, about my relative opportunities and lifestyle down each path.
I don’t want kids to give up their dreams. I do think that knowing that you’re at the foot of Everest, not halfway up, is the only way you’ll get to the top successfully and safely.
