I’ve just been thinking, if 5 years ago you told us that Kentucky 2025 would be running without the likes of Phillip Dutton, Tamie Smith, Doug Payne, Liz Halliday, Will Coleman, and Will Faudree… man.
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Here is a better way to look at it - you only get so many chances to get your horse experience in a big, atmospheric ring. It’s good horsemanship to take those opportunities when you have them.
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Not a better way to look at it, just different. Your point is about the horse and rider, mine is about the people paying money for tickets. The event has published and will market a list of horse/rider combinations knowing that many will not actually be competing at all or competing in a limited capacity. So if I buy a ticket to see an event with 42 riders and it ends up say at 30, I’ll feel pretty deceived. As I said above the PGA and USTA ran into this problem and eventually corrected the practice.
Golfers don’t need to give their clubs big atmosphere experience. Unfortunately for horse sport, best possible accommodation of horses and best possible accommodation of the public are sometimes incompatible. Cross entering is only sensible for riders who need a crystal ball to know how the next 4-6 weeks will go. And having paid the entry, why not do dressage? At shorts some riders will do dressage and stadium then withdraw for the practice with less wear and tear. Events could make more distinction between the list of entries who may run and the list of starters.
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I think the horsey fan base understands that horses are gonna horse. Scratches and disappointment are inevitable.
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Most of the time the event knows the plans of the riders & won’t use a combination in marketing materials (or use them very little) if the event knows that that combo is not planning on competing it seems. (at least from the outside looking in there has been a couple times where I’m like why hasn’t so & so been marketed to us & then they withdraw after dressage (or before) & I think they where not marketed because the event knew the plan of the riders - yes they are on the entry list but won’t been in all the interviews and such leading up).
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I completely agree with Texarkana - the fan base that is looking forward to a particular horse or rider is also the fan base that is educated enough to understand what certain entries on a list mean. You know Harry intends on bringing some, because you know he isn’t allowed to run them all at Badminton. You know Jennie wouldn’t have entered at an event on the other side of the ocean unless that was her Plan A, and you know she obviously can’t run both (cross-country, anyway). You know Michael Jung has only entered at Kentucky, so that’s his Plan A.
When you purchase a ticket to live entertainment - any live entertainment, but especially involving animals - you are promised a spectacle and an experience but very little is guaranteed. They don’t give refunds on Broadway when the understudy is stepping in for the lead that night. Kentucky will provide an excellent experience, no matter if Harry Meade brings two or three horses. I promise!
We are a sport where one of the athletes does not have their own voice - that is a huge privilege, and we must take that duty of stewardship seriously. That means not pressuring riders to run their horse for any reason. We all have our favorites, and we all want to see them run (no one moreso than the riders themselves, of course) but the horse comes first - be that their physical wellbeing (are they completely fit and well?) or their mental (do I have an opportunity to get my horse more prepared for the atmosphere they will face at Badminton in two weeks time?) Horse people know that.
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