Yeah I agree 100% why go if the aim isn’t to win a medal??
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Surely there were selection criteria published and therefore the PTB must adhere to those. They are not going to suddenly change what they are selecting for (such as younger pairs needing experience) at this stage of the game. Imagine the lawsuit from the owner of a front-running horse!
…oh wait, that’s pretty much what happened in Canada for the 2016 Rio games.
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My understanding of direct reserve: when a rider is named to a team with one horse as primary and another as direct reserve, if something happens to the primary horse, the rider can still be on the team with the direct reserve horse replacing the primary rather than automatically going to the named alternate rider and horse. It may be a bit more nuanced than this, and if so, I am sure someone will jump in and straighten us out.
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I think you send your best horse and rider combinations whether your goal is to finish on the podium or to simply finish a team. Given the nature of the sport and the competitive drive of the athletes, the riders are of course going to try to do their very best in each phase regardless. But if your team goal is to finish, you may make different decisions and have differnet strategies on xc day than if your goal is a podium finish. Yes, I am still pissed off about Rio when Lauren and Veronica fell at the bogey vertical. We later learned that chef DOC had left it up to her to decide whether to go direct or via the long route which almost every one else had taken - including Mark Todd on orders from the NZ chef.
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Some thoughts. The membership numbers of British Eventing (BE) and USEA are similar but the UK has a total population of 64 million so there are proportionally more Brits involved in eventing: it isn’t niche. Then play in the concentration of events in a small area: people complain if they have to travel more than a couple if hours to have a run. Badminton and Burghley are two of the biggest annual sporting events in the UK based on numbers attending (the Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot are also in the top ten) but whilst they are obviously aspirational, for most riders there are a lot of small scale, local opportunites - where people can even have a go on a day ticket (i.e. without the expense of BE membership). BE 100 has by far the biggest number of riders because any horse is capable of doing it, from Welsh pony to cob to potential future 5* horse. There are now national championships at BE80, 90 and 100 aimed very much at the everyday rider who are the majority of BE members. Probably the majority of events are one day in format, though often held over a 3-day weekend. Significant, because daughter, son, mum can run on a Saturday morning and then spend the rest of the weekend doing other things with the family. Then they can run again in a couple of weeks. Aside from BE-run events there is also an increasingly strong unaffiliated circuit which provides even more opportunity. BE as an organisation has always been concerned with getting details right. It collects and publishes annual stats on health and safety, does the research on e.g. frangible pins. The fall report forms at FEI are derived from BE ones. It is concerned with training and the education of all participants from riders to officials. Each year, before the season starts, free training is put on for fence judges at locations around the country. Course designers attend training and are mentored by some big names. There are specialist rider coaches accredited by BE and some are as well-known as the BNR, such as Chris Bartle, Caroline Moore, Yogi Briesner. Breisner is particularly interesting because he is probably better known to a wider public for the work he now does with race horses stemming from his success with eventers. There is an infrastructure in place underpinned by a horse culture traditionally based on jumping at speed: fox hunting and racing. Another aspect of horse culture in Britain and Ireland is that horses are generally expected to multi-task. Eventing closes over the winter months but dressage, show jumping, fox hunting, point to pointing continues. Young event horses may have a few days following hounds. Event riders themselves might be hunting their hunters all winter or race riding. Harry Meade, for example, offers annual pre-hunting training courses to the public. Frequently people will compete their event horse in straight dressage and showjumping. Dressage riders have been known to moan when the eventers turn up: they get beaten too often. Everyone benefits from the cross fertilisation of ideas, skills, knowledge. There is also the support network of specialist vets, nutritionists and top notch farriers. With the infrastructure in place, the UK is home to an amazing diversity of foreign riders. We have German, Swedish, French, Irish riders preferring to base themselves in the UK even though eventing is strong at home and also many from countries where eventing is limited, such as Spain or Kuwait. Without putting in too much thought, I can think of Australian, Canadian, American and Italian international riders based within 10 miles or so of where I’m sitting right now. Every event, even the lowest grassroots level will have competitors from all over the world. Top competition produces top competitive riders.
How is this paid for? Heaven knows. The majority of events work on voluntary labour. Blenheim Palace Horse Trials 4* and the 6 & 7 year-old championship, so xc on two days, multiple other competitions such as PC jumping and YEH, big shopping area, 60,000 paying public through the gates and it had 3 paid people on staff. The winner of the recent Burnham Market 4*S won £1,000 .
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Agree with this. Horse sport in UK is hugely popular.
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If I had to sum up @Willesdon’s post in a nutshell, I’d say that the UK is more successful than the US at eventing in 2021 because of widespread support on every level.
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Yes, thank you. I can be a bit wordy.
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No no, you had great information! I appreciated reading all of it, and it confirmed my personal suspiscions.
I think part of the reason the US hasn’t been very successful on an international stage most of this century is because eventers have to devote so much energy to hustling to support their careers and to support eventing in general. There is less public interest in eventing, therefore less opportunities for money. Our riders have to work harder to source and develop horses, they have to work harder to find ways to pay for those horses, they have to work harder to compete. We don’t have time, energy, or resources to multitask.
It’s not a coincidence that our highest internationally ranked riders (right now that’s Boyd, Phillip, and Lauren) also have some of the strongest support bases for their businesses. Boyd and Phillip have developed strong ownership groups to keep them well mounted; Lauren has the support of one of the wealthiest benefactors in the sport. They worked hard to build those bases of support and it has allowed them to greater access to competition in the end.
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Marilyn Little.
Lots of reasons! Funding, experience, points, etc.
Listen to the USEA recent podcast, team being picked soon so they can start training. Sounds like PD and BM were already picked long ago.
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It seems like if eventing had, oh, maybe another handful of very, very wealthy owners or ownership groups funding some of the top horses and riders, it could make a big difference for the US at the international level of competition. Besides PD and Boyd, the other riders we are talking about as being in the mix for Tokyo seem to have fairly strong ownership groups as well.
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Exactly. If you look at the only American riders who are in the top 60 of the worldwide rankings, it’s basically the only names being tossed around for Tokyo: Boyd, Lauren (not being mentioned as much), Phillip, Liz, Doug, and Tami. I think that is the order in which they land in the rankings, too.
If we could make the sport financially easier for everyone, there’s a chance we might become more competitive as a country. I mean, it’s horse sports so it’s always going to be expensive, but if there were more prize money or grants or reduced competition fees or something to offload some of the burden, our riders may not have to spread themselves as thin teaching, training, selling, finding sponsors, etc.
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I selfishly want Doug and Vandiver to go, I’m not sure how many more years of competition Quinn has left and it would be SO COOL to see him at the Olympics and be able to say he’s from my hometown and I know one of his owners. But again, that’s purely a selfish wish!
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I’m with you! I think Doug and Vandiver will be on the plane, but directly competing or as the reserve remains to be seen. Not that they wouldn’t do a great job if they weren’t, but they would also be absolutely fabulous reserves. Clean xc and show jumping are their specialties, and besides the blip at KY, dressage has been consistent to.
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I find it very interesting that of the 6 names being repeatedly mentioned for the US team 2 are Australian Ex pats who grew up eventing in Australia and moved to the US as established 4* (now 5* competitors).
Australia has a far smaller population than the US and therefore a lot less people participating in horse sports so I find this quite interesting given the Aus team is usually quite formidable
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We scream, rant and rave after every un-medaled Olympics. Why ??? Un-medaled was the rational expectation.
Happiness. We need to learn about realistic goals, and being happy.
Can’t we just have a picnic with plenty of beer and nachos, and just enjoy the day and our riders getting around reasonably?
Why is it that we MUST STRESS over medals? What’s the point ???
Not for nothing: An “American rider” did NOT medal in Rio. An Australian rider under the American flag medaled.
Under this logic, considering that the UK could field probably 3 medal-worthy teams every Olympics, meaning that there are several well-qualified British riders who have no shot at the UK Olympic team simply because of a crowded room, our strategy should be getting more top-ranked foreign riders on excellent horses to switch nationalities to the U.S. in time for Olympic team selection.
Then we can lean forward on the edge on our seats throughout the Olympic competition, with realistic hopes of a medal from a non-American rider who is riding under the U.S flag.
What pair of current U.S. rider-horse pairs do you think has a REALISTIC, VALID, 80% or better, shot at medaling in Japan? Then let’s limit that group to non-ex-pats. What should we be expecting? In a world not defined by Walt Disney.
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THIS.
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To your question of who has a shot at medaling for the US who isn’t an originally from another country: none of them, unless an anomaly occurs. Don’t get me wrong, we have some great horsemen and women, but like you said, we can’t hold a candle to some of these international teams unless something goes very wrong for them.
My statements you quoted were loosely directed at the the variety of voices who are implying we shouldn’t put PD and BM on the team: some people have suggested they aren’t “working” for us because we haven’t done well, other people have suggested we should leave them off to allow other riders to gain experience since we don’t have a shot anyway.
Here’s my opinion: the Olympics are a big, international investment where the best of the best are supposed to compete. Sending anything less than your best is not very sporting. Now I know it happens from time to time for reasons, and I know eventing has the weird circumstance where the Olympics aren’t the highest level of the sport… But I would be disappointed to learn that we sent lesser athletes on purpose for any of the Olympic events. You send your best, even if you are the underdog, even if your best changed their nationality for you.
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