How many decades are required?
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You’re welcome.
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Exactly this, and thanks for pointing it out @MHM. The constant “this is how we care for our horses and this is how you should ride” when he’s never been a show groom or a manager or a pro and has been riding at this level for a couple of years is off-putting.
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As many as McLain and Kent have
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McLain was second today in the 1.50 class at La Baule. Kent was sixth. It looks like you can watch the videos of the top three finishers for free.
https://results.worldsporttiming.com/event/199/competition/6575/result
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I don’t see Karl, did he not compete in the GP?
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I believe the Grand Prix is tomorrow at 1.60.
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Ah I see now, didn’t look at the class name. Thanks
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You’re welcome.
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Last I checked, and correct me if I’m wrong, neither Lillie nor Katie’s mom’s have thousand acre jumper breeding facilities dedicated to breeding jumpers for their children to ride yet still have to go out and spend seven figures.
On a completely unrelated note, does anybody think that there will be pressure to not have four white dudes on the team? I have no idea what the demographics are historically, but living in California where optics and demographics are shoved in our faces everyday, I wonder if this is even on the fringe of anybody’s minds involved in the process.
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Regarding the “four white dudes”, I think it would be very surprising if Laura Kraut is not on the team.
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I hope so! And not because she is a woman but because she’s an excellent rider.
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Good luck fielding teams at all, then.
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Well it’s a good thing that McLain and Kent are mostly likely on the team, and Laura, who also has that much experience. 
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I don’t know what you’re rolling your eyes at, lol. Sure, this year’s team (especially with it being 3 people) is obvious.
But what happens 4 or 8 years down the road? What if one or more of those 3 are no longer competing at the top level, a la Beezie? You don’t have replacements for those players without giving the up and comers experience. If your requirement for being on the team is having decades of experience, your supply of riders is going to dry up very quickly. At some point, you have to put someone unproven under that level of pressure in the ring - because the only way you’ll see how they do under immense pressure is to do it.
Is the Olympics the right place for it? I don’t know. Is the Nations Cup final? WEG?
How do you choose which Very Big Deal is the right Very Big Deal if you have someone at that level for the first time and need to test how they’ll perform?
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By that logic riders like Martin Fuchs or Bertram Allen shouldn’t have been put on teams?
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McLain was 29 when he first went to the Olympics. I guess you wouldn’t have put him on the team then though.
Not to mention Karl would be the oldest “youngest” member of the Olympic show jumping team for the USA in over a decade. Jessica Springsteen was 30 at Tokyo in 2021. Lucy Davis was 24 in 2016. Reed Kessler was (very famously) 18 in 2012. McLain was the youngest rider on the 2008 team at age 33 - the same age as Karl now.
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Age has nothing to do with experience
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Good grief, if it only took money Dubai would be winning. Or Eva Jobs or Jenny Gates.
FWIW Karl’s mother was a beautiful rider and I give her great credit for raising her horses in huge pastures and not little 12x24 turnout pens.
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