Serious question, why do you take exception to the list of judges?
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Well, the FEI requires separate stabling from non-FEI horses with controlled access to the barns (single gate with guard and locked such that the horses can rest for at least 8 hours). Only people specified on the entry for a particular horse are allowed in those barns. That will make it interesting if they expect braiding from any person other than the grooms. I believe only 2 grooms are allowed on the entry per horse.
I would assume the hunters will be housed separately as they are not FEI horses.
Even at home we house the FEI horses separately with very controlled feed facilities and turnouts. We literally keep the batch numbers of the feed bags fed to those horses.
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Iām guessing there will be ample daylight hours for braiding as it looks like the hunter classes go around 2 or later with the flat class right at cocktail hour for some reason. 
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I was thinking more about access. There is no such thing as ābraidersā in the FEI world. Grooms only.
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A huge number of people already breed and show hunters in Europe, itās not like a new idea. Promoting this as international teams then inviting only American judges, without international experience, marketing it as an āupgradeā and incorporating no elements of European tradition shows they have no respect. Yes itās basically harmless rich person stuff but itās not the best timing for an ostentatious display of American wealth and arrogance overseas.
Nothing personal against the judges, it seems like a fun trip for them to go on and for the $100k entry I guess you get to bring your own judges.
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I think we can safely assume the FEI has nothing to do with this one.
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Off topic, but a pet peeve of mine is how competitive the European FEI grooms get in the braiding department. Remember Shutterfly? Sheesh. 40 perfect braids when I think Iāve gone overboard at 24. I think their tight plaits would suit our hunters perfectly well.
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Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum was a product of the US equitation program. I ASSume that Shutterfly was turned out according to her idea of what an international event deserved.
JMHO.
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I know I should probably do my own research, but how many of the horses competing were actually bred, foaled, and trained in the US? If weāre going to be demonstrating the American hunter style would be nice to do it with American bred horses
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While Meredith does have very high standards I am confident that the bazillion braids tight as tiny bullets originated with her groom from Finland, Anu. Tight as hailstones I meanš.
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The more I learn about this event, the more confused I get
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It was awhile ago but a friend got access to braid one of the US team dressage horses for the ā96 Olympics. She only braided. And brought my collection if USET pins into the stabling area and made some awesome trades on my behalf
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As others have said, I canāt imagine the hunter section of this event will be under FEI stabling restrictions.
And I also canāt imagine that these people will fly their hunters to Europe and show them without having braids in.
I would imagine that somebody came up with a plan, and the only question is how many braiders will get to go, based on the number of total horses.
Has anyone found a list of starters yet?
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There is a list of entries for the show that takes annoyingly long to scroll through, but I see they have Natalie Dean, Alex Crown, Vani Khosla, Lillie Keenan, Emily Williams and Jessica Springsteen to kick around. I will bet on any team that recruits Sheikh Ali al Thani.
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Thanks!
I went back and found the Chronicle article from last month, which says that there will be drug testing going on there.
I have not listened to it yet, but here is a podcast with Liza Boyd about her plans for the class.
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Here is the prize list for the event, which is interesting.
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Which is funny since sheās no longer going
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Wait until you see the list of folks who actually ended up going. Almost no one from their original promotional material. I am not sure what they were thinking with this ill-conceived class, what made anyone think it was a good idea to ship hunters (who arenāt acclimated to the time changes, the flying et cetera like the big time jumpers are) to Europe for one show?
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Link?
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Link, please. I tried the one upthread, but it was not clarifying.
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