Not USA-related but I love how this class selects for the best. Quel Homme de Hus has been hauling the Belgian team for seven years now, it’s awesome to see him get individual silver. Also loved to see the Hickstead baby, Jolly Jumper, popping out those clears especially as Eric Lamaze was in the stadium to see it. And I am a sucker for Marcus Ehning so this show was like candy for me.
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I am going to add my two cents in here. I am lurking from Eventing world. I follow the show jumping a little but not an avid follower. To my mind, at least in eventing, the world championships are more important than the Olympics, because they take the Olympic course down a notch, so the pinnicle is world championships. To my mind, you send the BEST. The Pam Ams are where you go for seasoning for us. Don’t we send teams to Europe for Nations cups? Were the team members tried in Europe?Just asking…
All team members have competed on Nation’s Cups in Europe. Brian Moggre probably had the lightest experience but he had a very experienced and scopey horse. Honestly, some of it was bad luck plus Mclain and Adrienne performed below expectations. If say they’d both jumped clear the first day the US would have been in the top 10 I believe.
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Agreed. We were in the medals in Rio, Tryon, and Tokyo. We had an off year with a young team while some of our top combinations were out with injury,. Looking at the scores it seemed like nothing was disastrous.
Adrienne and Mclain’s horses both had championship experience before but perhaps weren’t at their best this week. Brian is arguably sitting on one of the best horses in the world but this is his first championship as a rider, along with Lillie who is extremely talented but in a new partnership with her horse. This is a team for the future and I’m sure everyone gained valuable experience
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The reason you have “children of the 0.01%” at the top of horse sports in the USA is because you have no system in place to encourage and educate the children of the 99.99%.
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If you look at the current ranking list, and the short list selected in April, we did send the available best. Any other options were out due to injury or had less international experience or were not as suitable for other considerations. And I don’t think anyone complaining here was in the running 
.
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The only reason we have the children of the 0.1% at the top of the sport is $$$- they can afford the best horses and the best opportunities and the rest can’t. Talent has nothing to do with it otherwise some highly talented riders with no money would be the ones we support. Kind of what Eric Lamaze is doing for Canada- matching sponsors to good riders who otherwise wouldn’t have those horses or opportunities.
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Remember what Katie Monahan Prudent said/wrote a few years ago in the article that had people taking offense at the “scared amateur” commentary. My takeaway was that she said you had a great drop off after McLain, Beezie, Laura because those were pro’s kids and catch riders who grew up riding green horses, rank horses, blood horses, etc., etc., and that created a depth of knowledge and experience that fundamentally cannot be replicated by rich kids who have never ridden anything but the finest, most trained horses money can buy. Those rich kids are talented and I don’t doubt their skills in piloting such horses, but it is just not the same as being in the trenches as someone who has to make it work on whatever horse comes your way. My concern is that if all the green horse riding and young horse riding is left to the Europeans, there will be generations of riders in this country who cannot make their own horses, and will have a knowledge/instinct hole where their reservoir of lived experience should be. It may prove through international results that there is no avoiding the need to pay your dues through the school of hard knocks. The great irony being that Katie Monahan contributed to this very situation by pairing rich kids with pre-trained European superhorses. Hopefully she is taking some tough as nails, self made catch riding kids under her wing, and also getting them fox hunting, riding green horses, and training like she did
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Completely agree with previous post. My point is: watch out USA because this years World’s are a preview of the future when capitalism (only) dominates equestrian participation. Fair enough they needed experience but the fact that this group was that was all that was available…: warning bells should be ringing. I know there’s little that the vast majority of readers of this forum can do because the industry problems are systematic. But if its any consolation to those less fortunate: at the Worlds/Olympic level, talent and true horsemanship, not just being a millionaire/billionaires son or daughter, counts…
I wouldn’t say that the riders currently on the Canadian team wouldn’t have opportunities without his intervention. Certainly, he has been able to connect his very good sponsors to certain riders once he stopped riding those sponsors’ horses himself, and his continued forming of connections will be invaluable to the team, but the Canadian WEG team had two very accomplished adult children of accomplished horse people (Amy Millar and Erynn Ballard), and as far as I am aware, their WEG horses came from those riders’ existing connections. We’re not currently just pulling talented riders out of the local show circuits and matching them with world class horses to go and represent Canada.
The interesting thing though is that quite a few of the “talented rich kids” were trained by McLain - so you would think if he felt that was vitally important to his success to have had those experiences on less seasoned mounts, he would be nurturing that in his students. I distinctly remember reading an interview with Baylee McKeever where she talked about McLain as a trainer and how he was very protective of what she rode. I wish I could find the article. I mention her not only for the article but also because she has always been exceptionally well mounted, is a lovely rider, but not a “rich client” the way some others are - instead she is a “pro’s kid” who has been mounted on very talented, established horses (Cylana, for example) without seemingly replicating the experience of riding more green, rank, blood horses.
If you’re always going to be able to afford a well-broke top horse, and don’t have to worry about being able to ride whatever ride you are given by a client, I think it becomes less of an issue that you never grew up riding a horse that might dirty stop you into an oxer. Ideally would every rider possess those skills and depth of knowledge? Absolutely. But I’m not bothered to have the US represented by a rider of Lillie Keenan’s caliber because she was always well-mounted on nice horses.
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I think Baylee falls into a somewhat unique category with McLain as her trainer. I believe he is also her godfather.
I will say I remember seeing her show an occasional pony that was definitely less than perfect, or maybe just green, even if she has been very well mounted for the most part.
I feel confident that she will be better prepared than most of her peers when she has to ride a wide variety of horses on her college team this fall.
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He is also her godfather. And I agree - I think she will do exceptionally well and am excited to follow her career…I don’t think it will be too long before we start seeing her name float around for these teams.
My only point is that I think it seems like a bit of a catch-22 to talk about a great drop-off after riders like McLain, when they are also the ones training the next generation of riders. Presumably they are instilling the skills they found to be most vital to their own success. And we can guess at what those skills were, but clearly they know first-hand.
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I don’t think we can assume that. They are instilling the skills/offering the program that will pay the bills. No hedge fund parent is going to want to hear that their kid ate dirt coming off some rank horse on the theory that it’s good for their long term skill set and problem solving. That was my point about the irony of Katie Prudent’s article/interview–she created the people and system she bemoans. I also have sympathy for the pros who decide they don’t want their own kids to endure what they had to endure, and are going to keep them on safer horses. At the McLain Ward level, there are finances in place to make that happen. That is not true throughout the industry, though.
That was my point about Baylee though - she isn’t the daughter of a “hedge fund” parent. Obviously there are still resources to have their pick of mounts, but the idea of catering to a big-money client isn’t there.
I also don’t agree that the clients of that level of trainer are going to balk at doing something to benefit “their long term skill set.” We’re not talking about riders finding a trainer to start them in the puddle jumpers. We’re talking about clients that likely have long-term goals of being competitive for team USA. So the skills vital to the trainer’s own success would also be the skills that will pay the bills by furthering their client’s goals.
Yeah, my eyes automatically rolled at Ward’s comment. Sorry, you don’t make excuses.
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