US Olympic Team and alternates named

[OverandOnward]

[QUOTE=FitToBeTied;8736244]
I’ll agree with JER that four years in sports is a long time. It is not like we were forming the jamaican bobsled team here. We had and have established riders who were competing internationally.

So what do people expect the time frame to be? As has been pointed out we are 12 years away from the last team medal?[/QUOTE]

Time frame for what? If someone has decided the status quo is good enough, or else that ‘more’ isn’t worth what it would take to get there, there isn’t much point in building up expectations of anything different.

The selection process seems to have been far more rational and better overall. Otherwise, regardless of the names, the team and U.S. eventing generally is doing what it always does. In order to change, one has to change. :winkgrin:

Every two years there is the same discussion, the same things are said. That doesn’t change, either.

[redalter]

So I just saw the virtual walk on EN. So much for the whole “big square tables cause falls” thought.

There are a number of big, square, airy tables. Of course, my little lower level self just doesn’t see the need for those - or at least more than one of them.

What is wrong with making the front of them a little slopey or ascending? It’s already BIG.

[vineyridge]

In the Buck and Kyle video, apparently the scuttlebut was that the course would be a hard 2*. Does it look as if they were right?

[JER]

Team GB has the World Class Equine Pathway to identify talented horses and get them in the high performance pipeline.

[flyingchange]

JER - I think you should call David and give him the breakdown…:rolleyes:

[Winding_Down]

[QUOTE=JER;8736317]
Fours years would work like this:

If you’re the chef at the beginning of the quad, you would identify your international-quality 9/10 year-old Advanced horses, plus your rising talent 8 year-olds. You’ve also got some veterans to track who might be still going strong in four years. Now you’ve got four years to help those combos to reach consistent international results.

Four years is plenty of time. [/QUOTE]

tsk tsk… JER you are assuming that we have a pile of 8-10 year old Advanced horses that are going to be those international stars.

How many do you want to identify? 20? 30? I mean, think of the probabilities of horses not making it to a 4* level and then sheer number you need to reach your four year deadline.

It is not just identifying them at age 9, it is finding the ones that are going to get there and be good enough to continue.

Look at our numbers at that level…

Your math is lacking.

[JER]

[QUOTE=Winding Down;8737236]
tsk tsk… JER you are assuming that we have a pile of 8-10 year old Advanced horses that are going to be those international stars.

How many do you want to identify? 20? 30? I mean, think of the probabilities of horses not making it to a 4* level and then sheer number you need to reach your four year deadline.

It is not just identifying them at age 9, it is finding the ones that are going to get there and be good enough to continue.

Look at our numbers at that level…

Your math is lacking. ;)[/QUOTE]

This post is beautiful illustration of the kind of learned helplessness I’ve been talking about, right down to the ‘tsk tsk’.

So what you’re saying is: while Germany and GB can identify and select talented horses as they move up the ranks, the US can’t.

Okay. Game over then. Why not just shut down the USEF HP Eventing program right now? If the HP folk can’t be accountable for anything – winning medals, identifying potential top horses, finishing teams even – and must be given more than four years to show improvements, then the HP program isn’t much more than a series of six-figure payouts and annual European vacations with horses to a select few individuals.

[Winding_Down]

[QUOTE=JER;8737276]
This post is beautiful illustration of the kind of learned helplessness I’ve been talking about, right down to the ‘tsk tsk’.

So what you’re saying is: while Germany and GB can identify and select talented horses as they move up the ranks, the US can’t.

Okay. Game over then. Why not just shut down the USEF HP Eventing program right now? If the HP folk can’t be accountable for anything – winning medals, identifying potential top horses, finishing teams even – and must be given more than four years to show improvements, then the HP program isn’t much more than a series of six-figure payouts and annual European vacations with horses to a select few individuals.[/QUOTE]

Oh my. You totally missed my point which was that your insistence that the US can turn around and be winning in 4 years by simply identifying horses at advanced that will be on a team, is absurd.

It takes far longer. Of course we can identify talented advanced horses. That is not rocket science. But we do NOT have enough of them.

We need to identify the 4-6 year olds and have enough of them to develop to the 4* level. Find them, buy them, develop them.

Try this on: pick 20 8-10 year old horses that YOU think will be 4* material in another 4 years.

Easy! Right?

If it were so simple as to point out talented 8-10 year olds then a 3rd grader with any math skills could do so. A lot more is involved… oh if life were so simple!

[JER]

[QUOTE=Winding Down;8737304]
Oh my. You totally missed my point which was that your insistence that the US can turn around and be winning in 4 years by simply identifying horses at advanced that will be on a team, is absurd. [/QUOTE]

That’s not what I’ve been saying in my posts.

[vineyridge]

But the Germans can do it. Sam was only 10 when he won the 2010 WEG. Opgun Louvo didn’t just suddenly appear out of nowhere before the 2012 Olympics. And he was only 10 then and had come second at the Luhmuhlen 4* in 2011 when he was nine. He started running 3*s when he was eight, but had come 3rd at Le Lion when he was seven.

Sam was 2nd at Le Lion both his 6 and 7 yo years. He ran the Luhmuhlen 4* in 2009, and went on from there.

So both horses were on the German radar and possibly supported to Le Lion very early in their careers.

The Swedish horse who excelled at London had never done a 4*. But she had come in 9th at Le Lion in her 7 yo year.

Miner’s Frolic was 2nd at Le Lion. Mr. Medicott was 5th there. Borough Penny Z was 9th there. So more than half the horses who finished London in the top 11 were top 10 finishers at Le Lion.

If the horses who finish in the top ten at Le Lion generally do so darned well later in life, it’s certainly possible to identify exceptional horses before age 8.

[JER]

There are people who select talented young eventers on a regular basis. Horse brokers, re-sellers, riders, etc. There are people who actually make a living doing this.

This idea that it can’t be done is ludicrous.

[Winding_Down]

[QUOTE=JER;8737847]
There are people who select talented young eventers on a regular basis. Horse brokers, re-sellers, riders, etc. There are people who actually make a living doing this.

This idea that it can’t be done is ludicrous.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely! It is not difficult at all.

We just need the funds and programs to support them.

I also believe that this has already been done and is being done. I know several ULR/BNR’s who have imported some outstanding young horses and then there are breeders who are now producing them. We went through a “lull” and we were selecting young horses that did not have much blood. This has been recognized as i have learned in conversations with some of the top players in the sport.

There are other factors as well but producing them here in the states is one step and selecting them overseas and here is another.

I recall many moons ago when US imported dressage horses that were big and heavy (old style) while the Europeans were selecting the fancier horses we see prominent in the dressage ring today. US was NOT doing well during that time period. We learned and remedied the selection process.

Same is being done here. We are on the right track but breeding/selecting young horses and expecting them to be at the top of the sport 4 years later is hugely unrealistic.

Gives us some time and we will be up there again.

[vineyridge]

We are on the right track but breeding/selecting young horses and expecting them to be at the top of the sport 4 years later is hugely unrealistic.

The Le Lion 6 and 7 year olds do it regularly.

[Divine_Comedy]

[QUOTE=vineyridge;8738070]
The Le Lion 6 and 7 year olds do it regularly.[/QUOTE]

The top, most-promising, potentially internationally winning Le Lion 6 and 7 year olds are generally still not for sale. The U.S. is starting to realize that to have those truly top class international 3 and 4 star horses, we need to either breed them ourselves or buy them at 3 and 4 years old. So that’s another 3-4 years just to get them to the point of being top class at an event like Le Lion. The one star and two star levels are not the starting point of the timeline, they are the mid-point of the timeline. Now we’re back to looking at six to eight year timelines again.

Obviously there are exceptions. Cooley Dream might be one of those exceptions eventually. But horses like Mai Baum and Glen…both purchased quite young and produced in the U.S. from the Novice and Training levels. Those horses wouldn’t have been for sale as one star horses because by then their talent would have been too obvious as potentially world-beating talent.

[Marigold]

[QUOTE=vineyridge;8738070]
The Le Lion 6 and 7 year olds do it regularly.[/QUOTE]

If we’re going to keep coming back to Le Lion as a gold standard, and I think it’s a great standard, the US has two very exciting things related to that specific program:

1. the grant program designed to support the very best of the young horse classes flying to Le Lion a few years later (if they are qualified), to represent the US and see how we stack up against the best in the world.

2. a specific graduate of that program, D.A. Duras. Viney, as you pointed out, we should be looking to produce top 10 finishers at Le Lion and then targeting them to future teams. As a result of the grant mentioned, Duras was able to compete at Le Lion and ultimately finished 9th in 2015 with Kelly Prather, who produced him to the level. He has since been placed with Lauren Kieffer (apparently always the plan to move him on from Kelly after Le Lion) to continue his training.

I’ve kept an eye on him, and while his results took a definite dip when Lauren took over the ride, they’ve since picked back up and appear to be better than ever. I actually find that particularly hopeful for his future - it’s clear Lauren and his owner made a plan and adjusted some pieces of his way of going with a committed view to his long term success, and accepted that in doing so there would be a short-term impact on his results. This shows a clear eye to the long-term future of an obvious US team hopeful. As a graduate of Le Lion 2015, WEG may be a smidge too early (he’s currently 8), but Tokyo looks like a phenomenal target for this horse in particular.

The US does have the horses, and those horses can produce the record. The depth just needs to be encouraged to fill the pipeline, to one day fill the team.

[JP60]

I find this last couple of pages fascinating in regards to our sport. Here we have multiple posts about the need to look for and develop better horses so of course a 4 year program wont do. But wait others say, we have talented horses, and just need to identify them so they get into the next pipeline…

Horses Horse Horses

Yet what of the riders. Does it take 4 years for Phillip, or Boyd, or Lauren or some US BNR to get ready for the Olympics? I mean, these guys are riding in shows clearly harder than the Olympics every year so it stands that they should already be prepared to ride a show that is clearly NOT a Burghley or Badminton.

The US is only as good as it’s top riders riding at the top of their game and from most indications, none meet the same capability as riders in the EU. You can blame the horse all you want, but that horse is a reflection of the rider at the end of the day.

We could even look at something as basic as fitness and ask, how fit are US trained horses compared to EU trained horses then ask does it matter whether we have a 4 or 8 year plan if we cannot even field a bold, brave, and fit horse? Fancy movers aside for the moment, if you cannot finish cross country, or finish with time, and can’t jump stadium without knocking rails then you cannot ever be a presence on the world stage. This is why we get beat.

Don’t put it on the horse that we cannot win a medal, put it first on the fact we can’t train a horse to carry a sack of potatoes over a muddy field in pouring rain without needing to be man-handled the whole ride, or without gasping for air at the end. We don’t either take or have the time to do so.

[NCRider]

I still think it comes back to the ability of our riders to train on the flat. The German riders in particular have an enormous head start on us because of their ability to get the most out of a horse’s natural gaits in the dressage phase. They are also better naturally in the SJ. It allows them to a) place more emphasis on jumping ability when selecting horses because the Rider carries the dressage phase and b) spend less time drilling the dressage and more time on fitness and jumping and general body work.
Their 10 year program toward world domination focused on improving their rider’s ability xc. Ours will have to improve our rider’s seats and dressage training knowledge. I think that’s a bit harder to accomplish in a shorter period of time.
Where the US went astray for awhile was trying to short cut the dressage improvement by buying, competing and selecting better natural dressage horses. And over drilling the dressage on their ULH’s.

[vineyridge]

The New Zealanders and British always do well in international competition. Yet until very recently, Britain has never been a Pure Dressage powerhouse and New Zealand never has. So what do they do in the beginning of rider training that gives them such success in eventing dressage? Somehow I can’t believe that they have the same training systems as the Germans.

[JER]

[QUOTE=NCRider;8738319]
The German riders in particular have an enormous head start on us because of their ability to get the most out of a horse’s natural gaits in the dressage phase. They are also better naturally in the SJ. [/QUOTE]

Naturally?

How does that happen? Seriously? Showjumping – and riding in general – is a skill. Success is not determined by ethnicity or genetics.

Look no further than the fact that I’m German-born. :lol:

If one chooses to travel the world and do horsey stuff in foreign lands, I guarantee you you’ll see loads of rubbish riding everywhere you go. Americans don’t have an exclusive on it, not by a long shot.

What is true is that Germany, GB, NZ all have more successful high performance programs than the US. Whether that’s a reflection on or correlates with the general horse and rider populations in those nations is another matter.

[FitToBeTied]

@Winding Down;8737304

It takes far longer. Of course we can identify talented advanced horses. That is not rocket science. But we do NOT have enough of them.

We need to identify the 4-6 year olds and have enough of them to develop to the 4* level. Find them, buy them, develop them.

But we have been some pretty expensive people for years, to do just that. These are the PTB that people are always saying know better, have more experience, etc. and we should just trust their judgements. It’s not like suddenly there is a 4* level that had not existed before.

Also, isn’t it part of the job of a professional upper level rider to cultivate this kind of stable? Or are they there to merely ride the horse in competition, like a jockey in the Kentucky Derby? Look at our upper level riders and realize that some of them have been around for 20+ years and its only every once in a while that they managed to find that right horse. That suggests to me a big hole in their professional skill set.

I know people will argue that it takes money but that is another aspect of the job for both the officials and riders. If you aspire to be a top professional in eventing then you need to have the business and marketing skills to attract investors.

I think our officials and riders are behind the curve in identifying talent and on the business side.