Interesting to see how many qualified riders are not going. There are always some who don’t go for whatever reasons, but it seems like a fairly large number of riders are planning to skip it.
https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/entries-announced-for-longines-fei-jumping-world-cup-final/
The competition is fierce and the cost of participation is high. There probably isn’t too much point going if one hasn’t got a really good chance of making the upper levels, at least.
Did you read the names of those not attending? Sometimes a horse or rider is injured but there are some big names not attending and not all of them are injured.
I’d imagine many of the North American crew have the same reason as Kent - just off a Florida circuit, aiming their top horses for the big classes there, and not viewing the chances of success at a one-off demanding spring indoor show worth the cost or toll on the horses.
The Australian riders would have to put their horses through rigourous quarantine. A lot of the non-European nations are based in Europe, which makes it easier to join in. The European show circuit is only beginning to warm up again after a winter break so the horses are fresh. The American contingent have had months in Florida.
Yes, Kent explained his reasoning in the article. Good for him for caring about his horses.
Did they change the date of the World Cup this year? The U.S. usually has some big names there.
I suppose some people chose either WEF or the World Cup, though some of the European riders are doing both, but maybe they’ve not been showing for the whole WEF series.
I feel like the average age of the American riders is a good bit lower than usual this year. For the jumpers, anyway.
It is. It’ll be interesting to see how they cope with the course and the environment.
Alot went back and forth this winter between WEC and WEF, with so many 4* and 5* options, so it was a busy winter for FEI, for sure.
They have a lot of that similar opportunity in the summer between Traverse City, Saugerties, LP, and Hamptons.
I’m surprised to see there are only 51 horses doing the show jumping. That seems like a pretty low number compared to past years.
That was the reason for the thread. Many people are not attending. Do you know if the Date was moved, if maybe it is earlier in the year than it was before?
I would assume that for many riders it’s a lot of money (and stress) to spend to fly to Europe so early in the year. It makes more sense to skip it and go to Europe for the summer shows.
It’s also indoors which doesn’t suit some horses, and if you’re trying to tack on some more shows in Europe at the same time you’re probably competing indoors.
It might be a touch earlier than usual, but not by much. Maybe a week or so?
But if you’re sticking around through the end of WEF for the biggest prize money at the end of the season, that’s a pretty tight timeline.
If you have the stock and the staff to send some horses over ahead of time so the rider can just hop on a plane and catch up with them after showing the last week of WEF, it might be more feasible.
However, not everyone is in that position.
I do remember the year that a West Coast rider was showing at WEF on his way to the World Cup, and all of his equipment got stolen from the end of the driveway in Wellington as it was waiting to get loaded on the truck that was coming for the horses. And somehow, he managed to get enough stuff together to go over and show anyway.
As if it wasn’t enough of a scheduling and logistics challenge to make that tour work, even without having to replace all your equipment at the last minute!
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