RC: A reply to FEI's Michael Stone

[Leonard.Liesens@cec.eu.int]

<<Our last five endurance world championships were won by three 
horses ridden by the people who owned them or a family member. RO Grand 
Sultan was owned and ridden by Beck Hart.  "Cash" and High Winds Jedi were 
owned and ridden by Valerie Kanavy or her daughter Danielle.  These women 
were not paid to ride these horses.  They valued these horses as their 
talented partners.>>

please add that 8 of the topten finishers of the WEC 2000 are in the same
situation;

note also that the new World Champion Varoussa is onwed by MK Perringerard
and trained and ridden by Maria Killa since always and that they resist up
to now to very attractive proposals for their horse; this is the same for
the other french riders in this top ten; this is the same for me too and I
believe it should be the same also for the spanish rider; the australian
Parker, I don't know

Leonard


Concerning the ration of finishers (50 on 143 starters), please take into
consideration that there were a lot of so-called inexeperimented riders from
country with a relatively very short history of endurance riding; not to
blame them but we may not compare the state of endurance in
Poland/Russia/Turkmenistan with Europe or Australia or USA! Bringing the
minimum speed to 12 Km/h insure a more competitive championship and has
nothing to do with welfare of the horse (horse not in goos shape were
stopped immediately by the vets).

I think also that there will always be a big place for amateurs like us
because nothing will replace the deep knowledge that we have in a horse that
we have conditioned for thousand of hours in the saddle and in the races.
This is especially true in the races that we have in our contries (UA and
Europe) compared to the races in flat desert. And you may notice that this
was a very important element in this WEC 2000 : UAE had the best horses on
paper, but not trained by their riders. Django for example was really
impressive last year when he won the European Championship under the saddle
of Miguel Vila, his trainer. Miguel continued to condition him for the UAE,
in Spain, but this is not Miguel who rode him in the race. And you may not
even disconsider the riding skills of UAE riders; they now know their job
and they gained plenty of experience by riding in Europe; so where is the
difference ? tactic ? deep knowledge of the horse ? good/bad luck ?   better
conditioning when you do it for yourself ?  Experience of the trail ? 

I don't have the answer but what I know for sure is that the more difficult
the trail the better the chances of the amateurs!  Look at the results of
the big events in Europe (130KMs rides in France, hilly rides in other
european countries).

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