Re: RC: FEI

[BMcCrary27@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/14/2000 4:39:57 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
Howard4567@aol.com writes:

<< I just hope someday we get that team thing worked out cause it sure is 
 sad how poorly we did in France.  I still say it's because American 
endurance 
 riders are much more independent, even more than the average American (who 
 are the most independent creatures on the planet) and it's why we can't do 
 the team thing as well as we should.  >>

I think the performance we turned in in France WAS our poorest.  We've done 
quite well before.  I certainly agree with you about Americans being 
independent!  That's how and why we got here.  We're all descendents of 
people who didn't like the way things were being run on the other side of the 
world.  The old world is historically more dominated by rules and attitudes, 
results of hundreds of years of battles among countries and people with 
different languages, societies, governments, and from attitudes developed 
from being overrun by one's neighboring countries, conquered, occupied, and 
re-conquered time and again.  If the same had happened to us in this country, 
we'd probably think differently, too.  In 1985, the impression I formed was 
that no one country in Europe trusted any other country, for the above stated 
reason. For that reason, FEI-run rides required passports on horses and 
secure stabling with guards, because it was possible for sabotage to occur. 
In a continental championship in Austria in which we rode, my husband's 
German mare kicked an Italian's horse at a vet check.  The latter horse was 
heavily blanketed, so no damage was done, but the Italian said something in 
his own language that left no question that my husband was being cursed up 
and down for the misbehavior of a mare he had just met the day before.  
Prejudice is not confined to any one people. And in Europe, certain 
nationalities are traditionally hated by certain others.  Well, I digress, 
but If we wish to continue to compete with other countries, we  must do so 
under FEI rules.  Here at home, in our local rides, we don't have to.

Barbara