RE: FEI

["Maryanne Stroud Gabbani" <maryanne@ratbusters.net>]

I seem to have started this one up again with my question about
relationships between national associations and the FEI. Sorry, Michael, no
harm intended. Egypt is in an interesting situation because the FEI has been
around for a long time but only concerned with show jumping, VERY exclusive
in attitude, and essentially a governmental entity...they do have budget
from the Ministry of Youth or Sport or someone.  Endurance, on the other
hand, has been limited to some touristic horse trekking and me nagging
friends to come out and ride in the desert or anywhere for longer than 2
hours...Most of us got our introduction to it last spring, courtesy of the
UAE. Now, there are a lot of us (let's try for about 150 in the Cairo area)
who are interested and our local federation, EEI, hasn't a clue about
endurance but is insistent upon being the organizers of any endurance rides
sanctioned by the FEI. That's fine with us as long as we can set up another,
much more low-key, family and training oriented organization, the Egyptian
Endurance Association. At first the EEI argued that another association
could not exist alongside the local FEI association, hence my question on
relationships. Now the EEI accept that the EEA can exist, but all the FEI
rides will be run by the EEI. (Tired of E's yet?) For us that's ok too.
Right now, I understand that there is an FEI/EEI ride scheduled for Jan
13...it was "casually" mentioned to me while I was out fooling around in the
desert with some of my endurance buddies and I think that the one who
mentioned it was hoping for interest in managing on my part. Right now I'm
the only "experienced" ride manager in the country. But, unfortunately for
them and wonderfully for me, I am leaving on Dec 21 to visit my son in NY
and let my daughter visit her new college (she was accepted by Columbia as
well) and will be away til Jan 11. So the most I could do is offer email
advice and come and watch or volunteer. The riders are still having some
money issues with the local FEI as well, since the latest proposal was that
each horse must have a passport done yearly at a cost of LE 200 (think in
buying terms of dollars, rather than exchange rates...and that's only for us
rich ones. It's more like $500 for less wealthy riders) plus a rider
registration of LE 100, also yearly. If there's more than one horse and/or
rider in a family that gets pretty steep and they haven't mentioned ride
fees yet. Most of us would go with it if the passport simply were good for
the life of the horse and there was a family rate...but as is, there are a
lot of riders who can't afford that. The other organisation is trying to
keep the fees as low as possible and still have funding for rides with low
entry fees.

So our local issues have not been FEI-related per se. They have been more on
the lines of how to cooperate with and educate an existing body (the EEI)
that has more or less legal jurisdiction over FEI rides, while being able to
organise rides at more limited distances to educate our local riders. The
first two rides we had here under FEI supervision were a lot of fun. Our
local vets learned a lot, we learned a lot and everything was fine. The
issues that we had with the May race were just that....issues with one race,
the way it was arranged, and perceived conflicts of interest. That's not
FEI. That just happens, and it can happen anywhere as I have discovered in
taking over the running of my late husband's businesses.

AERC is great to have, I've even joined. The goals of most AERC riders are
probably more like those of 90% of the riders in the Egyptian Endurance
Association if it gets off the ground, as we hope it will. If our local FEI
can learn to do good FEI rides, so much the better, because that leaves the
lower levels to us and gives our more competitive riders an outlet too.  A
place for everything, and everything in its place, as my grandmother used to
say. It's a big sport. Lots of room for everyone.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Cairo, Egypt
maryanne@ratbusters.net
www.ratbusters.net



 The UAE are relative newcomers in endurance, and yes, they have
enormous amounts of money with which they seem to be trying to impress
someone.  As for success in riding abroad, we had plenty of that for awhile,
just the last year or so luck hasn't been as good.  Remember, we've had
several AERC riders bring home world and continental
championships......Becky
Hart, Sandy Schuler, Valerie Kanavy, Danielle Kanavy, Judith Ogus.  I'll bet
I've forgotten a few.  You're thinking the way I did a few years ago, but we
all have to realize that unless we plan to be isolationists, we must become
involved with the world endurance community and the rules that govern it.
We
can still have AERC here at home for the majority of us.  We CAN have both.

Barbara


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