RE: RE: RE: Worlds Most Preferred--Really?

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

Whether they spend their money or not, it is good for the entire riding
community worldwide to have the FEI rides for the UAE and other countries to
compete in......in the end it will, hopefully, educate also about different
kinds of endurance. There definitely is a long-distance flat racing type of
race like they lay out in the Gulf, but this area is still new to endurance.
No one has really tried Tevis, Old Dominion, or XP style riding here.
Therefore everyone sticks to what they know. I'd love to see some more
technically difficult rides in Egypt, but if horses are going to race at
20+km an hour, you HAVE to have lots of water and cars to carry it.  Sort of
a weird chicken and egg thing. There are a few people beginning to talk
about rides through the mountains and wadi's of Sinai or through the oases
in the Western Desert. The logistics are really tricky and no way you could
move very fast....two different ideas of what the sport is about. I'd hate
to see it become just one idea.

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


On the other hand, we need to have them come over and spend their
money here in the States, too, where we have our own home field advantage.
I'm not saying UAE buying the championships, I am thinking individuals
coming to compete.  (The Championship issue I am not informed, therefore
I will wait to see what plays out before I stick my foot in my mouth.)

If we don't FEI sanction our rides like we are starting to, there will
be less incentive for foreign competitors to come to the US to compete
where we have our own home field advantage.  So what do we do?  We could
just play in our own backyards forever and thrilling at our local Top 10,
which people will continue to do no matter what FEI does.  But there
is no place for those who want to go on to compete internationally to
compete, no place to practice competing internationally, and then we
find out that we are NOT able to compete internationally with our