Re: RC: RE: Barney/Valerie

[Truman Prevatt <tprevatt@mindspring.com>]

We are really a very small - vocal yes - but small minority of the equine
community. While dressage is about as much fun as watching paint dry, it does
have a long history in the Olymipics and unseating it would be quite a task.
Building and securing a 100 mile race course not only from the sad to say
ever present threat of a terrorist and from what ever tick, flea, etc., that
carries a disease some country has but others don't would be a formable and
expense task for such little return. If eventing has a bad public realtions
problem because of over riding of the horses, just think of the horror on the
average person when they see several endurance horses lined up with IV's
dripping into their veins.

There are a lot of mainstream human sports trying to get in and most won't.
There's golf, rugby, cricket, etc. which all have much bigger following than
any of the equestrian sports and which even the average Joe down at the pub
understands. I would expect that endurance has about as much chance of making
it to the Olympics as a snow ball has of lasting more than a few minutes
outside on a early August day in Georgia.

It might make it, only time will tell. But even if there is a chance it's a
long way off.

Truman

Rides 2 Far wrote:

> > > >Much more interesting to watch those lunatics chasing over > log
> cabinsin the cross country part of 3 day....Unless there are connections
> > and power
> > plays going on behind the scenes,
>
> I've heard a few reasons why endurance *may* have a chance.  For one
> thing, the cross country jumping is very popular, and a big draw in
> broadcasting dollars, but they have an image problem. It's considered
> elitest.  The (riders) names don't change very often, and they tend to be
> from wealthy backgrounds.  Not many Cinderella stories.  Compare that to
> endurance. Other than the big money people in the Middle East,
> practically any competitor could be the subject of a rags to ummm, rags
> at the Olympics bio. >g<
>
> Our horses generally don't fall under the, "I imported him for 2 zillion
> dollars after my trainer chose him for me" catagory.  The public loves
> stories like "I bought him out of the local shopper after he cured entire
> stables of wanting to ride".  That's the sort of story that inspires the
> grassroots riders.  They think, "Hey if she could do that so could I" and
> the reporters know that and love to do something with a story like that.
>
> Nobody is going to cover an endurance ride start to finish... but they
> can do a 1 hr. coverage that would be exciting.  More so than watching
> emaciated men run their marathon.
>
> Finally, equine sports are the ONLY sport where women and men compete
> against each other.  They'll emphasize that.
>
> There's always an alternative you know.  We could ask to be a part of the
> "Extreme Games".  From what I've seen the athletes there look like they'd
> be fun to hang out with. :-)
>