I find it truly amazing that horses can go that fast for 100 miles. My hat is off to any rider that can accomplish that and have a fit, sound, happy horse at the end of a competition that intense. As one previous post mentions, when you can develop a program that can afford the best of the best in terms of horses, trainers, facilities, vet care, and all the rest exceptional results should follow. I don't know how many horses one must go through to find the exceptional athlete that can hold up not only in competition but through the many miles of training at speed but in my eyes it does show can be accomplished by an exceptional athlete.
This type of racing doesn't effect me as an individual rider here in the US because I do not want to support this kind of endurance racing by participating or selling a horse that would be ridden in this type of ride. But I would hope in the future that information gained in training, research, feeding, etc. would be shared with the entire endurance community and therefore we could all benefit from the millions spent on endurance racing in the UAE. The situation with the US sending teams to compete internationally against horses/riders with access to the best of the best and where $$$ is no problem is a little like the US Olympic teams competing with the USSR teams in the 1970s and early 1980s where the USSR athletes were chosen/culled at a young age and then could completely concentrate on training for their given sport with complete sponsorship from a government with no spending limits on their athletes or their needs. I know were are not talking "government sponsorship" in endurance riding but I am sure you can see my analogy. Some may not think this is fair but on a smaller scale we deal with this in our local endurance riding community. Some riders can afford better horses, rigs, tack, and most of all, have more time to train. Some riders can afford to go to more rides and can take more time off work. The list goes on and on.
I am sure the AERC International community is working on ways to try to get teams better prepared for this new kind of international competition. Aside from the money issue, it must be hard since the base, meaning most AERC members, they are choosing from, for the most part, does not does not approach this sport the same way a "racing stable" does meaning trying several horses and culling those that are not the best, use trainers, exercise jockeys, ride a certain horse for the first time at a high profile race, the list goes on and on. For most of us, endurance is our passion not a business - therefore many of us (even if we could afford it) do not use trainers, exercise boys and girls, sell our horse because it is not a "winner". When someone mentioned that this is not "endurance" Potato came back and said it is.....and he is right... this race is endurance riding- it is 100 miles regardless of the terrain and speed. All those horses that completed the Presidents Cup did go 100 miles and did pass vet checks. Those are endurance horses we should honor them as such. I kind of look at this as one more subset of endurance.....professional/amateur, one day ride /multiday ride, LD/ real endurance (just kidding), race/completion. We all ride endurance different and we participate in the events we like and do not support those we don't like. If you don't this type of "endurance" don't support it.
