Home Current News News Archive Shop/Advertise Ridecamp Classified Events Learn/AERC
Endurance.Net Home Ridecamp Archives
ridecamp@endurance.net
[Archives Index]   [Date Index]   [Thread Index]   [Author Index]   [Subject Index]

[RC] WEG 2006 - k s swigart

Steph Teeter said:

...the press and other disciplines weren't critical
of the Aachen course, they were critical of the sport.
Most of the rest of the Equestrian world never sees
Endurance unless it is held in conjunction with a WEG.
...
But still, when less than 50% of entries can even 'get
around' without some level of metabolic distress or
lameness... that simply doesn't look good.

Not only does it not look good.  It isn't good.  What has pretty much
been consistently demonstrated at the World Endurance Championships is
that less than half of the world's best (presumably) endurance riders
riding the world's best (presumably) endurance horses know how to ride
their horses within their level of fitness, or if they do know how, they
choose not to at the championship events because winning is more
important than riding the horse within its capabilities.

The world endurance championships have shown to the
rest of the equestrian community that endurance riders either are
willing to over ride their horses in pursuit of a medal or are incapable
of judging their own horses' abilities such that they accidentally over
ride them.  If a small percentage of the riders were unable to complete
the course, this could maybe be put down to bad luck on the day; but
when less than half of the participants complete the course, this is an
indication that the riders either don't know or don't care what they are
doing.

At local rides where you should expect to see learners and novices,
lower completion rates where the riders misjudged the horse's ability
are perhaps more understandable.  But, quite frankly, there is
absolutely no excuse for riders who are purportedly the best that each
country has to offer to have not yet figured out how to reliably finish
the course.

I, personally, am of the opinion that the WEC format itself actively
encourages riders to ride their horses beyond their level of fitness
(and since more than half the horses are being removed from the
competition as no longer fit to continue, we know that over half of the
riders ARE doing this), and am finding the whole thing more and more
distasteful.

The FEI is testing the wrong thing with its COC.  What it needs to do is
require riders to demonstrate that they are actually capable of
consistently FINISHING a course with their horse.  So it needs to start
looking at non-completions and factoring them in to whether a rider IS
actually capable of championship level competition....and perhaps to
start imposing some kind of sanctions on riders that don't complete the
course at the championship.

Because if they don't do something to encourage riders to ride their
horses within their capabilities even if it means slowing down so they
can, then the world endurance championships (with everybody else
watching) will continue to be an event where the rest of the equestrian
community (and the world at large??? if some people were to have their
way) just sees a bunch of riders who are willing to (or are too ignorant
to know not to) ride their horse into the ground.

I had to laugh when I read Valerie Kanavy's recent comment about how the
WEG in Aachen showed how endurance really had joined the big time of
professional horse sports and really was an Olympic calibre event.  What
it really showed is that less than half the riders even know (or care?)
how fit their horse is to do the event.

In human athletics, if you go to a local marathon with countless
amateurs and general enthusiasts, you DO see less than fit runners
staggering along the course, with many not finishing and many in some
metabolic or musculoskeletal "discomfort."  However, when you get to the
Olympics ALLLLLLL the participants are clearly fit and capable, and
while maybe one or two may take a bad step and not be able to finish, it
certainly isn't going to be more than half of them.

If endurance riders cannot figure out a way to have a world championship
event where only a handful of the participants are unable to complete
the course, then it will (at least in my mind) have demonstrated that
endurance as a sport has absolutely no business even having a "world
championship event."

One way that the FEI could, perhaps (assuming that the riders DO know
how to ride their horses within their capabilities and just choose not
to), improve the performance of endurance riders at the championships is
to have a rule that says, "if your country doesn't finish a team at the
championships, you aren't invited back to the next one," and then to
have only four riders per team (none of these people riding as
individuals only). If it does this, then countries will make damned sure
that they select riders who can be counted on reliably to not over ride
their horses.

Make no mistake, if you don't finish the course and are pulled because
your horse was not "fit to continue," you over rode your horse.  Can it
happen to anybody? Yes, even the best of riders can do this sometimes.
But just because it can happen to anybody doesn't change the fact that
you over rode the horse.  One would HOPE that the best of riders would
be better at not doing it than novices or even the general population of
all endurance riders.  And that the "elite" would do it hardly at all.

kat
Orange County, Calif.



=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp

Ride Long and Ride Safe!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=