Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Hi Leonard,

The two most vivid impressions I have of Endurance on the European 
continent, and please correct me if I am in error, are that a) it is all 
run under the auspices of FEI using their rules and their standards and 
b) the vast majority of riders are trying finish high in their races, 
climb the ladder of International Competition, garner COCs and hopefully 
represent their countries at the WEC.  While that has been a successful 
formula so far, the good news for France and Belgium and anyone else 
that might be disenchanted with FEI's "I will tell you how to do 
endurance" attitude (even if they don't really know as much as they like 
to think they do) is that you have a different model you can follow. 
It's called AERC.  While many of our riders want to "Top Ten", for the 
most part, AERC riders compete for the enjoyment of seeing new places 
and seeing how well they and their horses can "go the distance", "well" 
meaning healthily and happily, not necessarily fast.  Again, it is my 
impression that FEI Endurance is structured to not only promote speed 
but to actually discourage a slower pace.  Here, that's not true and the 
number of people in AERC who aspire to international competition is 
probably under 100 amongst a membership of 6900, less than 1.5%.

So if you and other riders are tired of everything in your sport being 
slanted towards hitting it, hitting it, hitting it and you'd like to be 
able to ride at the pace most suitable for you and your horses, consider 
forming national or multi-national associations modeled after AERC where 
the focus is on people and horses doing what they like, *just for the 
sake of doing it*, with NO pressure to prove themselves other than the 
pressure which they put on themselves.  This would allow ride fees to be 
reduced (no FEI taking its cut) which might encourage more people to try 
the sport and maybe get hooked.

Then the next thing you have to do is introduce the Turtle Award :)

Regards, Diane

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

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!!

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