Teddy
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THE UNSUNG HERO IN EVENTING
By Denny Emerson, Pres. USCTA
from the USCTA BOOK OF EVENTING,
the official handbook of the United States Combined Training Association
The unsung hero of American eventing, the one who makes the sport possible,
is the volunteer worker. The whole sport runs on the backs of thousands of
largely unthanked and unrecognized support personnel, virtually none of whom
receive a penny for their services.
What sport requires more man hours of labor for each minute of actual
competition than eventing? What sport makes its organizers less rich and
famous than eventing? And what sport would fold up and disappear more quickly
without its labor force? Think of logistics. To run even a pre-training
horse trials requires acres of land. Trails must be made, trees cut, grass
or brush mowed, a cross-country course planned and laid out. Then the course
has to be built. Logs are cut and dragged into place, post holes are hacked
through rocky soil, the simplest fence can take a couple hours of labor, and
even pre-training requires 15 of them. The dressage rings must be
constructed and painted, the area measured and laid out, the judge's
equipment assembled. The stadium fences have to be purchased, built or
borrowed, lugged into place and assembled. But even well before this, others
have spent hours in an office and on the phone dealing with entries,
arranging stabling, ordering ribbons, hiring officials. The list is endless.
All of this precedes the actual competition, when we get the really major
manpower requirements, with the jump judges, the couriers, the timers,
scorers, starters, medical personnel, and the veterinarians.
I was at a little event in Vermont one time when Paul Popiel jumped a water
jump too boldly and disappeared. Obviously, from a purely technical
viewpoint, the water was too deep to be legal for the level of competition.
I blithly said to him later, "Why didn't you complain?" I've never forgotten
his answer. "Denny, I've run an event, I'll never complain again." I only
wish every competitior in America could sometime be on the other side of the
fence. Neil Ayer told me that some motor racing or motorcycle group has
worked out a system where in order to enter a competition a competitor must
include with his entry a form signed by a rally organizer stating that the
competitor has put in a certain number of hours as a helper. This may be
tough to administer, but I certainly see the merit in the spirit of the
concept.
Yet, tempting as it might be to coerce people into helping run the sport from
which they derive benefit and pleasure, the word "volunteer" is derived from
the Latin "voluntas", meaning free will. And this willing committment to
eventing, multiplied by tis thousands of proponents, is eventing greatest
strength. People get involved because they like the sport, they believe in
its merit, and they freely and cheerfully give themselves to it. Here we see
graphically demonstrated the power of the single individual to bring positive
good to hundreds of others through his personal efforts.
So, from all of us who ride, thanks are in order to you thousands of workers
throughout America who make eventing possible. And, finally, I would like to
give recognition to that individual (a different one each year) who as always
symbolized for me the ultimate example of the selfless violunteer. There is
an area of the Doornhof Farm cross-country course near the water jump where
even the bravest course walkers never linger for fence analysis. No horse
would be stupid enought to refuse here. I speak of mosquitoes as big as
hummingbirds. And, yet, I am told, someone sits all day as the jump judge at
that fence. To you and all those volunteers who share your dedication to the
sport, I dedicate this book.
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