Re: RC: RE: AERC & International & FEI

["Tracey" <tracey@tbt.co.za>]

Leonard wrote:
---

>Another point concerning money and FEI...>You are wrong!!!>



Well, that's putting it succinctly.  But seriously, thanks for enlightening
us re prize money etc.


My concern, however, as expressed in previous posts is that endurance, like
other equestrian sports, may become "big money" without there necessarily
being huge amounts of prize money being doled out.  Show Jumpers make their
money from sponsorship, dealing, training, and not from competition - the
competition merely serves to :

a.  massage their egos; and

b.  show off how brilliant they are so all the daddies of sixteen year old
Portia, Tosca or Lysander will queue up for the jumper in question to train
his little future star; and

c,  show off young horses at lower level, for which they can then charge
enormous amounts of money to the aforementioned Portias, Toscas and
Lysanders, by telling them that "he'll go A Grade, no problem.  Will
definitely take you to the top").


I know I sound cynical, but equestrian sports have always, for reasons
beyond my ken, attracted the nouveau riche, who will expend large sums of
their hard-earned cash to compete at the top.  How long before endurance
becomes another fatality in the "keeping up with the Smythe-Joneses"
mentality?


Tracey