UAE/AERC

[renegade12@juno.com]

Believe it or not, I don't think the UAE is the evil enemy of endurance...but there is an agenda to everything that is being done.  The following is the reasoning behind all that has occurred (IMHO):

 

1) The UAE wants to be a major player in the sport of endurance riding and they have a huge competitive ego (not necessarily bad nor limited to the Middle East culture).

2)  Unlike the Americans, they do not have a long tradition of endurance riding nor a long standing and world respected endurance organization like the AERC.

3)  To facilitate their desire to be a major player in the sport, they needed a vehicle to further their goals..that vehicle became the FEI 

4)  The FEI was already established but was in a poor financial state thus the UAE offered to become the unofficial sponsor of FEI....the offer was accepted.

5)  The close ties with the FEI gave immediate legitimacy to UAE endurance

6)  However, without the full participation of the Americans and Australians in FEI, there still remains a great void in being able to claim superiority in world endurance competition.  The glory of winning is lessened when you have not beaten the very best of the Americans (and Australians).

7)  Because of the extreme cost to manage an FEI ride, and the general lack of interest of the AERC Membership to participate in international competition, there are very few FEI rides in the US.

8)  I am guessing now, but probably at the urging of some Americans employed by the UAE endurance entities, the UAE has offered funding to various AERC Ride Managers to put on FEI sanctioned rides.  (BTW, They have also funded entire national endurance organizations in smaller and struggling countries, which is not such a bad thing because it helps grow the sport.)

9)  #8 above is based on what happened last year when we saw full page color ads in the Endurance News touting the virtues of international riding...those ads were placed at the urging of some Americans employed by the Sheiks...so I think this is a long term plan that has been put in action.

10)  In addition to all of the above, the UAE has developed a "World Endurance Ranking System" that purportedly ranks the best horses and riders in the World, by performance in FEI sanctioned rides.  This system lacks true validity without the full participation of the very best of the American horses and riders (and Australians).  There are substantial financial awards to those who are ranked in the upper levels of this system.  Because the Americans were still not getting involved in large numbers, last year the UAE upped the financial rewards to very high levels.  That increase in payout still did not attract the numbers of Americans needed to make the system legitimate.

11)  We are now at the real reason the UAE is offering money to fund FEI rides in the United States...They must have more American participation in FEI to further their personal goals.   It is in their best interest to force feed the growth of FEI and international competition.  If that takes the funding or sponsoring of FEI rides in AERC, then that is a very small price for them to pay.

 

I don't believe I have said the growth of FEI is bad, in fact it may be a good thing, but the hands on relationship of a major player in creating and paying for the development of FEI lends itself to a very real "conflict of interest" situation.  FEI admittedly has some conflict of interest problems in their relationship with the UAE.   Interestingly, I received a private e'mail from a middle east endurance leader who said the term, "conflict of interest" does not exist in the Arabic language and culture...so it may very well be that the UAE does not consider anything they do in funding, payments, etc. as bordering on undue influence  or conflict of interest.  Cultures do have differences and I am well aware of the differences. 

 

 Nowhere in this long diatribe have I said there is any occurrence of intentional wrongdoing...I really don't think there is.  But, we should be very careful in both our approach to these offers and to our acceptance of monies.  We should also remember that the UAE form of endurance is based on  a very long flat track racing style format with competitors accompanied by support crews in 4 wheel drive vehicles going stride for stride with their riders throughout the event.  This is contrary to the AERC style of endurance where we consider our first and foremost competition "the trail".

 

Randy Eiland