Keep The Principles That Make Endurance Unique
The unintended theme of the Pan American Endurance Ride Championships
(p.
8) was that endurance riding is going through a sort of challenging
puberty. It’s certainly not the same as it used to be, and its
participants often don’t think it’s where it should be. But they’re not
quite sure where it should be going.
This unrest was apparent in
discussions of the American Endurance Ride Conference’s discontinued
relationship with the American Horse Shows Association, in the continuing
tension between international and national members of the AERC, in the
discomfiture from dealing with Federation Equestre Internationale
officials on this trail, and in the riders’ disagreement with the
philosophy (as they understand it) espoused by FEI officials.
Endurance
riders mostly want just to be able to ride their Arabians down the trail
without somebody else telling them how to do it better. But some members
have tasted the limelight, and, like everyone else in every horse sport,
they think that with just a bit of promotion, TV and other media exposure,
everyone will want to join them in the fun. And they believe that the
resultant growth will mean a “better” sport and prosperity for
everyone.
Well, it just ain’t that simple or that painless. The
transition from purely participant sport to a spectator sport is very
tough, one that hasn’t fully matured in any of the other horse sports we
cover–and may never. It’s fraught with all kinds of thorny perils, mostly
involved in the alluring dual panacea of TV coverage and prize
money.
Endurance riding, it seems to me, carries four principles that
some people are, thankfully, trying to keep sacred. First is the care of
and for the horse. At an open forum sponsored by the U.S. Equestrian Team
at the Pan American Championships, Valerie Kanavy lamented that rules and
regulations were turning the riders’ relationship with the all-important
veterinary corps from cooperative to adversarial. She doesn’t want to feel
as if she has to hide her horses’ condition; she wants to be able to
honestly discuss her horses’ soundness and recovery with them anywhere on
the trail. That desire has to remain paramount–100 miles is an
awe-inspiring physical challenge, and the horses that do it so generously
deserve uncompromised care.
Second is the cooperative, supportive and
often family atmosphere. Camaraderie is the first thing to go when the
stakes go up in money and exposure, but the mutual support of people
engaged in a strenuous activity is what makes it fun and meaningful. Third
is the endurance riders’ saying “to finish is to win.” This philosophy is
intrinsically related to the first two principles, and it’s also in grave
danger as the sport heads toward the big time. When fame and big prizes
are at stake, only “to win is to win.”
Fourth is an appreciation
of–often devotion to–the natural world. Rides like the Tevis Cup, the XP
ride, other historical rides, and the GMHA trail over endless miles of
tree-covered dirt roads that pass 200-year-old farms and graveyards help
preserve our country’s natural and historical resources. But they make the
trail a far bigger logistical challenge, and they’re not the kind of ride
that some people in the FEI favor. They believe endurance rides should be
a couple of loops from the same start/finish area, primarily in the name
of fairness and media friendliness. But, like the other three principles,
they are what make endurance riding, as practiced in this country, a truly
unique sport.
John Strassburger |