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Let me preface what I am about to say with the
acknowledgement that what I am about to say is going to be
pretty insulting.  And might be pretty insulting to people
who are either total strangers to me or maybe even some
people that I know and like.  Proceed with caution.

Undertaking to insult friends and/or total strangers is not
something to be done lightly, and I thought long and hard
about whether any of what I am about to say needs to be said
(possibly not) or whether I am serving any purpose in saying
it (possibly not).  But since you are reading this,
obviously I decided it does.

It is something that has been simmering in the back of my
mind for quite some time now, and I must confess that it was
the press release about the President's Cup that sparked it
to the front.  After reading the release forwarded by Steph
to RideCamp about how the event was to be televised, the
first thought to come to my mind was, "Do you (the author/s)
really believe this shit?  And if you do, do you really
expect me to believe it?"

I was reminded of the childhood fable (which I am not going
to repeat here but merely assume that everybody is familiar
with) of the Emperor's New Clothes.  If we pretend that we
believe something for long enough, repeat it often enough,
and get others to nod in agreement for risk of appearing
offensive or stupid; does that make it true?  For how long
can we maintain the pretense?

So that nobody has to read between the lines to get the
insults that I threatened to dish out, I will state them
bluntly:

I am firmly of the opinion that anybody that says they
believe that endurance is going to become an Olympic sport
is either ignorant, delusional, or villainous...or some
combination thereof.  (And yes I am aware that not one of
those adjectives is even remotely flattering.)  There is
nothing about endurance riding (or even endurance racing)
that is remotely Olympic sportlike.  

1) For starters, endurance riding is almost totally
uninteresting to non-participants, and while there are some
sports already included in the Olympics that also fall into
this category, most of them were a part of the Olympics
before the Olympics became an event for spectators.  Even
among its proponents endurance was touted to attract a mere
"tens of thousands" of interested people from a world-wide
population of 6 billion!

2) An endurance ride is a very expensive event to stage.

3) The IOC wants to REMOVE horse sports from the Olympics;
it doesn't want to ADD them. The FEI already had to agree to
"dumb down" the three day event in order to keep it in the
line-up...which, if you ask me, was just a delaying tactic
anyway (but that is a separate topic that I am not going to
allow myself to be distracted by).  However, if it is going
to add anything, it will remove eventing and add
reining...but only after reining ceases to be dominated by
the Americans.

4) Sometimes, horses die at endurance rides, and that is a
PR nightmare that the IOC wouldn't want go get anywhere near
(nor, I might add, would the FEI...so, come to think of it,
maybe the IOC WOULD put endurance in the Olympics in the
hope that a horse would die the first time out and then they
would have an excuse for removing all the horse sports from
the Olympics :)).  There is no way to make rules
keep...ummmm...overeager or unscrupulous competitors from
killing their horses at endurance rides, and there is no way
to make rules to keep overeager or unscrupulous competitors
from participating in the Olympics.

5) But this one is the clincher.  Even if it didn't matter
that endurance riding is about as exciting to watch as
watching paint dry, and even if horse sports in the Olympics
were not already threatened, and even if money were no
object, and even if horses could be kept from dying;
endurance riding won't be an Olympic sport because endurance
riding isn't really a human athletic endeavour.  Endurance
riding is mostly about the horse.

We had a dicussion just last month, or so, about the WEC in
Spain being won by a "jockey" and how many people didn't
consider that much of an accomplishment on the part of the
rider (and how could we change the rules to make it so this
didn't happen) because he had never ridden the horse
before.  It was bred, raised, conditioned, trained, owned,
handled, and cared for by somebody other than the person who
got the medal.  Not even among the endurance community
itself (puny though it is) can you get the participants to
agree what accomplishment actually is.

I pointed out that jockeys really are quite consumate
athletes, but what I didn't say was that I don't consider
endurance riders to have sufficiently earned the title of
jockey...few of them ride well enough...myself included :). 
One need only look at the roster of WEC winners so far
(women and children) to understand that the athletic part of
the event is done by the horse.  

I cannot, for the life of me, ever imagine that the IOC
would decide that it should be giving out Olympic medals to
horses...or to the people who they would consider to be
nothing but lucky or rich enough to be the horses'
passengers on the day.  

Yes, there is a great deal that goes into the selection and
preparation of an endurance horse for a world class event,
and when that is done by the competitor him/herself it is a
thing of beauty and a feat worthy of admiration and
alcolade, but it still isn't a human athletic endeavour even
if you could limit the competition only to those who had
done it all themselves.

It would be naive to think that the IOC doesn't think this,
and since I haven't been privy to the conversations, it is
entirely possible that they have actually already SAID
this--although they MAY be among the villainous and
unwilling to say it for fear of putting off some very rich
people who look willing to spend a lot of money in the
pursuit.

I don't believe the officials at the FEI are ignorant of
these things either, but I refuse to speculate whether they
are delusional and have convinced themselves that these
things are surmountable, or that they, too, are fully aware
that endurance will never be an Olympic sport but are
unwilling to say so to people who are giving them so much
money to pursue that agenda.  If is so, that would put the
officials at the FEI among the villainous as well.

Why did I spend the entire week arguing with myself as to
whether I should fling out insults in this way?  And to
decide in the end that I would?

Because after reading the press release again, and taking
into consideration the year's worth of full-page, four color
ads in the _Endurance News_ including Jim Baldwin's (I
think) piss poor explanation at the end of what it was all
about: that we all have the same goal in mind, endurance in
the Olympics, I came to the conclusion that ignorance might
be able to be educated, delusions might be able to be seen
more clearly, and villainy could be brought to light.  And
that if I could do this, that the sport of endurance riding,
the participants, and the horses themselves would benefit
from no longer being exposed to so many knaves and/or fools.

But also because I did not want to be tacitly among the
knaves and/or fools.  I am not ignorant nor have I deluded
myself into thinking that endurance will become an Olympic
sport, so if I don't say something, it is almost as if I
become one of the villainous.  I don't like to see deluded
people taken advantage of, even if I think they are deluding
themselves for selfish and/or unscrupulous ends. And I don't
like to even marginally benefit from deluded people being
taken advantage of, even if they are being taken advantage
of by people who are equally as deluded.

_I_ would like to think that the people who are
participating in the sport today are interested in the sport
itself and not just as a means to Oympic glory.  And that
people, if they are told, "No, this won't get you to the
Olympics," will not then say, "If that is the case, I don't
want to play any more."  But if so....welllllll...good
riddance.

So there it is.  Endurance isn't going to be an Olympic
sport, and it is time for people to stop pretending to
themselves or to others that they think it is: to enjoy it
for what it is rather than trying to turn it into something
that it isn't by running a con game.

Even if we all nod and agree and are afraid to say anything,
he is still parading down the street buck naked.  The
emperor has no clothes.

kat
Orange County, Calif.

p.s.  I have laid out my reasons for thinking this (they may
be good or they may be crummy), but I have been sufficiently
offensive that I have absolutely no intention of arguing
with anybody who thinks me wrong or making any further
statements on the matter at all...unless, of course, at some
later date it becomes apparent that I was right, in which
case I will gloat and say, "I told you so."

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