Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Perhaps this subject has been covered, but I'd like to offer my two cents on our country's WEG performance last month in Germany.  I don't think anyone would consider it good or even satisfactory.  Given the unknowns, bad luck and just plain bad days for horses and riders in the sport, I remain pessimistic about our future chances in world endurance competition.  My reason is simple:  we are not sending our best horses to these events.  Notice that I did not include riders in my statement.  Their quality is probably acceptable.  But, surely, there must be better equine athletes out there to represent the US, but for whatever reasons (political and financial?), we have not done well for too long.  I've ridden endurance for a long time but not as often as I had liked.  But over the years I've seen some really tough, talented horses who never come close to making the international scene, or, that matter, the national level.  Surely the endurance community in this wealthy country can improve this sad situation.  We've done it in other niche sports (with the glaring exception of World Cup soccer), so why not endurance?  The answers, I believe, are the deficient selection process and lack of money for most owner/riders.  This year we fielded both types of owner/riders:  Kathy Downes and Meg Sleeper, I'm sure, had to make severe financial sacrifices to qualify and ride for the team, and they both finished.  Steve Rojek, on the other hand, who has unlimited funds through his wife's wealth, has no problem doing whatever it takes to compete internationally. And what was his horse doing in Aachen in the first place if he had a lingering "foot problem" before going to Germany, as one eye-witness attested.  (Of course, the witness/blogger was obliged to insert the politically correct statement that Steve took the horse's failure to start "in stride" and what a "great competitor" he was.)  Hogwash.   He shouldn't have been on the team and another sound horse/rider should have been substituted before traveling.. But that didn't happened, and we were reduced to four available horses, two of which didn't finish. Something wrong with this picture?  You bet, and it won't get any prettier until major changes are made.  Kevin Seits