Kudos to you for your experience, Tammy, however, I find your conclusion that people who have not ridden hundreds of FEI miles have no business commenting or examining the process of world competition rather shortsighted.? Universities are full of instructors that? have assembled the knowledge and technique not only to teach others but to be able to question the status quo and do research in order to advance the science or art in their discipline.
My non-pro opinion, which I feel free to express: I love the idea of a 3 day world-class event, with different terrain on each day.? But think it probably wouldn't make it out of "committee" due to all possible host venues not offering that variety of terrain (translation: Middle East).? I dislike the current procedure that allows a 7 year old horse to display speed which allows selection during their 6th year (and maybe earlier.)? I also think that multi-thousand miles as a team is unreasonable, because besides the difficulty of the world's riders assembling such experience, it would mean horses racking up big miles as young'uns and who says they'd be sound after all of that.? Quality, not quantity of performance ought to matter.
It would be nice to hear from our experienced FEI riders about this stuff, certainly agree on that.?
re other posts on the subject:
I do indeed believe we learn from our failures, as Julie said.? As one who has pulled a horse plenty, I learned "enough" on each of those particular occasions not to make the same mistake again, though I don't take as extreme a view as Kat--such as, for the life of me, I can't figure out what I could have done differently to avoid having gotten little rocks caught between the frog and quarter of my horse's foot which caused lameness?? Padded?? Yeah, I got that, after the second time.? How I could have practiced better horsemanship and avoided those tiny rocks as "obstacles" is beyond me.? And how I could have predicted that my horse would get a bellyache halfway, on another.? And at the world level, I can't see how either of those are predictable either unless the rider ignored the signs that the horse "ADR".?
??? A lot of people, as usual have too strong options with very little experience?about FEI and 100 mile rides in general.? I think like everything else, you need to have some experience before you express yourself.? After reading some of these options I looked up their ride history.? One rider that seems to express themselves so much has started 10 100's and only completed 3?and none of these rides were FEI rides.? I would say that's not a good enough record to be telling a lot of other riders and organizations to be changing there ways at this point.
??? Some changes need to be made but lets talk it over with experienced riders that are out there doing it right.? How are they doing this right?...and how can we apply this to an organization to enforce more safety to the horses?
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Tammy Robinson Trail-Rite 18171 Lost Creek Road Saugus, CA 91390 661/513-9269 office 661/513-9206 fax 661/713-3912 cell NEW UPDATES AND DESIGNS! http://www.trail-rite.com/ Trail-Rite Products
