[RC] Presidents Cup Just to Clarify - sterpAlthough I have never represented the US Internationally as a rider I have crewed overseas fairly extensively. Here are a few points to keep in mind. AERC is the American Endurance Ride Conference we would never be sanctioning a ride out of our boundaries so have no fear. FEI is the International Sanctioning Body the one most of the posters on ridecamp want nothing to do with. Fair enough do not enter an FEI ride but don't tell the people that want to ride FEI rides and/or compete Internationally they can't. If ride managers within the US choose not to sanction with FEI our riders will have to qualify in other countries and we know that ride entries are already down in the US for 100 mile rides. FEI is the fabric that holds the endurance community the world over. Each country has it's own National organization that is separate. US (note I said US not AERC) riders that want to ride Internationally must have the approval of USEF. I think Patti was asking if Fred had gotten that. BECAUSE we had several riders that wanted to participate in the Presidents Cup and were told that only 2 riders from the US were being invited. Those that were interested requested International ranking. Fred was not ranked to the best of my knowledge. The UAE was given the list and chose the 2 they wanted to invite. It is their party after all. So Fred was invited to ride because he is Fred and was there and someone offered him a horse. He is not part of the US traveling team that is selected for a 2 year period, he is just Fred and knew someone or a few people capable of getting him an entry. Our traveling team (US ranked International riders) work hard for that distinction. I think perhaps our team should have been told that if they were willing to pay their own way and their horses or lease a horse over there that they too could enter the race. It would appear the invitation part referred to how many riders the UAE was will to pay for from each country. I do find it interesting that the UAE who has been a huge supporter of FEI has chosen to sanction only one 160k ride this year. So although we know who Fred is, some of us believe he should have gone through the ranking procedure if he wanted to represent the US in an invitational race. Sandy Terp #13476 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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