>
>More is at stake than simply performing a set of exercises well...ultimately
>the safety of horse and rider become the overriding factors. No 3-day
>eventer would ever dare take a young/green horse to a ****CCI event! It
>simply isn't done...yet we see young/green horses thrust into the endurance
>arena, at speed or not, to "see how well they do". This Pass-Fail mentality
>bothers me more than a little.
=================================
Diane, cute way of introducing the topic and this is a good point but I'm
not sure your analogy holds up :-)) In endurance at one time there was just
the 1 day 100 miler - period. The sport was not really ever set up for you
to "progress" up a ladder in degrees of difficulty -- whereas eventing (and
dressage) by design are made that way with varying levels of difficulty from
bottom to top. Eventing didn't ever_ just_ have a CCI event -there have
always been training, prelim, etc...So we are kind of comparing apples and
oranges in terms of sports but I do agree with your points about training rides.
This brings up another interesting point - eventing has gone thru some
similar growing pains to endurance. In the beginning there was just training
level as a starting point but someone had the bright idea to start holding
events with an "unsanctioned" division (novice) that was easier. That
division very soon became very popular and was sanctioned and in no time
novice was/is the largest draw at lower level events. *Then* again due to
demand someone started a tadpole division that was easier than novice and it
soon became the big draw at events.
There was a hue and cry from the old timers that said that people who
started in novice, etc weren't real eventers - after all *they* had to start
at training level, why shouldn't everyone <huff and puff>?
But the sport worked it out, the divisions stuck (I'm not sure if tadpole is
sanctioned or not but novice is), and the sport really took off as a result
because it became something the masses could do instead of remaining an
"elite" sport that required a tremendous amount of resources.
Dressage on the other hand has swung from one end of the spectrum to the
other. They came out with easier and easier training level tests to draw
people to shows. Welll, the USDF woke up with this last set of tests and
have reversed their "ruling" and have made the training level tests a little
stiffer. They realized they were not helping the sport by making it too easy
at the lower levels. Dressage, too has weathered the storm, the sport has
settled down, and it is growing.
I don't know that this really has a point except to say that nothing is
really new.
Tina