2-Way Radios

["Linda B. Merims" <lbm@ici.net>]

Interesting discussion.  I also took "prompting" to mean what is
called in the show world "coaching."

The use of radios in show competition is currently a fairly hotly
debated topic.  At one end of the spectrum there is the dressage
rider.  While the rider can take advantage of his coach or trainer
while warming up in the barn area ("you're overbent," "more leg"),
once the rider enters the official warm up area in the vicinity
of the ring, they are no longer permitted any to receive any kind
of coaching.  The only exception to this is the low level tests
(Training level only?) in which you are permitted to have somebody
call out the movements of the test as you are taking it as a memory
aid to the novice rider.

As a middle ground, there is what goes on in the saddleseat show world
where all the trainers (assistant trainers, family members, etc.) surround
the ring as their clients enter and "coach" the riders as they go
through the class.  This extends from comments as you pass by ("pick
him up," "right there, right there") to the bolder trainers who will
call out all the way across the ring ("Faster!").  What goes over
the line and is definitely against the rules (but you still do see
it) is waving whips around and pounding on the boards on the side
of the ring to get a bigger bang pass out of a horse as he comes
down the rail toward the trainer.

It is my understanding that radio communication with riders in the
ring is actually *permitted* in Tennessee Walking Horse classes (these
shows are not run under the auspices of the AHSA, but under an
organization that only recognizes and governs TWH shows).  And that
if you go to a big TWH show you will actually see riders wearing
ear pieces and being coached step-by-step around the ring by their
trainers.  (Shades of Holly Hunter and William Hurt in "_Broadcast News_.")

There is currently a rule proposal to ban radios in Morgan classes,
evidently prompted by the fear that some trainers are picking up ideas
from the TWH horse folks and see this as a way to give their clients
a competitive edge.  It isn't actually explicitly against the AHSA rules
yet, except in equitation classes.  It looks like this rule will pass.

I don't know what goes on in the hunter/jumper world.

I don't know what I think about this.  On the one hand, I'm inclined
to agree with Roger, et al and say, "How real is this problem?"  If
it's not a problem, why try to make it one?

On the other hand, I am all too familiar with the highly increased
sense of competitiveness that comes with the professionalization of
an equine sport.  Since endurance riding seems bound and determined
to let itself become a money sport, I can only wonder at the creativity
that will go into finding ways to use any device or system of communication
that may give one a competitive advantage.  If there ever gets to be
support among the professional endurance community for radios, it will be
virtually impossible for the amateurs to combat it.  It might be better
to get the rule on the books now, while you have a chance.

Why and when did the FEI pass its rule?  What was going on in Europe
that prompted them to do this?

Linda B. Merims
lbm@ici.net
Massachusetts, USA