Unofficial WEG Team

["Carlos Crespo" <ccrespo@nigma.com>]

<<Teams only have 4 members, no matter how many riders the country
sends/gets to send (so even though there were 12 US riders in Kansas, only
4 of them were part of the "team" event).   Teams can compete with either
3 members or 4 members.  Extra riders don't count, and if you only have
two, you can't play in the team eevent either.>>

 

Excellent point Kat. However, since we were allowed to field

a team out of 12 participants while the rest of the world could

only choose from 6 , I still feel that there is a "stacking of the odds""

in favor of the host country.

> As I see it, our goal should be to take the first six places in the World
> Championships. Then there is no doubt  about  who is the best. Let the
> other guy worry about the consistent finishers in the 7-25 place.

<<You may see as a worthy goal, but as a team riding strategy it would
probably be pretty ineffective.  Additionally, having a single qualifying
event to determine the 6 people to go would be unlikely to give you the 6
best horse/rider teams to pursue this goal.>>

 

Kat, I respect your opinion, but can you give some good rationale for

why an event to determine the 6 people to go would be unlikely to

give you the 6 best horse/rider teams to pursue this goal? 

 

Endurance is not a team sport where each member has to learn to

play with all the others in order to be successful, as you would in

basketball, etc. It is an individual sport where , at the end, you add-up

the individual performance of each rider. There is really very little

one rider can do to help another rider succeed. They each have

to ride their own race. Even the believe that riding together the

horses motivate each other is hard to accept since the horse rider

teams come from different parts of the country and most probably

have never ridden together.

 

Personally, I believe that the term "Best" is a relative term that can

only be determined by contest. There are too many variables that

weight on the outcome of any competition and which can only be

sorted-out by the contest itself. The stress and adrenaline of a major

competition transforms man and animal alike. Some for the better others

for the worse. Competition is the very essence of life, without it there is

no determination  of fitness to survive . This simple but efective rule is

what  determines which species will thrive and which will disappear.

I am perplexed at the thought that even "God" has chosen competition

as the means of determining the right to survive but in endurance we

believe that a group of people, can sit in a room, look at records of

past  performance and believe that they have chosen the ""best".

<<What the FEI really needs to make Carlos happy is a World Cup of Endurance
(which is not a team event) like those that they have in show jumping and
dressage.  All the riders in the world accumulate points during the course
of the ride year to qualify to the World Cup event, and each individual
gets to attend based on that performance (no matter how many from which
countries).  Then they have the event, and one individual wins the event.>>

 

Kat, perhaps this is what the World expects from a World Championship.
Most other countries do select their teams by competition.

<<Personally, I would ilke to see this kind of event in endurance.  ANd
leave the team event/s to USET.  And USET has the responsibility of
fielding the team that has the best chance of winning.  In doing this,
USET is not required to be "fair.">>

 

I will not subscribe to this submissive approach. It was once said that a

slave is someone that sits around contemplating his chains while waiting

for someone else to  liberate him. I , for one, refuse to be a slave of USET,

FEI or AHSA. If they are not fair we will make them fair.

 

However, I have to say that,   as far as I have seen AHSA and USET have

always come to AERC for comments and guidance on anything related

to Endurance. Maggie Price has been extremely effective in accomplishing

diplomatic victories in favor of our view of endurance and Gerry Gillespie has

always yielded to our views of the sport. Perhaps the short-comings are not

the fault of  FEI, USET or AHSA but ours, and I am not referring to the Board

of AERC Intl. but all of us. Lets get our act  together. If its broke lets fix it.

 

Regards,

 

Carlos Crespo

Florida