<< It will certainly change the sport. The plusses are 1) more participants,
2)
a cash infusion to the sport and participants, 3) expanded public awareness
of the sport, including better news coverage, 4) increased marketplace for
vendors specializing in or operating within the sport, 5) increased research
funding.
>>
1. ...more unschooled participants.
2. cash incesntive to win at all costs, especially with the help of
you-know-who and his book that explains how to fool the vet.
3. Public awareness that would soon bring the animal rights watchdogs into
our camp to see the ignorance/abuse that very well would follow cash
offerings.
4. Good point, but personally that is not why I go to rides.
5. No guarantees of this. After 18 years in the show ring, the increse in
real prizes has led to the demise of the original Arbian and nearly
obliterated the healthy sales market for small breeders of good horses.
Instead, the availability of money has led to the overproduction of inferior
horses for show, based upon the dollar wins of the sire, mostly, and also the
proliferation of the professional "trainer", with all of their whips and
spurs and coke in the eyes and ginger up the tail, etc. I cringe to think of
this happening to endurance. I have to say that I would never attend or
support a ride offerings cash incentives. There is a reason that it is called
a cash incentive. From the persepctive of an experinced show vet, I see this
change as a disaster.
s