Eventing has a problem, and if that’s a statement that you
disagree with, you seriously need to reevaluate your opinion.
It’s been difficult for me to admit to myself, really. I’ve
loved eventing since I was introduced to it when I was in middle school. I’ve
daydreamed about it, been determined to be successful at it, and even as my
dreams have gotten more realistic (though still somewhat out there) and my
situation has changed, my passion for the sport has never disappeared.
Eventing is what I know. Eventing is what I love. Eventing
is a brilliant and exciting sport that I find considerably more interesting
than most things. Eventing has also long displayed symptoms of a much larger
problem that has become an epidemic in recent years.
I haven’t been in the sport long enough to speak to what it
used to be or what impact the changes to the format have had on it—all I can
say is that I’m really sad that I’ll probably never get to ride a long format
event in any capacity. What I can speak to is the fact that it’s getting
personal. Actually, it’s been personal.
The injuries, the deaths, are personal, because they could be me. They could be
the trainer who introduced me to this sport, or the friends I have in it, or
the riders that I personally follow and admire.
Admittedly, they probably won’t be me—I haven’t jumped a
cross-country fence in over six years (a fact that saddens me to this day).
When I finally make it out on a cross-country course again, it will be as
someone playing with Beginner Novice and Novice fences, and then Training once
I find my footing again. I don’t know if I’ll ever make the move up to
Preliminary. When I was younger, all I wanted was to ride at Rolex. Now all I
want is to have fun on a horse that loves its job, and if that means never
competing higher than Training level—never schooling anything but show jumping
fences and dressage tests above that level—then so be it.
I value my fun more than I value the prestige and difficulty
of the events that I’m competing at.
That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? We all got into this
sport because we wanted to have fun, didn’t we? Sure, most kids who get into
eventing probably dream of riding at Rolex or being on the Olympic team, at
least in the beginning, but that’s not why we’re interested in the sport—we’re
interested in it because it’s fun.
I got hooked on eventing for one simple reason—I love
cross-country, and when I say that, I don’t mean I love jumping the fences,
though that can be a great time. What I love about cross-country is testing our
fitness and our teamwork, galloping the long stretches, and being able to
maintain speed and balance well enough that my horse can figure out every
obstacle that is put in our path.
Beginner Novice and Novice and even Training level
cross-country courses are fun because the questions aren’t technical. Sure,
it’s nowhere near as fast as upper-level courses are, or as long, but you still
have your “gallops” in between jumps. You have long approaches and easy
curves (well, that one I had to ride around a cluster of trees wasn’t exactly easy, but there were no jumps to be
had on it and all I had to focus on was keeping us balanced and moving).
Combinations are straightforward and don’t ask you to prove that you can
show-jump on a cross-country course. The most difficult parts of the course are
the fences that your horse may not have seen before.
To paraphrase an article that I’ll link below (I’ll link
several below, actually), technical questions on any cross-country course
shouldn’t be asked more than once and they shouldn’t be so complicated as to
turn your cross-country round into a show-jumping test. The abilities of the
horses must be taken into account when designing turns. Eventing is a sport
meant to test rider and horse, not
just rider. Make curves a little longer or a bit more shallow. Ask an accuracy
question once, not seven times. Make the fences welcoming and change their
faces so that they’re more forgiving and make rotational falls less
likely. Develop more forms of collapsible fences. Make it so that horses have
time to get an accurate read of the jumps rather than having to rely on their
rider.
I’d always thought of cross-country as a test of endurance,
not technical skills. Yes, you have to know how to pace your horse. You have to
know how to come in and out of the canter and gallop so as to correctly take
fences. More than that, though, you and your horse should be fit enough and
capable enough to gallop a four-mile course and still have enough juice left
over to show-jump the next day. The excitement of cross-country is in the
distance and the gallops and the impressive fences, not combinations that
require teams to slow down to show-jumping pace in order to properly navigate
them and then have to run like mad to make up the time.
Impressive doesn’t necessarily mean big or complicated either.
It just means that they’re interesting, that watching a horse and rider
combination go soaring over them is fun, that you can ooo and ahhh over them
and know they provide enough of a test without having to worry about someone
getting seriously hurt (or only have 64% of the combinations make it
through—I’m looking at you, Badminton).
I was at Rolex in 2010 when Oliver Townend went down. I
didn’t see it happen (we’d moved on at that point), but I remember hearing
about it. I remember that being the first time I went “People could die in
this sport.” I knew that people—and horses—got hurt, sometimes seriously so,
but I’d never really stopped to consider that my sport could kill someone
anymore than any other equestrian event (I spent much less time on the internet
in middle school and was much less in the loop, which is why I didn’t think
about it sooner). Yes, he was fine and his horse was too (at least in the long
run), but there were a few hours where he might not have been.
I don’t want to be in that situation again. I don’t want to
be at a competition and hear about a horrible fall, watch more people get hurt,
have it be another weekend and another major event that is either considered a
great success because no one was seriously injured or a terrible tragedy that
everyone forgets about a week later, because that is not what eventing should
be. That is not the sport that I (and so many others) signed up for.
Unfortunately, I’m not a member of USEA or FEI and my money
can’t speak for me. I can talk about the issues and question them all I
want, and that’s the way that I can attempt to bring about change.
I can keep the conversation going. I can get other people
into it. I can educate myself on the history and the changes. I can support the
events that are doing it right (however few there may be) and make sure that I
understand how to build good fences so that my own are well-designed. I can
call for a shift in mindset, help to bring it about for others around me, make
it so that the next generation of eventers gets a different experience than the
one people are having right now.
I don’t know what the right questions are, or the answers.
All I know is that we have to do something because I’m tired and my response to
tragic news shouldn’t be “Oh, another one.” I shouldn’t be resigned to
this. We shouldn’t be allowing this to happen. We have to take eventing back
and make it good again, because I don’t want to lose the sport I love to
something that we can change. I don’t want to lose people I care about.
Accidents happen, but these aren’t accidents anymore—not
with the frequency at which they’re occurring. This isn’t about starting a
witch hunt, because that accomplishes nothing. This is about starting a
dialogue, bringing the masses into the conversation, getting enough of a voice
that someone finally listens. I don’t know how long it will take, but all I can
do is keep pushing.
Some light reading for anyone who's interested:
I'll add more links as I encounter them.
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