Five Star Awakenings
Last year I was being told I was negative and could not appreciate the new five star of Maryland. I never felt any inside struggle or even hit by those comments.
Cause I knew I was right.
I know I know the state of eventing that well I even started to type down my very own application for the open position as Eventing Director at the FEI some weeks back, but then stopped myself.
First of all I live perfect where I live.
Not only because it fits my own personal preferences but also because just about anything exciting and fun within equestrian sport is close by. Aachen, Valkenswaard, Sentower, Brussels, Peelbergen, Münster, Cologne and so on.
Second of all I already figured they will either hire a former elite rider or a young person with a massive university diploma on hand so why bother.
Anyhow the following quote was from that post [full post is linked in bottom] where I butchered the events at Maryland.
At Fair Hill Maryland there were 23.
TWENTY THREE combinations competing on the highest level of the eventing sport. What a joke!
If not this is considered the ultimate proof that we should have stuck to the amount of 5-star events that were, or reduced them even, instead of expanding the amount of so called 5* events I don’t know what is.
Making things even worse is only 8 combinations out of the 23 finished!
This makes a finishing score of 34.78%. Which also proves the combinations heading there were not even close to have the qualifications, and I am not talking about the MERs here, to be there!
Please remember it is NOT any wrong doing of the organisation.
They did nothing wrong!
This is an FEI and FEI eventing committee blunder of the sort as when the former eventing director approved a leg of the long gong series Event Riders Masters at Jardy some 75km [47 miles] away from the Junior and Young Rider European Championships at Fontainebleau the very same weekend.
All this while also using the very same freakin’ course designer. And then she had the nerve to blame the French federation for bad planning for running these two events at the same time.
Anyhow, this year at Maryland was no better than before, and suddenly I am not along in my thoughts again. Cause suddenly a well renowned magazine has tagged along in the very same mindset I had since they renewed the eventing levels as a whole and launched this “new” five star.
Truth of the matter is we DON’T have enough combinations to fill up all these five star events. We were struggling already before this event came out on the calendar.
And if some existing and new event organisers get their way, we will soon see even more five star competitions. At least unless no one stops this insanity and do a total reboot.
Cause what we need to do is to reduce the amount of five stars, not implement and run more of them just because “we can” and try to copy show jumping.
Also the eventing calendar is like a joke. I mean who in their right mind even approve one of few five star events to run the very same weekend as a World Championship in the very same discipline?
Every two years this is also the case with the European Championships which is almost always crashing with Defender Burghley Horse Trials? Making the latter suffer big time in regards to event entries.
In the end of the day event planning is not rocket science.
We must be able to do better and not promote and or run tiny events with riders riding way above their level of skills as the pinnacle of the sport. If we continue to do so the sport will most certainly die.
Optimism won’t save eventing. But admitting to the facts, and act on it will.
