❗Being Qualified vs. Ready, Are Two Very Different Things
This article has absolutely nothing to do with the tragic events that occurred over the weekend. Nothing, as in it was already done and ready to be published as a follow up on a post that was published on Friday morning.
What also needs to be changed big time, is the mindset of the riders, trainers, officials and anybody else related to the sport,
In eventing, there’s often confusion, or will full blindness if you like, around what it means to have a qualification versus actually being ready.
Cause a Minimum Eligibility Requirement isn’t a golden ticket. It’s a receipt.
ℹ️ Minimum Eligibility Requirements, or MERs are the results that rider and horse, either as a combination or individually, must achieve in order to compete at a certain level.
A record that says that you and your horse on that day completed something, somewhere, with an enough good result and boxes ticked to meet the baseline.
Which means that just because you have the papers, it doesn’t mean you’re neither fully prepared nor ready for the next level!
Cause readiness that’s something else entirely.
Being qualified as in getting a qualification means you’ve done it. It doesn't automatically make you ready for the next level. You might not even be ready for your current level but just had a lucky day!
Being qualified as in being ready means that you can do it again, and do it well, consistently, and under pressure. And those are not the same thing.
The problem is, the system doesn’t always differentiate.
A rider can scrape through a qualifying round, survive a technical course, or get lucky with weather and even the footing, and end up meeting the requirements to move up.
From the outside, it looks clean. On paper, it checks out. But in the saddle?
It might be a disaster just waiting to happen.
Riders chase MERs, meanwhile their followers, friends and parents push them on to do so...
But no one seem to be the one who says, "Actually, let’s wait."
Cause the push and will to move up is strong.
But the pause to assess whether we should do so, tend to be so much weaker.
This is where governing bodies, coaches, and national federations should step in.
Not to block ambition, but to protect it from burning out. Because readiness isn’t about what you did once. It’s about whether you can repeat it without crossing your fingers.
Truth of the matter is, horses pay the price when we get it wrong. So do riders, and so does the sport.
A qualification is just a line on a record.
Actually being qualified is a responsibility.
Let’s stop pretending they mean the same thing.