It seems to me that right now the FEI is following a policy that will lead to the destruction of equestrian sport. Previously the argument for keeping equestrian in the Olympic movement was that equestrian attracted the most royals of any sport, and the tiaras added lustre to the event. It may have been excruciatingly cringe-worthy, but at least – dependent on the fertility rates of the various royal houses of Europe – it had a chance of success.
Now the FEI General Secretary is vigorously following the line that for the sport to stay in the Olympic Games it must be re-shaped so that it becomes attractive to spectators – read: a couple of billion Chinese television viewers. And no matter how you dumb eventing and dressage down, this is just not going to happen (I did facetiously suggest that if we returned to the origins of classical dressage, ie. Xenophon’s schedule for training warriors, and put a couple of teams into the ring to battle to the death, THAT would out rate Game of Thrones…)
I think it is highly possible that the sport of showjumping, now that it has been substantially re-shaped by a couple of mega dealers looking to the emerging markets, could easily capture the Chinese audience, once they spend enough money with Messrs Tops and Schockemöhle, to buy horses so talented that they can ride around today’s courses (all devoid of those frightening natural obstacles that used to make shows like Aachen and Dublin so exciting) despite the rider. But dressage and eventing, no way.
Even in Australia, when we had won three gold medals in a row, eventing battled to attract a crowd. Sure you can dumb it down and put on something called Express Eventing, but in the highly unlikely event that any of the spectators at Equitana or one of the Royal Shows, decided to follow up Express with the real thing, they would be bitterly disappointed because the real thing takes so long and is so difficult to follow (who’s winning now Daddy??) and you end up so far from the fast food outlets.
The reality is that in our country at least, Eventing is a participatory sport not a spectator sport. It is perhaps all irrelevant since if the IOC and the FEI insist on including more teams in Eventing at the Games, the subsequent carnage will kill the sport. It has happened before – at Sydney 2000 we had a wonderful classic teams event, with no bad pictures but we were forced by the IOC to run the separate individual event, in which a series of individuals from countries who did not have the experience or expertise to mount a team, tried to kill themselves and their horses, producing news coverage that saw Eventing removed from the program of the Beijing Games, only to be reinstated when the then chair of the Eventing Sub-Committee, Wayne Roycroft boldly came up with the present, no steeple etc, format.
I note that the Australian delegate to the recent FEI conference, Judy Fasher made this point to the Assembly – that I guess is the first time in a decade that an Australian delegate has contributed meaningfully to the discussion.
And no matter how you mangle dressage it will always be, as laconic Australian sports commentator H G Nelson described it at Sydney – ‘that sport where it takes six minutes to park a horse…’ Sure you can get the general public to watch an edited highlights package, but you are crazy if you think those billions of Chinese are about to tune in to a day of dressage tests, even if Mr Schockemöhle can find horses for Team China.
The question is, if we are going to be forced out of the Games by Golf or Cage Fighting or whatever, do we go proudly, showcasing events that share a couple of hundred years of horsemanship, or do we go out with a whimper having put on a series of parodies of the real thing?
– CH
Eventing has been dumbed down for the last 20 odd years.
It began as “The Military” way back in time before even I existred – to show that a messenger could get from one place to the other on a well trained horse, in one piece and jump the next day to show he could do it without crippling his horse.
That of course suited us Oz mob.. Man From Snowy River stuff… Fearless cross country, I always loved the story of the short cut Laurie Morgan took at Rome 😀 leaving a Pom to try and understand how our bloke got home ahead of him.
So, they took away roads and tracks, then took away steeplechase so it was really then a basic dressage cc and showjumping for a few years..
So, now we hear, they might even put the showjumping on before the cross country?
The whole idea in the first place – as I said above was to be able to bring a horse through a tough trial and produce it next day still up and ready for anything… to change the format ( again) might mean the horse leave next day in an ambulance while their riders get the medals.
It’s bastardized beyond belief… but hey – why not cut out the cross country altogether and just have a combined training?
It would save on having to build all those scary fences… and with the extra time who knows how many new countries could be included.
Shorten the dressage tests to three minutes so those bored to tears in the grandstands might actually stay awake, and have the showjumping as a rescue relay in fancy dress…. it’s all about TV appeal you know….
It seems according to the “Powers That Be” that rock climbing and skate boarding will definitely get a place in the next Games, and lets face it, all they need to run them are a wall with knobs on and a few concrete holes in the ground.
I don’t know the answer, but unless something intelligent is done – I reckon Olympic Equestrian is doomed…it can’t keep being pulled about – maybe just do WEG every four years and do it well.
Dressage to music will always be a crowd-pleaser, this must be emphasized strongly to the Olympic committee. Keeping the field size smaller and down to one or two riders per country will help. And for heavens sake, get the horses up closer to the spectators, instead of marooned in the middle of a giant arena where the horses look like far way black fuzzy things! And have more music speakers, and of better quality, so you can clearly hear the music and feel more involved in it.
The dressage Grand Prix and the Special have zero interest to anyone who is not a hardcore dressage fan. Their place at the Olympics is over, unless we go with the format where two riders do the movements at the same time (can’t remember which dressage heavy suggested this – Bartels maybe)? Again and again I have heard non-horse people say how breathlessly amazed they are at the performance of ‘that dancing British horse with the music’. People who know zip about horses, and couldn’t tell you which is the front or the back, but the BEST dressage to music is universally popular to the public. Let’s keep it that way.
The show-jumpers have their broad appeal, say ‘equestrian event’ to someone and they immediately think of the show-jumping, but even they need to smarten up. Again, smaller class sizes would help, long competitions where you need to watch for most of the day because of the large number of riders competing is a turn-off.
The Olympics should be about THE BEST – with the horses, we need to get away from the idea that every country should have a rider. Most riders outside the top twenty in the world have little crowd appeal. Want to compete at the Olympics? Get yourself into the top twenty, because otherwise the general public will be bored stupid watching riders and horses of average ability taking up time in the arena.
A wild idea for the show-jumping would be the high-scoring ‘joker’ class format which was popular back in the Bond days. Not classic jumping by any means and the riding would be pretty ghastly, but the crowd appeal would be high.
Eventing has very little appeal. Complicated, long, and difficult for anyone but those ‘in the know’ to see who is the best combination as they ride past in-person or on the telly. Try describing how the eventing scoring works and you’ll see people digging bricks out of a wall with their bare hands so they can do themselves injury with it and no longer have to listen to you!
Things need to change. Those who know how to change things and when (thank you Chris!) need to be heavily involved in the discussion. People who’s official role in the discussion is to only keep their paid position with whatever equestrian authority they represent, must be moved aside.
I agree with Fran Cleland – put all our efforts into WEG and give the Olympics a miss.
Dressage Kur may have spectator appeal, but it isn’t a sport. Stop fighting for the Olympics and make WEG a proper showcase for ALL equestrian sports. This is an opportunity to bring our sports up to date – team colours, sport / technical attire instead of 19th century costumes, penalties that are meaningful for abuse, get the horses closer to the paying public. Highlight the equality of opportunity across genders and age groups, the disabled.
I know my opinion my not be received well, but I would like to put forward adding vaulting to the Olympic equestrian experience. it is both visual and exciting. It doesn’t take much to understand the scoring process. I was in the audience in HK in 2008 and people sitting around could not understand the nuances of the dressage. I ended up explaining some of the movements so they could try and how the judges came up with the scores. Now the scoring on the 2008 Olympics is another whole story…….
If the primary focus for the Olympic Games has become the need to “entertain” and be more “attractive” to spectators, then the IOC and FEI have lost their way. The three equestrian sports have participated in every Olympic Games since 1912. They are the only sports in which males and females compete against each other on equal terms. Making changes in order to to keep spectators ( in reality television viewers) happy and ignoring the fundamental nature of the three disciplines is inconsistent with the Olympic ideals espoused by Coubertin which focused on the competitors and participation rather than the spectators. Perhaps it’s time to return to those ideals through WEG and leave the great spectators’ festival to the IOC!
Equestrian sport has never been promoted in Australia. When the public know what they are looking at & how it works they then become interested. No equestrian bodies have never in my opinion tried to promote our sport either by educating the media, the government or advertising. There are no events advertised to the public but are extensive to the equine world. That’s like only telling footballers what games they are playing but leaving the public out. No-one would go to the game! We are lucky in this country to have the open spaces for these events & there is something on every week to go see if one would like. The public need to know about the thousands of pony club kids that go to ralleys & compete in all disciplines. They need to know about the beautiful movements of dressage & how many compete in this discipline every week & where. They need to know where the show jumpers & eventers compete. To appreciate the wonderful talent & stamina our horses & riders have if educated to it. After all horse racing pulls in people who are interested in a day out for whatever reason, betting, watching etc. They know about this because it is promoted through the media etc. Surley we equestrians (& there are a lot of us) could get some recognition in what we do, especially at the higher level. P.s we have the biggest horse trial event at Adelaide, that is a qualifier for the Olympics/WEG. surely this is one event that needs properly promoting /educating to the public.
In Europe dressage does get thousands of spectators. If they bothered to put it on TV in Australia, people would start to watch and they would get many more spectators. Goodness, they watch cricket all day long!!!! And that is as boring as watching grass grow…
In Europe they get thousands attending dressage events. And that is because they televise it. If they televised it in Australia, people would watch and attend the events. Gosh they watch cricket all day long……. no more said!
Love it Conina very well said. I need to put pins in my eyes to watch synchronised swimming, and who watches underwater hockey? However the format for Olympics really equates that we don’t have the best combinations in the world fighting it out. That is done at WEG. We all know that.
There is a place for the Olympics and equestrian like any other sport that’s listed I feel. I doubt waiting for the Chinese to watch is the most crucial yard stick to validate a sport.
For us at home trying to build facilities for equestrian then we must keep that Olympic dream alive as it is only Olympic equestrian involvement that eludes to being able to gain access to funding.
With the Commonwealth Games coming to the Gold Coast in 2018, I can certainly testify that there is no money for equestrian available to us because it’s gone to every other Comm games sport. Everything gets placed on hold.
We need to educate the public. We need to televise or at least live stream ( what was with the Sydney CDI this year?) building knowledge about the sport will increase awareness and help it to be more popular. I went to Hong Kong for the Olympics in 2008 and it was packed and fabulous. The Chinese loved horses and would certainly be more involved if they were able to understand the sport more closely.
F Walker what good would only allowing the top 20 do if they only consist of two or three countries?
I would love an equestrian channel on a platform like NETFLIX with on demand viewing available. Someone could make a lot of money out of this and the sponsorship for riders could be improved. In Australia we rarely see whole equestrian events televised. I missed all of the dressage at the last Olympics due to time zone differences. There are plenty of horse mad people in Australia who would tune in.