The open forum with David and Leslie starts at 1pm–check back soon for full coverage
One of my favorite things about eventing is that a good weekend isn’t always about winning. The color of our ribbon depends on others, but our performance depends only on the teamwork between us and our horse. For eventers, a good weekend can come in a variety of forms, such as achieving a qualifying result, just finishing, having fun, finishing on our dressage score, not falling off in the warm up this time, not leaving the dressage ring before our test is over this time, etc. In the end, whether or not our opponents all score 20’s or 60’s is a pretty small detail if you think about it.
In contrast, the coaching selection process is what economists would call a zero-sum game. You either get the job or you don’t; either your favorite candidate is hired or he isn’t. Unlike competing, when you can gladly give course advice or set jumps for a fellow competitor without any risk to your own performance, the human impulse in this coaching search seems to be to attack and bring down your opponents. I would argue that this mentality ignores the fact that we ultimately all share common hopes and desires for US eventing.
At the end of the day, what I want and what I hope you want is for the USA to select the best possible candidate in a fair and open process, for the eventing public to stand behind that candidate as the new US coach whether or not they hoped for someone else, for the US to win the Olympics until they kick eventing out and replace it with NASCAR, and to dominate WEGs until the world ends in nuclear war.
While there is still a long way to go, the USEF has done a better job of making this process transparent than ever before. Yesterday’s press release was a big step in the right direction and hopefully the USEF is starting to realize that eventers are generally cool and friendly people who just like to know what the heck is going on. I don’t know about you, but whatever happens at the open forum today I’m going to be damn glad that I’m part of such a cool sport with great friends and family who love horses. As far as I’m concerned, as long as I wake up in the morning and my address isn’t 134 Sand Lane, Craetr, Libya, I don’t have too much reason to feel bad for myself.
I have no doubt that the coaching selection process is going to get more frustrating and more divisive before it gets resolved. While the Search Committee indicated that they would not expand the short list for today’s forum, my guess (along with ESJ) is that the Athletes Committee will want to consider more applicants. I doubt if this would change the result, but it will satisfy some. Over the next week I expect there to be more big developments that will bring us apart if we don’t remember our common goals. The USEF is a large beaurocratic representative governance system filled with horse people and we are watching first hand as it grinds through the unpleasant machinations of making a zero-sum decision.
I have no idea how the meeting will go today, but my hope is that very tough questions will be asked as part of a polite and productive discussion. I think we all can agree that nothing will be gained from argument. I don’t know for certain if the media will be allowed, but I will definitely be attending because I got the invitation as a long-listed rider.
If we allow ourselves to be misled into thinking that the only acceptable outcome is for a particular candidate to ‘win’ then we will all surely lose. But if we can believe in a common goal of an open and fair process and trust that a good process is not defined purely by who gets selected then we have a chance to work through this process stronger and more united as a sport. Now, more than ever, go eventing.
