The fire at True Prospect Farm this summer has led to some truly incredible stories of generosity and recovery.  Neville Bardos’ recovery from critical care to being literally days away from competing at Burghley has received a lot of attention, but Caitlin Silliman’s mare Catch a Star aka Hoku is experiencing just as remarkable of a journey back to health.  Caitlin was kind enough to send us a quick update…
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From Caitlin:

Hoku’s favorite part of everyday was to be turned out with the love of her life, Ariel (Lillians beautiful grey mare who was lost in the fire).  Last evening I turned Hoku out for the first time in 3 months and I can’t begin to describe all of the feelings of happiness and relief and sadness that Ariel is not with her.

It has been a difficult summer, but today marks the beginning of my beautiful mares final stage of recovery. She can only be turned out for a few hours and has to be closely watched, but as she continues to grow more hair she should be able to stay out all night.

I can’t begin to thank all of the people who have helped us recover, your support will never be forgotten.  Hopefully my final update will be from the view between catch a stars ears.

Round 3 is where things get exciting, photo via Rennett Stowe

Nine EN blogger candidates are moving onto the penultimate round of our EN blogger contest.  Yesterday we published the successful round 2 posts from Leslie, Lacy, Chesna, and Elyse, and today we will publish the other 5 successful posts.  The candidates don’t have any time to rest on their laurels because the deadline for the next round of submissions is looming early next week, when we will cut the field of contestants in half.  It’s a survival game and everyone is going to have to step their game up if they want to move on to the final round.  For the the next round we have asked everyone to write about their most embarrassing moment with horses.  This will dovetail nicely with a series of posts ESJ is putting together for next week, so stay tuned.  For now, here are the rest of the contestants’ round two entries, where they responded to a prompt about the most important development in eventing over the past 10 years.  Without further ado, and again in no particular order:

Amy Goodusky:

Bio: I’m not an eventer; I just play one on EN! Actually, I am a Connecticut lawyer who rides and writes every day to make sure I don’t take life too seriously.

Entry: The most important development in eventing over the last ten years is the addition of the Beginner Novice division to recognized competitions. I am probably wrong about the dates, and this momentous development occurred more than ten years ago; but if certain politicians can get away with revisionist history (uh, wasn’t Paul Revere really the first eventer?) I can, too. Even if I am talking completely out of my riding helmet, (the words “riding helmet” replaced the phrase “a bodily cavity which shall remain unmentioned”) the creation of the division which one of my former trainers condescendingly refers to as “baby novice” is of tremendous value because, in my narcissistic and monomaniacal view, it opened the doors of competition to people like me.

This begs the question: who the %^^$$#% are you? Okay, you asked. I am a rider. I had one summer of Pony Club which hooked me on eventing forty years ago. Since then, lack of funds, time, skill, competent training and all of the attendant misfortunes of horse ownership, lessorship, rental, bailment, and borrowing kept me from getting to an actual event. I dreamed about it, though, and once I thought I was ready, I was confronted by one choice of division: Novice. This was daunting.

Consider this: two feet nine inches of solid fence looks to some of us, especially when it is hurtling toward us in the lurching fashion depicted by a helmet cam on a backyard horse of uncertain description, breeding and temperament, like five feet eleven inches. The idea of going over, say, fifteen of these fences in sequence was an effective deterrent from entering an event recognized by any legitimate organization, governing body or international cabal. Other similarly situated feeble but determined riders out there, I know, would rather spend a sunny Sunday cleaning their bathroom bowls than debut at Novice level, and thus devoted themselves to carrying the camera and the manure fork for those less severely affected.

Beginner novice made it possible for us to start somewhere. Two three is manageable. I could avoid vomiting green bile all over my nice new breeches. It is a gentle introduction to the rigors of combining three disciplines in one day, allowing riders to taste a thrill whilst dispensing with some of the agony. It gave me, as a friend says, “access to excess.” That excess whetted my appetite for more. It got me going and kept me there. This was the kind of riding I wanted to do in real life, wearing grown up clothes. The promulgation and promotion of the Beginner Novice division has wooed a few hunter jumper types and attracted others to the discipline who would otherwise have stayed home cleaning tack.

As a division, Beginner Novice assures the future of eventing in two ways. It’s the place for children to start, in a manner that any parent would cheerfully endorse. Those children will grow up to be the Boyd Martins and Sinead Halpins of their generation. More people will compete and be turned on by the sport. Then there’s the other end of the spectrum: older riders, who are finally at a point in their lives where owning a horse doesn’t mean having to eat generic macaroni and cheese to afford board and training. They are competing, too, and having a good time doing it. Their participation keeps eventing going every bit as effectively as the professional riders flying off to Burghley. The Beginner Novice Division is an invitation issued to riders of all stripes. It’s one I’m delighted to accept.

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Dana:

Bio: My name is Dana and I enjoy entering contests, eventing, humor and happy hour. Not necessarily in that order.

Entry:  Frangible pins, long versus short format, elimination if you fall off….. important topics but I’d rather write about people.  One who got me started in eventing and one who keeps me going.

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Jessica Keating:

Bio: My name is Jessica Keating – I’m a 28 year old living, working and riding in the DC metropolitan area. I am currently unsuccessfully competing Training, but have high hopes for a number vs. a letter score here in my immediate future.

Entry: The Internets: a Love Story

Ten years ago I was aimlessly riding my chestnut TB mare – or more accurately – riding on eggshells, trying not to get in her way and addressing multiple abscesses. I had no real concept of eventing, and certainly no firsthand experience of the culture and community that goes along with it. It is difficult for me to pinpoint a development that has been important in the last decade of eventing because I just don’t know – and if stalking the chronicle forums has taught me anything, it’s that if you don’t know…don’t pretend otherwise. Three years in, I am starting to get a feel for the rhythm and reason of eventing, and it is due – in large part – to the extensive online community that is available to me. I do not know what it was like before (in the olden days), but I imagine you had to buy the whinny widgets for your dressage tests, ask your trainer or friends how a particular event ran, talk to people on the phone and in general wander about hoping that information would filter its way to you organically. Not that those aren’t all wonderful things, but we just have so many additional options now. Options that might come in handy if you happen to forget an event closes until 15 minutes before the online entry expires and have to register online through your Smartphone. Not that I have ever done that. Hypotheticals.

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Right at this second I could post a thread on the Chronicle Forums and reach 91 people who are somehow connected to eventing and may have advice or experience that could help me. 91 people who have probably evented longer, stronger and tougher than me who can either point me in the right direction, or maybe help me avoid the potholes that they barreled into when they were starting out. I can visit the blogs and websites of other riders, enthusiasts, product providers and fans to supplement the information I obtain through: eavesdropping, gossiping, reading magazines and repeatedly tapping my forward to my horses in the hopes that osmosis will make me a better rider. On the United States Eventing website I can access an online omnibus showing me listed events in my area as well as links to register electronically. There are live scoring platforms – a double edged sword, when you want your results to be hidden, but a definite bonus when you are sitting outside an Italian restaurant in Poughkeepsie, NY waiting to see how your horse did at the event you had to miss. Many events are allowing you to register electronically (credit card, yes!), view your times and entry status online and overall aid in simplifying and streamlining a process, which I can imagine may have been laborious a decade ago. I can even direct my little web browser over to YouTube and watch a helmet cam video of a training rider at Waredaca last weekend and see the approach I SHOULD have taken to the half coffin. Also, why doesn’t that rider sound as tired as I felt? But I digress.

The availability of easy, online resources for eventing is something that I do understand, appreciate and support. Anything that allows me to wait until the last minute, do extensive research while sitting on my rear and facilitates my obsessive compulsion with online product reviews is worth writing about after all.

Disclaimer: Jessica Keating lives with a man who reconfigures routers for fun; internet pandering completely unsolicited.

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Becca Gershowitz:

Bio: Okay, the two sentences that I came up with to describe me: Little pony. Big pasture.

Entry: Eventing Exposed!

Eventing is definitely a sport that has gone through many changes over the years. It’s hard to pick what is the most important or what has had the biggest impact on our sport. Between safety measures, the transition from long to short format, and the increasing popularity of one-day horse trials among other things, our sport has transformed greatly from what it was a decade ago.

One of the things that strikes me the most is how accessible and exposed eventing has become due simply to technology, social media, and online access. For example, the entire show process has been streamlined! Well, not the actual showing itself, but the paperwork part at least! It really wasn’t that long ago that we were sent copies of the USEA Omnibus throughout the year and selected our shows from there. Now, it’s as easy as hopping on the computer or grabbing a smartphone to plan out the season. And once plans are made, you can enter and pay online- either through the USEA’s XEntry service or evententries.com for example! No paper, no stamps, no worrying if your entry was lost in the mail and will make it in on time- much more “green” and efficient now! While getting ready for the show, you can use your handy-dandy smartphone app to learn your dressage tests instead of having to refer to a book or print out a test. And, as the show gets closer, you can check the venue’s website to see the posted ride times- not only to plan your day with your mounts, but also to plan to watch other riders go throughout the day. So, if your favorite upper level rider is competing, you can plan your time to be able to watch their rounds and learn from the best! And, once your show day is over, you often find that the scores are posted online before they make it to the scoreboard on show grounds! And no more waiting for the next issue of USEA magazine to see how everyone has done in Florida or Aiken over the winter: it’s all online for your viewing pleasure. Ahh, nothing like a little instant gratification.

Even beyond the horse show aspect of it all, technology has allowed for greater rider exposure. What professional rider do you know that doesn’t have his or her own blog for us to pour over every time they post something new? YouTube gives us unlimited supply of videos- both traditional videos and the increasingly popular helmet-cams that we all love! Facebook allows us to have even more of a connection with our favorite riders, and Twitter lets us follow any updates they give in real-time. Posters, pictures and videos are great, but having more of a “relationship” with our favorite riders- being able to follow their regular activities, share in their victories or pitch in when things get rough . . . that accessibility really seems to bring eventers together and make for a more tight-knit group of riders. There are tons of different online magazines, blogs, and bulletin boards to keep up with all of the latest news, events and gossip about riders and competitions all over the world. We have live streams of major events as they’re happening and tons of archives to access at any time. So, even when we’re not in the saddle or at a show, we can be surrounded by eventing any time we want!

As awesome as the technology is, nothing beats the real thing, so get out there and Go Eventing!

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Karen McCollom:

Bio: I live in a constant state of suppressed road-rage , I think Eddie Izzard should be the Emperor of the World, and I am easily delighted by just about anything: beautiful countryside, rice pudding, my one-year-old grandson discovering his own nostrils at the dinner table . I color my hair but rarely brush it, pay little attention to what I’m wearing, much to the entertainment of friends and family, I read incessantly, am a little lazy, though somehow fairly fit, I hate to cook, I love dogs, all dogs, any dogs, but am fiercely addicted to horses in a demented sort of a way.

Entry: A couple of weeks ago, I was warming up my mare for her dressage at the UNH horse trials. As I dragged my gaze away from the back of her neck, I was suddenly struck by the quality of the horses around me. These were the usual motley crew of lower level horses : fancy young horses on the way up, old schoolmasters , steady draft crosses, or feisty little Morgans. What was striking was how well and correctly they were all working.

Years ago, if you happened to be the one who managed to keep your horse’s head down that day, you could win. Now, I noticed, with some worry, that everyone seemed to know what they were doing. The horses had rhythm, lightness and engagement. Where were the horses who stuck their noses out one end and their hocks out the other and propped around the ring? When did everyone learn to ride and train their horses so well?

Later, while walking my cross-country course, I was impressed again by the consistent rhythm and easy adjustability of these same horses as they galloped by. What has happened to the old scenes of horses fighting for their heads, racing along frighteningly on their forehands? What has been going on out here while I was apparently not paying attention?

On the drive home, I came to a startling conclusion: the trickle down effect of the short format. As one whose small moment of upper level international competition was strictly long format , including Rolex and the now gone but fabulous Checkmate in Canada, I will mourn the loss of the long format forever. However, my observations at UNH gave me food for thought.

When the long format died its long and convoluted death between 2000 and 2005, the new short format had only just begun its evolution. In the first few years, there were worries and squabbles; about fitness and warm up routines, about the possible demise of the thoroughbred sporthorse, about cross-country becoming an afterthought in the shadow of the more demanding dressage and showjumping phases. The courses were awkward – clusters of complicated technical combinations were connected by sprints like some sort of high speed treasure hunt. This new version of our sport was undergoing growing pains and an identity crisis.

Now, in 2011, the sport has aged out of this awkward phase and has become a more graceful and predictable beast. The courses are more fluid yet still testing, requiring the same speed, and boldness as the long format courses, but also tremendous maneuverability. Thoroughbred or part-bred, the horses must be superbly trained for these more complex tests. Whatever our opinions, the short format with its somewhat different requirements has created more technically proficient upper level riders.

Through observation and lessons, the lower level riders are exposed to this quality of riding. The expectations and goals of these lower level riders have been changed as a result. Improved dressage means more adjustability for jumping at all levels. Excellence is not only a possibility now at the lower levels, it is a requirement, whether the rider is happy staying forever at beginner novice or is on the way up through the levels.

By the end of my drive home from UNH, I found myself reluctantly deciding that the coming of age of the short format, rather than simply causing the feared “dumbing down” of eventing, has, among its many effects, actually improved the quality of our riding at all the levels and thus our sport. Now if I can only keep up.
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The only easy day was yesterday.  Go eventing.

The secret glamorous life of an EN blogger

After hours of meticulous scoring, counts, recounts that would do Florida proud, and maybe even a few hanging chads, 9 would be EN bloggers are moving onto round three of the EN blogger contest.  Four EN writers and all of the chinchillas contributed to the judging for this round and I read all of the entries once before and once after reading their reviews.  It was incredibly difficult having to write emails to the finalists who were eliminated in this round and, as I honestly told them, all of the round two submissions were better than anything I could have written for my second ever EN submission.  This is the first half of the 9 round two survivors.  We asked the contestants to include two short sentences about themselves along with their submission about the most important development in eventing over the past 10 years.  There are just two more rounds left before we pick the next member of the EN Team, and I will post much more on that along with the final half of the round two submissions tomorrow.

Take it away guys, in no particular order:

Leslie Wylie:

Bio: Leslie Wylie was a newspaper editor until she quit her respectable, well-paying job to become an impoverished horse professional. She’s been eventing for 20 years and is currently pursuing her lifelong dream of interviewing Boyd Martin in his underpants.

Entry: The past decade of eventing has been a crazy roller coaster ride, no doubt. But whether we were laughing or screaming or getting puked on by the person beside us, we were all in it together thanks to the Internet. From blogs and MyTwitFace to COTH forums and a ridiculous website called EN, the mainstreaming of the web has changed the way we talk, think and participate in the sport.

Remember life before eventing “in the cloud”? A little over a decade ago, I was a working student for Julie Richards as she prepared to compete in the 2000 Olympic Games. We finally got horse and rider shipped off to Sydney and then… crickets. For weeks, crickets. NBC obviously considered synchronized swimming coverage to be WAY more important than eventing, and my web-surfing abilities were limited to checking email and downloading ’80s hair metal from Napster. So here I’ve gotten to know this horse down to his favorite corner of the stall to take a crap in, but I have no way of knowing how he’s doing in the Olympic Games. (Julie’s mom eventually called to say they placed ninth individually–no big deal!)

These days you can watch the action as it unfolds, be it cross-country day at Rolex or a keynote speaker’s address at the Annual Convention. Even at small-fry events, a smart-phone saves you from having to leave the beer cooler to go check your score. I’m looking forward to the day when we don’t even have to walk our cross-country course. There will just be pictures of every jump online, maybe accompanied by an interview from a top rider on how he or she is going to ride the fence. Wait, EN already does that? Never mind.

But real-time event coverage is but a single grass tip in the giant stud kit that is the Internet. The web has changed the way we do business, from buying and selling horses to sharing information and swapping opinions. Before the Internet we even had to, like, go to the post office to mail show entries and stuff.

The web makes every aspect of our sport more accessible. Blogs by top riders provide a glimpse into the less-than-glamorous process of making a superstar event horse, which helps bridge the gap between the upper and lower levels. It’s like, if all we ever saw Hannah Montana do was coast around four-stars, we’d probably want to grab that shiny blond ponytail and yank her off her horse. But if we read about Miley getting up at 4 a.m. to muck stalls and her horse is lame and everything is falling apart but she keeps fighting then it’s like, OK, this is someone I want to cheer for.

Of course, eventing is not always the magic kingdom we’d like it to be. We’ve experienced some dark nights of the soul over the past decade, moments that have forced us to ask hard questions about ourselves and the future of the sport. Through it all, the web has played a major role in helping us sort out our differences via a combination of diplomacy and virtual hair-pulling. Innovations in safety and policy have emerged thanks in large part to a silent ruckus raised online. We don’t always get our way, but at least the Internet gives us the feeling that we all have a hand in molding the sport into the shape we want it to be.

It’s a shame we missed our opportunity to put a helmet cam on Murphy Himself, but it’s exciting to imagine what the next decade of cyber-eventing holds. Now close your laptop and Go Eventing.

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Lacy Cotton:

Bio: Lacy Cotton is a 27 year old Prelim level Eventer who has been involved in equestrian sports her entire life (and yet still manages to remain completely horse crazy!). She competes in Area Five with her off-track Thoroughbred gelding named Prophet, and considers eventing to be her second home, a place of sincere friendships and of hard-won accomplishments.

Entry: Learning to Teach, Teaching to Learn

Over the years, there has been an innumerable amount of changes made to the sport of eventing, some more memorable than others. I’d like to focus on one that has managed to span the decade and remains extremely relevant today. That change is the Instructor Certification Program offered by USEA.

Originally developed in 2002, the ICP seeks to educate and promote a network of capable, effective, and (most importantly) safe riding instructors spanning all levels of eventing. The program includes workshops, mentorships, and assessments that prepare candidates for levels of certification ranging from I to IV. It’s a veritable Shangri-La of proven riding techniques, drawn from the assembled hivemind of the most successful riders our sport has ever known, and it’s only grown in the nine years since its conception. The current all-star ICP faculty includes Karen and David O’Connor, Mark Phillips, and Darren Chiacchia – just to name a few! And while that’s all very impressive, the most amazing aspect of the ICP process is the quality instructors it produces by sharing time-tested concepts for teaching and competing.

Login to the USEA website and look at the directory of available certified teachers found there, all able to verify their experience at any given level and in every phase of our sport. How great is it that we have such an amazing resource?! It doesn’t matter whether you’re a newbie showing GAG on an overweight 22-year old pony or an advanced level competitor on a $90K Irish Sporthorse with Olympic dreams. There is a certified instructor out there who is a perfect fit for your aspirations! (And wow, I’ve made the USEA website sound like a online dating service. eHarmony for Horseriding!)

With ICP, inexperienced eventers can feel assured that they will never have to “roll the proverbial dice” when choosing an instructor. It wasn’t so long ago that trying out new trainers was a painful trial and error process, wherein the unsuspecting rider followed instruction with vague hopes that this person wasn’t leading them down the road to ruin. You all know what I’m talking about. We are, admittedly, all crazy horse people… but some of us are just crazier than others. Within five years of its birth, the ICP produced 96 certified instructors, and now numbers well into the two hundreds. Each area can proudly claim ten or more certified trainers as resources for developing strong, successful competitors.

I have always been a believer that knowledge is perhaps the greatest powers a rider can wield in eventing. The ICP process has proven itself to be one of the most successful ways to spread that host of valuable knowledge from eventing champions, to trainers, to aspiring students. It takes into account new technology and regulations within the sport, incorporating relevant information into an already solid foundation. And you don’t even have to be an ICP candidate to benefit from the program! Workshops are open to auditors and (even better) invite riders to participate as the student body the candidates must practice teaching. There is no limit to what you could learn, no matter what your goal!

Ok… Slow your roll, Lacy. I’m starting to sound like a spokesperson for the ICP.

Perhaps the Instructor Certification Program isn’t perfect, but its continued growth and adaptation is incredibly promising. I find myself more excited over what the future might bring for this system, how much more we might learn through it. And if I am ever accomplished enough to pursue a certification through ICP, I know it’ll be a rewarding experience that will stay with me throughout my career in the sport.

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Chesna Klimek:

Bio: Hi EN! I’m Chesna, a psychology grad student and horse junkie who hails from the Pacific Northwest (Area VII). I dabble in most anything equine, but carry a special kind of love for eventing, ponies, and long rides on the beach.

Entry: The long and the short of it “What’s the most important eventing development in the past ten years?” I can’t help but wonder, is this a trick question? Did EN intentionally pick this so all 12 of us write about the same thing? Isn’t there one particular development that stands high above the rest (that’s not a reference to William Fox Pitt’s stature). To risk pointing out the obvious… obviously the most important eventing development has been the shift from the long format to short format.

It’s not every day an Olympic sport gets a major makeover… You don’t hear about marathons getting shortened by 6 miles, for example. To some this may sound like an over-told history lesson, but traditionally phase two of eventing was a four part “endurance” day, not just the “cross-country” of today’s short format. This transition didn’t happen overnight, but history books–and wikipedia–will probably point to the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece as the catalyst for the long-to-short format transition. The Olympic Committee took one look at our noble sport and bemoaned “too much space, too much cost, not enough popularity!” In an effort to keep eventing on the Olympic roster, the short format was born–a brainchild of the FEI (if applicable, insert FEI joke of choice here).

Many of the younger generation, myself included, might not have had the chance to experience a long format event. In a nutshell, phase two under the long format had four parts:

A: Roads and Tracks – Think of this as your warmup at medium speed–a time to psych yourself up (or down!) and get the blood flowing without any solid objects in your way.

B: Steeplechase – Like a scene right out of National Velvet! Well, minus the stampeding herd of horses. But still, this was a fast-paced assault on gallop-friendly steeplechase jumps.

C: Roads and Tracks – Here pairs took advantage of a cool down trot leading up to a 10 minute vet box… A moment to make sure you were rubber side down and still breathing!

D: Cross Country – This is the same hair-raising adrenaline rush that keeps all of us coming back to the sport–but not quite as we know it today under the short format. Courses tended to feature more galloping fences and less technical stadium-esque combos.

The moral of the long format is that you and your horse had to be fit, and there was no way around it. You can take a peek at the old Burghley videos EN recently posted to see the differences between the long format and short formats. FYI, Burghley 2005 was the last four star event to offer the long format.

The shift to short format eventing has undoubtedly changed the face of our sport. It’s influenced the way we train and condition our horses, and even what type of horses we compete (WB breeders rejoiced!). It impacted cross-country course design, more facilities are able to offer upper level events, and it set the stage for other important happenings, like a 14.2 hand pony making it around a **** in style and the creation of those someday-I-hope-I-can-afford inflatable air vests.

Of course, a change like this hasn’t come without controversy. Even still we eventers like to hash it out on this topic, it’s almost as heated as our national politics or sports team preferences. But no matter which side of the fence you fall on–or better yet, land on–I hope we can all agree that the transition from long to short format is the biggest eventing news of the decade.

Happy riding!

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Elyse Gonyo:

Bio: Elyse Gonyo is a 27-year-old eventer from northern Virginia who is currently horseless and living in Boulder, Colorado with her two dogs. She’s excited about the possibility of blogging for Eventing Nation because it will mean she can finally tell people she’s using her college degree.

Entry: This past summer, I spent several weeks volunteering at a beginner riding camp. My first week, since I was new, I was placed with the arts and crafts group for half of the day. Once the kids got started making their collages, I ended up looking through old issues of Practical Horseman circa 2000, having saved the eventing issue from their scissor-happy little hands. While many things remained the same (George Morris still thought eventers’ “garb” was detracting from the natural beauty of the horse), one of the most surprising aspects was how positively quaint the advertising was. They were still mostly in black-and-white, for heaven’s sake.

To be fair, horses in general, and eventing in particular, have always been a business. But over the past 10 years, we’ve truly started to look and act like one. 2001 and prior was a different sort of eventing – it was a time when the long format was still the norm, USEA was still called USCTA, Philip Dutton still rode for Australia, and there was no such thing as a half-coffin on a Novice level cross-country course. Back then, when my pony dumped me in front of a fence, it was at a nice, plain stone wall – not a hand-carved sea serpent sponsored by Bit of Britain.

It’s now uncommon to see professional riders, events, and event series without multiple sponsorships. The United States Eventing Association’s website currently lists 32 corporate sponsors (back in 2001, there were three), and other countries’ eventing associations and teams are no different. Saddle pads, horse trailers, jumps and jump complexes, stadium arenas, and clothing are all fair game for equine corporate logos of some form or another. Events have followed suit, particularly the larger ones, and for good reason. No one who knows anything about eventing will ever say that there is anything inexpensive about this sport and “sponsorship” has always existed in some way, though primarily through ownership of top-level horses. While these corporate sponsors have allowed us to keep events going, supported our programs, and allowed us to expand our sport dramatically over the past 10 years, it has also changed the landscape of eventing forever.

Now, obviously the expansion of sponsorship isn’t limited to eventing – one needs only go to any professional sporting event to see its prevalence. When done well, sponsorships provide a win-win between the corporations and the organization or event they support – the event gets necessary funding support, and the corporation receives exposure to an already-interested group of people attending the event. There are obviously some great examples of this (SmartPak and Bit of Britain) and some not-so-great examples (I still am not quite sure what Alltech does. Sorry, Alltech).

That said, eventing today has a very different look than it did 10 years ago. We’re a little shinier, and a little less rough-and-ready than we used to be. A little more camera-ready. But, then, George Morris never approved of our attire anyway, so what exactly does a logo on our breeches change? Maybe nothing.

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