What would you do to help the US win a WEG medal? It never ceases to amaze me how far fans are willing to go to help their team be successful–whether from buying memorabilia to crazy superstitions and rituals. In the Kubler-Ross grief model, our ‘bargaining stage’ of grief might go something like: I’d ride all winter without gloves and stirrups if it would get us back that silver medal. However, I’m going to take a different approach to bargaining and use this post to look at one aspect of the US team right now–rider development. How is rider development related to bargaining? You tell me…or, better yet, tell me how much post titles on Eventing Nation really have anything to do with the posts.
For all the justifiable criticism at the USEF for a lack of attention to producing our next group of top riders, the USEF is spending a significant amount of money this year to send talented developing horses and riders to compete abroad at Boekelo and Pau.
Boekelo CCI3*: Right before the WEGs, I wrote that the USEF had made their Boekelo grant selections for four riders to compete at the
Boekelo CCI3* in the Netherlands from October 14th to 17th.
Will Faudree and Andromaque
Doug Payne and Running Order
Sinead Halpin and Manoir de Carneville
Tiana Coudray and Ringwood Magister
Mark Phillips is in Gladstone this week working with Doug, Sinead, and Will today, Thursday, and Friday. Those three will fly from JFK to Amsterdam on Saturday, where they will meet up with Tiana. The Boekelo training grants cover travel as well as incentives based on final placings and involve a big investment in each pair.
In my mind,
the grants are important to giving the horses and riders (especially Doug and Tiana) international experience before we might call on them to compete at championships. Two big advantages of grants is that they hopefully inspire better performances from riders to earn the grants and they reward the horse owners for their investment in our sport.
One thing that might help the grants to have more impact is a more public application/awarding process. I also would support giving grants based more on a structured competition performance than picks by selectors–perhaps a Boekelo grant competition series next summer? Riders could apply at the beginning of the year and the USEF would then select around 10 potentially suitable pairs who could compete for points at two or three major spring and summer competitions and the final picks would be contingent on soundness. One spot could even be reserved for a ‘Captain’s pick’ to be used if a great pair narrowly missed out on the points due to bad luck, etc.
Boekelo is conveniently scheduled for the
same weekend as Fair Hill, but Eventing Nation will be hearing from the US riders at Boekelo throughout the competition. Sinead provides a great preview of the Boekelo pairs in
her blog, so I’ll just let her introduce herself and her team mates:
From Sinead’s Blog: “[Manoir de Carneville] and I combined have the most experience in the group in our Advanced competitions together. Will has the most experience as a rider with his numerous 4 star and team competitions on his former advanced ride Antigua. His mare is absolutely amazing and has been completely solid in the past year or so that Will has had her. Doug and Running Order are new to the Advanced level but Doug has more time in the tack than most and has proven on countless horses that he can be competitive. This will be a big step for both “skinny” and Doug but worth the investment. Tiana and her beautiful grey horse have both won at the 3 star level and had some spotty competitions. She knows her horse very well and has every capability to win the thing if things go her way.”
Pau CCI4*: The USEF will also be awarding several short listers with grants to the
Pau CCI4* from November 4th to 7th. The final Pau selections have yet to be made, but
names like Remington, Tipperary Liadhnan, Arthur, Leyland, and Stewie come to mind. Look for everyone else on the east coast who is not going to Boekelo or Pau to head to Maryland for Fair Hill with the hopes that we will have much better weather than last year.
Laine’s blog mentions that the team might give Pau grants to other pairs if they are not all taken by the short listers, but I am skeptical that there will be any spots left for non-short-listers.
The challenge with giving money is to figure out how to get the most bang for your buck. What do you think is the most effective way to use money to develop riders in the US?
