Stage 5 – Acceptance

Happy Thanksgiving and Columbus Day Eventing Nation.  Today Canada celebrates their Thanksgiving, which is an autumn holiday to give thanks for the presumably bountiful harvest.  In the US, we are celebrating the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the New World in October of 1492, although Columbus may or may not have been the first European to discover the Americas, and he may or may not have been the kind of guy we want to celebrate with a holiday, but who cares about the details when it comes to national icons?  Either way, Eventing Nation isn’t a post office so we are open for business today.  And yes, I will wear my Christopher Columbus hat all day long.

Somehow it seemed appropriate to leave the 5th and final stage of EN’s Kubler-Ross grieving model–the acceptance stage–until after the Games had concluded.  I don’t think the term ‘acceptance’ is suitable for eventing because to perform better at the next international championship, US fans, riders, and the team need to do anything but ‘accept’ what happened at the WEGs.  ‘Moving on’ is probably a better choice of words and with CCI3*s looming at Fair Hill, Boekelo, and then Galway in November, moving on is our only option.  But there are a few things that we learned at the WEGs that we should probably learn to accept.

1) We should accept that Canada is going to have a strong eventing team for a while.  The Canadian riders and horses are young and their dressage is only going to get better.  No one knows if Canada will repeat a team medal in 2012, but after two more years working with David on the flat they will certainly be better placed after the dressage in London.  Why is David so happy right now?

2) I have alluded to this several times before, but we should accept that the WEGs will not be back in the US for a long time.  The good news is that Kentucky was a fantastic host for the Games and I can’t say enough about the wonderful work of the many WEG volunteers.  The bad news is that the majority of the competitors at the WEGs are Europeans and the high transportation costs to the US will have a big impact on future WEG locations.   The 2014 Games will be in Normandy, France, and I expect the Games to be awarded to Europe for at least three or four more consecutive times unless some city in the US or Asia can make a really superb bid.  

3) Finally, there is no way to get around the fact that the US disappointed in the Olympic disciplines at the WEGs.  The US did not win any of the nine Olympic discipline team medals and we won just two (both bronze) out of 12 individual medals.  The US had a great chance to showcase our Olympic equestrian sports to a home crowd at the WEGs and one of my non-horsey Lexington friends who went to the WEGs summed up perhaps the entire competition by saying to me “the horses were all really pretty but why didn’t the US win more?”

Go eventing.