PrintOur columnist addresses the new business realities of 21st century eventing and whether they are “fair.”
The myth of the Lone Ranger loping down out of the hills to save the day is appealing, romantic and quintessentially American. It’s an easy stretch to transform that version of the myth into the equally compelling “young girl and her horse ride to the rescue of the U.S. Equestrian Team,” with shades of Mary Anne Tauskey on Marcus Aurelius, Dorothy (Trapp) Crowell on Molokai, Kerry Millikin on Out And About, and, more recently, Gina Miles and McKinlaigh.
This scenario is much more satisfying than watching a battle of equestrian business conglomerates, each rider wielding a budget instead of a lance, but the day of the lone rider appears to be on the wane. The new reality might be called something like “Equestrian Franchises,” and just as the New York Yankees baseball team has been called the most successful franchise in sports history, so some of the bigger three-day event franchises are redefining what it means to be on top in 2010.
“Franchise” may not be quite the right word, since the various eventing “teams” aren’t linked enterprises, the way McDonalds or Pizza Hut are part of the same chain. Still, “Team O’Connor,” “Team Dutton,” “Team Buck Davidson,” “Team Martin,” “Team Coleman” and so forth, just like the New York Yankees, all bring a range of economic firepower and horsepower to the competitive arena that the one-horse rider finds daunting.
How Did It Happen?
Back in the ’70s when I rode for the USET three-day team, most riders felt fortunate if they had access to one advanced horse. In 1976, most of us considered it a “big deal” that Mike Plumb actually had two to choose between: Good Mixture and the young Better And Better. At this time the USET still owned various horses, which the coach could dole out to selected riders—Tad Coffin and Bally Cor and Mike Plumb and Blue Stone being two gold-medal examples.
But with the shutting down of the South Hamilton, Mass., USET headquarters, and the retirement of coach Jack Le Goff in the mid-’80s, this source of funding, both of horses and of money, dried up. It became increasingly clear to riders like Bruce Davidson and David and Karen O’Connor that if nobody else was going to create a support network to prevent the elite riders from getting cast into the role of “one-horse wonders,” then the elite riders had better start creating their own sources of support.
As a few top riders began to show the way, others, like Phillip Dutton, followed until this equestrian business model became the norm. The term “owner,” which I almost never heard used in the ’60s and ’70s, has now become a mainstay of the aspiring event rider’s lexicon and is a close analogy to the famous business adage about using OPM (Other People’s Money).
Is It Fair?
As I listen to various groups of eventers and their supporters talk about the way some of today’s riders have created equestrian empires, the word most repeatedly used is the word “fair.” As in, “It’s not fair that so and so had eight horses at Southern Pines and I had just one.” Or, “It’s not fair that so and so has 15 horses to practice jumping on. If I could do that much jumping, I’d be much better too.”
