Who Will Represent The United States In 2016?

Linda Allen has written a thought-provoking Between Rounds column for this week’s issue. I believe it should be required reading for any rider with international aspirations, whether they’re show jumpers or competing in other disciplines.

I remember that when I first started my editorial staff job at the Chronicle, then-editor John Strassburger quickly taught me that any quote from a junior rider involving the concept “I want to go to the Olympics” is pretty much useless. Why? Because the vast majority of young riders dream of wearing the USET saddle pad in an Olympic stadium.

The percentage of those who will actually live that dream is miniscule.

The United States has what’s supposed to be a remarkably efficient skill-building system in place for young riders, from the pony hunters to the equitation division and the North American Junior and Young Rider Championships, to the Developing Riders tours. But glaring gaps are becoming apparent in that system.

For all the Beezie Maddens, McLain Wards and Laura Krauts out there, there are hundreds of talented young riders who drift out of the sport, become frustrated while stagnating in the amateur-owner divisions, or just simply don’t have the horsepower to be a contender.

Top riders of every discipline—not just show jumping—talk about the value of competing abroad to hone their competitive instincts and elevate their perfor-mances. Most junior riders don’t have the opportunity to hop across the ocean and forge their skills in the white-hot competition of Europe. They jump the same high junior jumper courses in the same rings over and over. So, when they’re thrown in the deep end of a Fédération Equestre Internationale championship built by a European course designer at the NAJYRC, they flounder.

This result doesn’t bode well for the 2016 or 2020 Olympic Games, does it?

The solution isn’t to dumb-down the NAJYRC. Allen concedes that the team competition should be more forgiving, then the difficulty should be ramped up for the riders who qualify for the individual final. This is exactly the strategy that course designers use in the World Equestrian Games and Olympic Games.

But the riders who win should be capable of going head-to-head with European Young Riders winners. And I’d be willing to bet that they’re not. If the Europeans are stronger, more confident and capable over testing 1.50-meter courses now, they’ll be even more so over 1.60-meter championship courses in five years.

If you’re a young rider in the United States dreaming of standing on an Olympic podium, it’s your responsibility to earn your way there. It doesn’t come easy.

The U.S. system gives you a valuable platform to work your way there—including the NAJYRC—but during the “tough transition stages” of which Allen speaks, the onus is on you to cut your teeth, tough it out, improve and make the next leap.

I sincerely hope that’s what the NAJYRC riders who had tough times this year are going to do before 2010.