Looking through this issue of the Chronicle, it must be obvious that show jumping is alive and well in North America.

Given all the various aspects of this discipline available to today’s participants, this shouldn’t be any real surprise. What gives me pause is just how the goals–and thus the skill set required by both horse and rider–have drawn further and further apart over the years as we’ve developed the different levels within the discipline.

The emphasis on sheer speed needed to win in the increasingly popular (and, in some areas, incredibly lucrative) 3’6″ divisions has nearly nothing to do with the sort of riding and jumping required to qualify for the jump-off in sections where the jumps are even marginally higher.

Meanwhile, at the grand prix level, the incredible variation in course difficulty in our plethora of rich events throughout the country makes it impossible to draw any conclusions about the real level of the sport at the national level.

While we have jumping sport at about every level imaginable, a visitor to our shows would be hard-pressed to figure out what level they were watching at any particular event, especially since prize money so often has little to do with the technical difficulty of the course or even the level of the horses competing.

Don’t believe me? Look at the last 10 years of World Cup-qualifying classes, where riders are earning points to compete against the best in the world, and see how often the prize money offered pales in comparison to many national events (often at the same shows) in which not a single point-earning horse or rider took part.

This situation is now improving through the efforts of World Cup organizers and in response to the directives of the USEF’s High-Performance Committee. Yet we’re a very long way from the norm in the rest of the world, where prize money nearly without exception is an accurate barometer to the level of the participants and the course’s difficulty.

No Staircase
As much as we might like to see our abundance of jumper levels be useful as a staircase leading from entry level all the way to the international stage, this simply is not the case. The reality is that, for a growing majority of American competitors, a single level often is an end in itself. Our industry is geared to this.

Unfortunately, this leaves talented individuals with aspirations to advance without that proverbial staircase to direct their efforts in a meaningful way.

I can think of few, if any, other sports that present their aspiring athletes with the all-or-nothing situation faced by our show jumping participants.

Try to visualize the NFL if, in order to play in that league, a talented quarterback had to worry as much about identifying a wealthy individual to buy a team as he did about proving his playing skills! What if high school and college football didn’t exist, or, they weren’t considered any indication at all of a player’s potential in the pro league?

Without access to a competitive ladder, one focused on honing the sort of skills that will be demanded at the higher level, suddenly it would come down to an athlete’s ability to market himself as the most important key to his future in that sport. This would naturally eliminate some real talents on the playing field, because their abilities aren’t as strong in the marketing realm.

I frequently have younger riders approach me to ask just what they need to do to realize their dream of becoming a “grand prix rider.” It’s a tough question since the honest answer isn’t likely to provide much inspiration to the almost-always hard-working, and sometimes very talented, individual who just posed it.

Unless they can afford to write a hefty six-figure check for a horse and then foot the substantial bills every month to both keep a horse and get to the biggest shows, they’ll first have to identify someone with the means to do so–and then persuade them to make this huge commitment.

Two realities make the picture even bleaker. First, a single horse is rarely sufficient for a rider to make much of an impression at grand prix–even if the horse is a superstar, he simply cannot compete week-in and week-out for too long without breaking.

Second, like most everything else in life, becoming a truly competent rider at grand prix requires experience–the more of it the better. Few owners/sponsors have endless patience when their riders are making costly mistakes. Yet riders whose only prior experience was over lower fences are bound to make far less sophisticated decisions than riders with hundreds, or thousands, of rounds under their belts at this level.

I always marvel at owners, parents, and even sometimes riders themselves, who bemoan the fact that they seldom win as much when they move up to a new level. They somehow expect that they should be just as successful as others with far more experience.

If anyone could just purchase the best set of clubs in the store, take a handful of lessons, and be beating Tiger Woods next year, would the networks be televising so much golf?

I have to agree that a rider is only as good as the horse he’s sitting on. But after a few decades watching this sport, it’s become obvious that the better the rider, the better his or her horses.

Top riders produce good horses, and they manage to bring out the best in every horse they ride. Riders like the Whitakers, Ludger Beerbaum, and our own Richard Spooner not only move the horses they ride “up a couple of notches,” but they also manage to keep those horses at the top of their game for far longer than many of their peers. Their skill in this regard, in perfect balance with their highly competitive nature, keeps these riders high on the leader boards year after year.


Pretty Good Odds
There are lots of shortcuts in our game, and many of them work quite effectively, especially when the jumps are small. One that’s popular here is mounting inexperienced riders on over-qualified horses. A horse with many years of experience and fully capable of competing at the 4’6″ (or higher) level is unlikely to find 3’6″ too difficult. That extra scope and mileage brings the margin of error to a tolerable range for even a very green rider.

Now, when that horse is also schooled regularly by a professional, the odds are pretty good that he’ll go around overlooking most errors his novice rider makes. With very young children, and with those adult amateurs who have a background in riding but no time in their busy lives to fit in anything but shows, this is a good way to get started or to make competing possible.

But, as a course designer, I’ve seen too many problems arise when riders find themselves in the show ring, going fast and turning hard, without having ever learned such basic skills as finding their balance, staying out of their horse’s way, or even just plain staying on. Such a lack of fundamentals is an accident waiting to happen, and it can only be remedied with time in the saddle and real riding lessons, not simply with a more expensive horse.

Also, without basic skills that come from riding a variety of horses and learning to solve problems–rather than just relying on the over-qualified horse to take care of things–each move to a higher division will require even more horse(s).

I often marvel at the generous spirit of horses who so willingly and capably “play three-quarters of the court” week after week. I also feel great pity for horses that take the blame for rails down that are so clearly (to the observer, if not to the rider and sometimes even to the trainer) the result of their riders’ inability to fulfill their part of the bargain.

We certainly have no shortage of talented riders, but no country ever has a surplus of the kind of extraordinary talent that usually prevails at the Olympics or World Equestrian Games. This sort of rare individual, be they human or equine, every country must seek out and nurture so that they develop to the utmost of their potential.

What I wonder is how many potential greats are lost each year because we lack a system of progression? Our jumping sport has become a patchwork quilt of sections–with those below bearing scant resemblance to even the next level up. Lacking lower levels that hone the skills essential to success at the next stage, those of our riders with an eye to the bigger classes must “jump into the deep end” at an early stage, if they can afford the horseflesh to do so.

Sadly, if they can’t afford it, they’ll likely remain in the “belly-to-the-ground” sections forever, no matter their potential.

There’s a lot to be said for the American system of showing, where anybody can go into any class they want, whenever they want, as long as they pay the entry fee. But there are also some costs that come with this system.