As someone who is actively involved in eventing at all levels, I thought we should look at the tradition of the sport, how it started, and what I think is the best direction for it to go.

I’m no historian, but I thought it might be useful to outline some of the changes that have occurred over the past 80 or so years. The first thing that I realized is that the three-day event changed enormously from its inception.

It took a few years for the traditional three-day event format as we know it–dressage, endurance day with steeplechase and roads and tracks, and show jumping–to come to fruition. During one of the first three-day event competitions at the Olympics, an extra cross-country day replaced the dressage. I’ve had the privilege of spending some time with Gen. Jack Burton, who rode on many U.S. three-day teams and at 84, still officiates at a lot of events. In his day there was a phase E, a roads and tracks after the cross-country test.

In my home of Australia, the three-day team became famous for winning the 1960 Olympic team and individual gold medals when Bill Roycroft fell on cross-country, broke his collarbone, and got back on to finish the course. He then went to hospital, but on realizing there were only three horses left on the team, which was in the gold-medal position, he discharged himself and show jumped clear the next day to secure the gold medal.

At that time you could earn bonus points on endurance day by going faster than the required time. The team found a shortcut on phase C, which also helped them win gold.

More recently, we’ve seen the minimum weight requirement for endurance day lifted. At the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 we were still weighing in, with some riders carrying a lot of lead to make 165 pounds. The move to remove the weight requirement was led by our own diminutive rider, Carol Kozlowski.

The maximum distance for the four-star events has also been shortened, and in the last decade we’ve seen the addition of a cooling stop if needed on phase C, as well as a dramatic decrease in the speed so that phase C is truly a recuperating phase.

What we expect from our horses has changed too. My Australian coach, Wayne Roycroft, competed Laurenson at the 1976 Montreal Olympics when he was only 6–and finished fifth. Mike Plumb then rode the horse in the 1978 World Championships and 1980 alternate Olympics.

You couldn’t ride a 6-year-old in the Olympics today, because of the qualifying requirements and because of the amount of training needed.

Needed: More Than A Warrior

Dressage has become so much more important in the last 15 years. Unless weather plays a big part, it’s extremely difficult to win a major competition without being in the top 10 after dressage. When I arrived in the United States 12 years ago, if you’d said to me that the four-star test would soon require four flying changes, I might have gotten on the plane back to Australia!

Cross-country courses have dramatically changed too. They started out as natural obstacles that required a brave horse. Now, the courses not only test the horses’ bravery and scope, but also the riders’ accuracy and the horses’ rideability.

The days of merely needing a “warrior” horse have long gone. Today’s courses are much less fluid (more stop-and-go) and technical, which involves sprinting away from the jumps to average 570 meters per minutes.

And now we’re seeing lots of changes in the show jumping, the most dramatic being at the Athens Olympics, where there were two show jumping rounds to determine the team and individual medals.

Show jumping courses are now longer, more technical, and are measured tighter to make time a factor. This format is more in line with straight show jumping.

And this has changed the type of horse and the emphasis in the riders’ training. In 1996 I won the Fair Hill CCI*** (Md.) with two rails down in the show jumping. That would most likely not happen today. The ideal event horse today is careful on the last day.

The type of horse used for eventing has varied somewhat from country to country. Yes, we’ve used a lot of Thoroughbreds, but I’ve learned that not all foreign horses called “Thoroughbreds” are really full Thoroughbred, and the real Thoroughbreds bred in England or Ireland are not the same type of horse are our U.S.-bred Thoroughbreds.

We have access to many retired race horses. Their disposition isn’t always suited to our sport or to every rider, especially as the dressage plays more of a role. Unfortunately too, the size and shape of the Thoroughbred is changing. Breeders are putting more emphasis on early maturing horses that reach their peak at 2 and 3, so we now see a smaller, stockier horse, rather than the raw-boned, loose-moving horses of the past. We need Thoroughbreds, or part-Thoroughbreds, purposely bred for the sport.

Some are predicting that warmbloods will be needed for the short format, but Bettina Hoy’s Olympic horse, Ringwood Cockatoo, is an Irish-bred horse, not a warmblood.

Finally, there are also more events to run in today than ever before. So horses compete a great deal more.

Cross-Country Must Rule

As you can see from this amateur history lesson, the horses, riders, events and the sport have come a long way. Somewhere through this change it was determined that the three-day event should have a ratio between the dressage, endurance and show jumping of 3 to 12 to 1. In practical terms this rarely happens, though.

Both supporters of the long and short formats would, I think, agree that the cross-country should have the greatest influence on the final outcome. So I believe that the single most important area for our sport to get right is the course design.

Short format or long, this is what makes or breaks a competition. If the course is too soft and straightforward, like at the Athens Olympics, it becomes a dressage and show jumping competition. Too tough and it’s not fair to the horses.

Perhaps we should look to the FEI to direct more resources and energy to educating the course designers.

Those who want to keep the long format believe that it requires more horsemanship skills and a need for a horse who can gallop and jump easily, and they want the dressage and show jumping to have less influence. I wonder if many of the long-format supporters are up-and-coming riders who feel cheated by the removal of the steeplechase?

The short-format supporters, it seems, are made up of the riders and owners who have horses in contention for international events. Many believe the roads and tracks and steeplechase don’t play a big part in the competition, except for wear and tear on the horses. If a horse is too slow or not fit enough, he’ll be penalized on the cross-country anyway. They believe that with the number of times the horses compete, removing the steeplechase would reduce the number of injuries.

Some organizers in this country–such as Brian and Penny Ross (Virginia) and Jane Atkinson (Rolex Kentucky)–believe strongly that they want to offer riders the full three-day event. I admire their devotion to the sport and the horse.

Taking all of this into account, I wonder if we shouldn’t keep the full three-day event for the one- and two-star levels and have the CCIs without steeplechase for the three- and four-star levels. This may be a way to keep the horsemanship skills developing in our sport and take some pressure off the higher-level horses.

The leaders of the Federation Equestre Internationale have done a poor job in communicating their decisions for change and working with the rank and file. But I don’t think it’s fair to blame everything on the FEI. We must remember that this is not our sport alone, it’s a worldwide sport, with many countries whose opinions and ideas are important too.

I hope we can agree on a future that is good for the sport and for our horses.

Phillip Dutton, of West Grove, Pa., has been the U.S. Eventing Association’s leading rider for the last six years.