As we look to 2015 with a home-turf Longines FEI World Cup Final and ahead to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, our columnist sees no time for complacency.

I think at the moment, the state of the show jumping in the United States is great. I think we’re on an upward swing; we just need the follow-through. There are some really good riders and some great, enthusiastic owners, but we have to keep the momentum going in the right direction.

I think the Longines FEI World Cup Final was the first goal of our 2014 season. It’s something we wanted to be prepared for and have a good, strong performance in. It was an event that was to be a very large barometer for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games team selection.

And I think it worked out well there. Beezie Madden was the highest U.S. rider, and I was second highest. Then our goal was to try and keep those horses healthy through the summer and maintain a certain level of performance. I know, with Rothchild and me, the performance at the World Cup Final was a springboard for the rest of the summer. We went on to the Longines Global Champions Tour of Antwerp (Belgium) to win that big grand prix and tried to continue that momentum through the Spruce Meadows (Alberta) summer season and really aim for the World Games.

I think the selection procedure for these team championships is very good. It’s a process that’s been in place for a while now and is constantly evolving, as it should.

You can’t sit back and say “We’ve got it right,” ever. In my opinion, what happened after we won Olympic team gold in 2008 was that we sat back and said, “We’ve got it all figured out,” and thought we could rest on our laurels. But you have to continue to do the selection procedures better and more accurately. But also you have to look at our performances, especially at the 2014 World Games, and say, “OK, that was good, but it could be better. And how do we do that?”

You have to keep pushing because the sport is so competitive and so global now. As an individual or as a team, if you ease up for even just a moment, your results will suffer quickly.

Bronze Was Good, But We Can Do Better

I think the preparation leading up to the World Games went mostly as planned. I think we went with a really strong team.

Beezie and I have a bit of a special relationship through what we’ve done together over the last decade or so. Kent Farrington and I are dear friends, so it was nice to have him there. Lucy Davis fit in very well and comes out of a very good program working with Markus and Meredith Beerbaum. Charlie Jayne was a fantastic alternate; he’s always a team player.

There was a pretty strong professional, respectful and friendly feeling within this group. I think it was one of the more enjoyable teams I’ve been on. I felt we all worked very well together.

We had a team that, on a good day, was the winner and on a fine day was a medal, and that’s what happened. We had strong horsepower, good riders, and the results showed what we spoke about a year ago in this column—when you have good horse-and-rider combinations, on a good day you could win a gold medal and on a normal day, with normal luck, you can get a piece of the action. That was reflected in the results in Normandy.

Our World Games team was very mentally well prepared and had a great game plan. But I think we walked out of that Nations Cup a bit disappointed, to be frank. It doesn’t mean a bronze-medal performance wasn’t still very good, but we all had thought we could have done better.

I’m thrilled with chef d’equipe Robert Ridland. I also consider him a good friend, and I think he’s done a great job so far. He hasn’t lost focus—his first thought after the World Games was, “How do we come home with the gold next time?” I think that’s a great attitude to have.

But a lot of Robert’s success is going to come down to the riders and horses and owners that he has working with him.

We’ve had a lot of exciting results from young riders, and that’s always encouraging. It’s great to see some special ones who break through to that top level, like Lucy. She was a phenomenal teammate, unbelievably professional and very talented. I don’t have enough good things to say about her. It was a real pleasure to be on that team with her.

I think most of these young talents who are doing good things at a high level are normally associated with a top rider and going to the big, five-star shows. I’m a little in the middle of the road on the developing rider tours. I think some good comes out of it, but I worry that we might be wasting assets on things that could be done nationally. I think we can prepare these riders to compete on the high level within our own country and then let them out on the world stage.

Upping The Ante On Home Turf

Here at home, we have some very exciting events.

Tom Struzzieri’s prize money at HITS is phenomenal. His million-dollar classes are huge events, and I believe the Saugerties, N.Y., show is going to be FEI-sanctioned this year.

He has the Nations Cup that counts as a qualifier for the Furusiyya FEI Nations Cup Final in Ocala, Fla., so I think he’s making some good efforts in the right direction, which is good to see.

There are also some other good events, like the Los Angeles Masters, which was run by a European organization and was phenomenal. Shows like Devon (Pa.), the Hampton Classic (N.Y.), and the Gold Cup at Old Salem (N.Y.) really strive to keep the levels up.

I think there are some great things happening. But horse shows are a business in America, and we have to find a balance. I respect the fact that horse shows need to make profit, but to be truly successful—and Spruce Meadows is an excellent example of this—we have to find the balance between the sport/athlete and the business/horse show manager. When we achieve that balance, we get the best of both worlds.

You look at the Global Champions Tour model, and there are some very good things about it, in particular the huge sums of prize money. They’re nice, short, three-day events with two or three big-money classes, so that’s a great thing.

The down side of those events is that they’re somewhat funded by a pro/am scenario. From an idealistic view of sport, the highest level should be just professional. It shouldn’t be 30 of the world’s best and then 10 pay cards (riders who bought an opportunity to compete). It should be 40 of the world ranking’s best.

I hope that can grow to be that. I think those tours are phenomenal, but they are pro/am, and I think they need to work toward more of a pure professional or pure results-driven qualification.

Of course there are economics to make work in all of this. Where does the prize money come from? It comes from different avenues of sponsorship, like the pay card system. That’s the reality of it, but we also have to acknowledge that ideally, we’d like pure rankings-driven qualification and participation. And we hope they continue to work in that direction.

The U.S. summer season, however, is a real weak point for our schedule. It’s a huge problem. Looking between Devon in June to the Hampton Classic and the Saugerties Million in September, as an international rider it’s really hard to find interesting events in our own country.

Now what’s happened is that you have a little bit of a chicken and the egg scenario. The international riders leave and go abroad or to Spruce Meadows, so the show doesn’t have the support to make changes for the better, so the riders continue to go elsewhere. Everybody’s in a tough spot there.

I know Old Salem was trying to get some summer dates but couldn’t because of the mileage rule. In my opinion, the mileage rule is a real handicapper to making events better in our country. You see events like Old Salem that are really trying to run a first-class show not only in the spring but also would love to run a July/August series and just can’t get the dates. It’s a shame. That might be something that would be an interesting alternative to Calgary.

We have a great winter schedule, and the fall tour is good, starting with the Hampton Classic and the Saugerties Million and New Albany (Ohio) and the American Gold Cup. We’re book-ended with some good shows, but the summer is a lull for quality international shows.

The World Cup Finals Are Back!

What’s really exciting is that the Longines FEI World Cup Finals are coming back to the United States in 2015, to Las Vegas.

It’s going to be phenomenal. I think they put on a wonderful World Cup Final in Las Vegas. I love it being in the United States. As Americans we have to travel abroad so much, and it’s tough at times. To have the World Cup Final in Vegas in 2015 and then in Omaha, Nebraska, in 2017 is a wonderful opportunity for us to capitalize on the enthusiasm behind our sport. I think we need to be the best we can be at those venues.

I think for 2015, the marquee event is the World Cup Final. We really have to try and win it. It’s foremost on my mind personally. There are also some grand prix classes that stand out—not only do we have the million-dollar classes in the United States, but also the million-dollar class in Calgary and some huge bonuses out there. Certainly in a year without a major championships, you consider those a little bit more as a priority.

For the 2015-2016 World Cup Final qualifying season, they reduced the number of qualifiers from 13 on the East Coast and nine on the West Coast to seven on each coast. I think it’s better.

In my ideal world, seven is a little extreme. I was hoping for eight to 10 qualifiers. I want to condense the season—there was a huge influx of eastern Canada qualifiers in late July and August. I think the season should go back to starting in September. People who tried to do different things, like going to Europe or Calgary, were a little behind in points.

I was in favor of shortening the league. I think it’s going to make the level of competition very high. Everyone’s going to have to go to the same events. It’s going to tighten the net, leaving out people who maybe really shouldn’t go to the World Cup Finals, who aren’t prepared for that level of qualifying and jumping. We’ve seen a bit of an epidemic of that from North America in the last 15 years.

For 2015, the Pan American Games (Ontario) are also certainly on the radar. We’re in a good spot, as our team bronze from the World Games qualified our team for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Certainly maybe the top riders will think about the Pan American Games less, but it will be pretty well attended. In the back of our minds, we’ll be thinking about Rio.

The next wave of young horses, 8- and 9-year-olds, are being thought about in terms of how to prepare for 2016. We have to do a lot of things right between now and then.

A member of the gold medal-winning teams at the 2004 Athens and 2008 Hong Kong Olympic Games, McLain Ward, 39, has been jumping at the grand prix level since he was a teenager. He won the USET Show Jumping Talent Search at age 14 and has served on Nations Cup teams for more than 15 years. He also has team silver from the 2006 World Equestrian Games and team bronze from the 2014 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games to his credit and jumped on the U.S. team at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games and the 2012 London Olympic Games. Ward, who serves as vice president of the North American Riders Group, was second in the 2009 Rolex FEI World Cup Final and won the $1 Million CN International (Alberta) along with two wins in the Pfizer $1 Million Grand Prix (N.Y.). He operates his family’s Castle Hill Farm in Bedford, N.Y., and Wellington, Fla.