Friday, Feb. 7, 2025

What Do You Think Of Our Current Hunter/Jumper System?

As anyone knows who has read my previous columns, I try to keep long-term results (or consequences) in mind. With another competition starting every week for many of us it’s so easy to lose the forest amongst so many trees. This situation couldn’t be truer when it comes to where we are and where we might be headed on the international show jumping stage.
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As anyone knows who has read my previous columns, I try to keep long-term results (or consequences) in mind. With another competition starting every week for many of us it’s so easy to lose the forest amongst so many trees. This situation couldn’t be truer when it comes to where we are and where we might be headed on the international show jumping stage.

Frankly, it’s like watching a tennis match—from the side—when looking at our results this Quadrennium. Our riders have scored some impressive points to the positive: we won team gold at the 2004 Athens Olympics, though it arrived late and by virtue of the disqualification of the German team; and Chris Kappler and the ill-fated Royal Kaliber won individual silver in Athens. This was truly a spectacular showing.

Then our team went on to win silver at the 2006 World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany, with Authentic and Beezie Madden finishing second (by an unlucky rail) in the individual final. Beezie returned this year to win the ultra-prestigious Grand Prix of Aachen, the first American since Anne Kursinski in 1991 to do so (see July 27, p. 52). Finally, a developing rider team, under the direction of Melanie Smith-Taylor, was victorious in the Nations Cup in Finland earlier this summer.

So with all this success why isn’t all “golden” for the United States on the international scene? And why does the “forest” appear a bit dark to me looking into the future?

The most obvious negative points we’ve scored since 2004 are our continued lack of success at the annual FEI World Cup Finals, together with our current dismal last-placed standing in the Samsung Nations Cup Super League.

Our best result at the 2007 Rolex FEI World Cup Final was a tie for eighth place (McLain Ward on Sapphire). Remember, this was an event held here at home, thus permitting us two riders more than we’d normally get (there were 12 U.S. riders out of 41 total participants). This result isn’t only disappointing, it’s sad.

Since the earliest years of the World Cup Final—so long ago that I was still riding!—where riders from the United States and Canada dominated, we have not managed a top-three finish since 1993 when Michael Matz was third aboard Rhum IV.

The Samsung Super League is relatively new, begun in 2003. It’s a league we had to fight our way onto (a nation must win its way into the top eight to participate), and we’ve not only stayed on but have either won or been second in the league for the past two years.

Yet despite George Morris, a chef d’equipe who has done his best to get our most elite riders and horses to these important shows this year, after the first five Nations Cups, in the series of eight, we find ourselves languishing in the basement with less than 1/4 the number of points held by the leader, our perennial rival, Germany. How can seven other countries be beating our teams in competition after competition when we’re fielding the best we have to offer?

We just don’t have the depth in either riders or horses that a country such as ours should have.

I keep asking myself, “Where are the riders who will eventually fill the shoes of Beezie and McLain?” How are we identifying these riders? And, even more important, how are they going to get the experience that’s needed to walk into an Olympic stadium, or an Aachen, and produce round after round of superb jumping that it takes to prevail over today’s Europeans? 

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I’m sure that individuals will always emerge with the talent and desire to reach the top, but it’s regrettable that a country with the size and resources of the United States isn’t able to do far better than simply rely on the luck and perseverance of individuals to determine our national future.

The United States offers by far the most prize money at the national level of anywhere in the world. The top six grand prix horses in the 2006 U.S. Equestrian Federation Horse of the Year standings earned more than $100,000 each. We likely field the most horses and riders in our national grand prix division of any
country, except possibly Germany. We also spend more on our international program than any other country in the world. Yet every day “jumpers” at our national horse shows draw further and further away
from what constitutes “jumping” at the international level.

It seems that fewer and fewer of our younger and most talented professionals have international aspirations; or having them are able to pursue them. Why is this the case and what does it portend for
the future?

With increasingly rare exceptions it’s hard to tell one A or AA show from another. Literally scores of classes from the tiniest jumps on up offer ribbons for everyone—and ribbons, and the fees that are paid to win them, are what it’s all about. When fellow columnist, Susie Schoellkopf, said in her column (June 15, p. 30) that our Federation should recognize that what we do today is about business and not sport, it saddened me when I realized that she’s probably right.

Yet need it be either/or? Must we abandon the sport element because so many of our competitions are very big business to those who put them on? Must we discourage those individuals with ambition to go as far as they can go in the international realm because professional trainers are deemed more “successful” when they gear their operations toward quantity—in terms of shows attended, clients in their barns, horses sold, classes entered and ribbons hung on the tack room walls?

I believe that, just as other sports have a huge business element to them, we should keep in mind that our business is based on sport, and losing that perspective could, in the end, spell the demise of everything.

I just returned from a stint as Foreign Judge at one of the Spruce Meadows summer events in Calgary, Alta. This was a good reminder of how well sport and business can, in fact must, coexist.

Looking around one sees the number of arenas operating, the number of horses competing, the sheer volume of staff and volunteers handling every detail—this is truly big business. Yet sport remains at the forefront here. Every winner is acknowledged, flags fly and anthems play every day, and every sponsor (old or new) is made to feel a part of a special sporting event.

Event secretary Joanne Nimitz has been in her office for decades yet there’s nothing remotely stale about her approach to her demanding job. New innovations are made every year, and nothing about Spruce Meadows and its events resembles “cookie cutter.” The only consistent elements here are the sincere
hospitality together with their unwavering insistence on fair play and adherence to the rules. It’s not just the prize money that has so many, from so far away, flocking to Spruce Meadows and bypassing other events far closer to home.

So many riders have learned that competing at these tournaments (the Southern family who owns and runs Spruce Meadows long ago forbade the use of “show” in regard to their events because “after all, this is a sporting event not a dog or flower show!”) is so much like going to Europe.

It’s the kind of experience that can’t be had at any but one or perhaps two other events in the Americas.

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Most of the rest of our competitions are business as usual, with class after boring class. “Efficiency” (expediency) is the order of the day as organizers run their business optimizing profits while professional trainers put in killer hours with scads of horses and clients to satisfy with ribbons given at the gate and hung on tack room fronts. This is business alright, but a couple of hours for a Sunday grand prix is a far cry from a European or Spruce Meadows experience.

This current format week after week will cost us the United States more and more dearly in the future, either through riders lost to assume bases in Europe or others giving up or postponing their international dreams in order to establish their credentials in the business world of American horse shows.

Witness Kent Farrington’s statement after winning the $100,000 Budweiser Upperville Jumper Classic (June 22, p. 14), about giving up the chance to ride for the United States at the Pan American Games. “Unfortunately, right now I can’t give up that much time to go down there for one show. I have to run a business and ride other horses. I can’t give that a try just yet,” he said.

History shows that those most successful in any endeavor, and especially sports, fought to get where they wanted to go. “Riding hungry” can teach a rider a lot about what he can do and about the depth of his commitment to his goals.

I really agree with my fellow Chronicle columnists George Morris and Bill Moroney that our riders today, for the most part, are not tough enough or knowledgeable enough. It’s just that almost always these two qualities are gained through necessity—they must be learned and not simply taught.

Due to the expense of showing today, most of our younger riders don’t have any real need of either toughness or knowledge. Knowledge can be bought, and toughness isn’t needed when a horse that doesn’t work out can be easily replaced and a poor competition will be overcome with their arrival at the same show next week (including the chance for the trainer to “straighten out” the horse in the meantime).

Let’s face it, the sorts of situations where a person will become a better and more effective rider and horseman are those that are anathema to a professional’s successful business. Yet this sport, like any other, cannot always be easy. It cannot have only winners and no losers—no matter how hard we try to structure today’s shows to seem that way.

If we are to a field a strong international team to defend our Olympic medals next year in Hong Kong, and 25 years from now, we need to be looking for ways to more effectively identify, nurture, and hone the kind
of tough, talented, and perseverant horsemen that it takes to face the best the world has to offer.

What do you think? Do we have a structure in place to do this now? And, if not, how do we remedy the situation? Comments always welcome. llallen@usa.net

Linda Allen

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