A Change is Gonna Come

My sport is in serious flux right now. Too many accidents, too many horse and rider deaths, too many questions, too much happening, too many people going in too many different directions. Too much money going to the wrong things; too many people riding and competing for the wrong reasons.

I am an eventing purist. I want it like it was back in the day when I first fell in love with the idea, concept, and passion of three-day eventing. The picture (to the left) of Lucinda Green and Regal Realm at the '84 Olympics represents a time and place in the sport when I first became aware of this discipline and I really fell in love with it. I watched her. I studied her. I wanted to BE her. Flowing forward, galloping/jumping, galloping/jumping. None of this fancy-shmancy show of big dollars and tricky obstacles that have horses and riders stopping/starting/jerking/turning/twisting/and flipping that we see on cross-country today.

Something is going to happen. Something has got to happen...now. Before I drop another dollar on another entry fee, before I pack my trailer and gas up the truck one more time, and before I saddle up and point my horse at one more fence...I want something to change. To quote the great Bruce Davidson, "In short, the sport needs to evaluate what made it great and return to that so it does not turn into a spectacle that neither horse nor rider understand."