New USA Eventing Guidelines

[lucretia]

see the story on the main site if you havent already but i say USEF.
you know the courses are getting ridiculous when a person takes two long routes and wins a four star or when less than 50% get round at any level.
i dont think its the actual speed that is the problem its the speed combined with the technical difficulty. if you think about it they go much faster racing but jump plain fences so though there are horse fatalities still the rider is usually thrown clear.
and i think they are right bout the way the trend for techncal affects the lower levels. Surely at Intro and PN its about teaching horse and rider the job. There isnt prize money or points in order to make them (allegedly) less competitive, surely its more important to send them home happy than broken. I dont disagree that maybe things like corners and skinnies should be introduced quite early but surely the place to teach them is a schooling course not a competition?
its a tough one though to get the balance right i suppose.

 

[kerilli]

i totally agree, i don't want technical stuff on the xc at the baby levels, i'd rather teach that in the arena at home, and face them with it in competition when they're a bit more experienced. i'd rather everyone went clear xc at Intro, tbh... i wouldn't build anything to catch baby horses out, if i got the chance to build at that level. i want them to learn to enjoy cruising along and jumping weird-looking fences with me, that's all! so what if it's a dressage competition? further up the levels it isn't.

 

[Paddywhack]

Having had a horse from Intro up to Advanced level i would say that the technical fences on a lower level taught him better than we would have at home,they got to see it on the course on a competition and its up to the rider to take a young horse out and school over different fences,but yes i do think that easy and technical fences should be introduced on a lower level.

 

[lucretia]

as the man quoted said its not the advance riders we need be so concerned about. the place to learn to ride a corner skinny or drop is not at a competition really. the thing that first needs to be learnt is how to ride the horse in a balanced rytmical fashion taking jumps in their strides. once that is established then you can get more clever. sadly since the chase section went this basic xc riding skill is even more rare than before and it is an essential one that certainly should be the main focus of the lower level xc courses and a feature of the moredifficult ones.