Excuse my rant. But with apologies to Charles Dickens, these days American eventers are simultaneously experiencing the best of times and the worst of times. I was privileged to witness the best of the best recently at the Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event. As always, Rolex was an inspiring spectacle—the Kentucky Horse Park’s rolling acres of bluegrass, Mike Etherington-Smith’s awesome, state-of-the-art cross-country course, many of the best horses and riders in the world—and this year the very welcome addition of NBC Sports! As I gazed complacently on the peacock logos that seemed to be everywhere (and contemplated the fact that I was surrounded by tens of thousands of people who actually knew the meaning of arcane terms like "bounce into the water" and "William Fox-Pitt"), I dared to dream of a future in which eventing realizes its potential as a marketable, high-profile spectator sport.

In the midst of all that giddy optimism, it was more than a little ironic to reflect that the form of three-day event the FEI redundantly calls the "With Steeplechase" CCI—the pinnacle of the sport that was so brilliantly showcased at the four-star level in Lexington—may already be a thing of the past. As virtually everyone even remotely connected with eventing must surely be aware, the traditional three-day event (including phases A through D on what has historically been called the "Speed and Endurance Day," and in particular Phase B, the steeplechase), has already been legislated into a state of de facto irrelevance by the FEI. Neither the Olympic three-day event in Athens, nor the next World Equestrian Games, will include steeplechase (although there remains hope that the 2010 WEG, if held in Lexington, could revive the traditional format). Nor do "with steeplechase" events figure in the FEI’s qualification criteria for major championships in the future. In view of this, many national teams are taking the understandable step of advising their elite riders and owners against entering their horses in full-format CCIs.

In short, the traditional three-day event of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, the grand stage for the memorable heroics of legends like Mark Todd, Ginny Leng, and Bruce Davidson, Sr., is, if not exactly dead, then in critical condition and on life support. How in the world did this happen?

How did it come to pass that eventing’s greatest spectacles are being whittled down just as the sport is reaching unprecedented heights of popularity? And more to the point, why aren’t we fighting harder to keep the flame of classic three-day eventing lit? If we are to believe the USEA’s recent on-line poll of its membership, over 90 percent of American eventers favor retention of the traditional "with steeplechase" three-day. Yet while stalwart organizers like Janie Atkinson at Rolex, Brian and Penny Ross in Virginia, and Robert Kellerhouse in California have vowed to keep holding traditional CCIs as long as there is demand for them, and commentators from Denny Emerson to Jim Wofford to John Strassburger have spoken out in their defense, the American eventing community has mounted no full-scale, coordinated opposition to the FEI’s attempt to diminish our sport right before our eyes by turning the concours complet, as Denny puts it, into the concours incomplet.

It is fair to ask what is really at stake here. Isn’t this really no big deal, given that we are talking about nothing more than a three- or four-minute gallop that is, after all, just a preliminary act when compared to the greater glories of Phase D’s cross-country? A number of well-respected riders, trainers, and officials—some in this country—favor the new format. They point out, with some justification, that simply to blame the Infanta (the Spanish princess who is the head of the FEI) and the European warmblood breeders and trainers with whom she is reputedly allied, is an oversimplification. Eventing in Europe is under attack from rabid animal rights activists, and is severely constrained by the lack of available land on the Continent and elsewhere. Some owners don’t want their high-priced horses subjected to the additional wear and tear of steeplechase, and want to see them perform "at the top" more often than twice a year. Some riders, trainers and officials want to see the sport continue to emphasize technical proficiency instead of "guts and glory." Isn’t the move to short-format CCIs, one might ask, just part of the natural evolution of the sport?

I don’t think so. Personally, I think this is more than a question of format; it is a battle for the soul of the sport. What is it, after all, that makes people so passionate about eventing? I can’t answer for everyone, but my own experience may provide a clue. I came to eventing later than most, in my early thirties. In fact, I never sat on a horse before the age of 30 (a fact that is not always lost on those who watch me ride). But it took about ten seconds into watching my first three-day cross-country for the light bulb to go off and the realization to come to me that this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to ride across country like Lucinda Green or Ian Stark. That was 12 years, thousands of rides, nearly 200 horse trials and a half-dozen (full-format) three-day events ago, and nothing has dampened my enthusiasm for this sport. Eventing is not just the ultimate horse sport—it is the ultimate sport, period.

What other sport brings the human-horse relationship to such a level of mutual trust and reliance? What other sport requires a competitor to display the subtlety and balance of a ballet dancer and the courage and reflexes of a fighter pilot—sometimes at the same moment? What other equestrian sport is so egalitarian that virtually everyone roots for everyone else, and an adult amateur can find him or herself in the same awards ceremony as a Kim Severson or an Amy Tryon? Most of all, what other sport in this age of instant gratification and fraudulent "achievement" is so hard and so leveling, a sport in which heartbreak and exultation both come with the territory, everyone from Karen O’Connor to the beginner novice rider on her backyard pony occasionally hits the dirt (or, more amusingly, takes a bath), and no one can ever be certain of the outcome?

I fear that the special something that attracted most of us to the sport is in dire jeopardy. And make no mistake about it: eventers are special. Witness Phillip Dutton’s evident delight at the post-Rolex news conference over his second-place finish aboard Nova Top. This was a guy who had fallen off two other horses during cross-country the day before. Or what do we make of Ralph Hill, who like Bruce Davidson, has ridden at every Rolex since the 1978 World Championships, actually giving a high five to a spectator at 650 meters per minute after jumping the footbridge last year? I am certain that Phillip and Ralph would subscribe to the maxim espoused by Sir Edmund Hillary, the first atop Mr. Everest: "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." How will that spirit be retained if the CCI is reduced from the ultimate test of speed, endurance and boldness to little more than a glorified horse trials?

This is not to say that there isn’t room for the short format. It may be the right format for Continental Europe, or for eventers in other areas of the world. It may even find a following in this country. But how do we account for the haste, and the undemocratic manner, in which the traditional three-day event has been unceremoniously consigned to the waste bin by an essentially anonymous (but apparently all-powerful) group of people who are not representative of the grass roots of the sport? Call me a cynic, by I think this act on the FEI’s part is the "thin edge of the wedge."

It is an open secret that the pre-Athens "modified format" division at Kentucky was not exactly a smashing success. Does anyone seriously believe that in light of that experience the FEI will re-think its decision to phase out the steeplechase? Don’t hold your breath. Instead, having inflicted potentially mortal injury on the traditional CCI, the anti-eventers within the FEI will next set their sights on whatever other aspects of the sport they consider too dangerous or unregulated or just plain contrary to their own interests. I’ve long had an instinctive distrust of those who would limit my options on the theory that they know what is best for me (or my horses). And while I wouldn’t know the Infanta if I tripped over her, I suspect that eventinga sport where an unknown $600 Thoroughbred off the track can come out of nowhere and steal the show—has always rankled the well-regulated Continental European equestrian set. Not enough Ordnung, you know. And where will the over-regulation of the sport end? Imagine the day when a grand character of a horse like Murphy Himself is penalized for leaving out a stride (or two) for the sheer thrill of it on cross-country. Are we coming to that? Am I the only eventer whose recurring nightmare is that we will wake up one day to find that this transcendent sport created by visionaries like Neil Ayer, Colonel Frank Weldon, and Alexander Mackay-Smith has been placed under the regulatory thumb of some obscure sub-bureaucracy within, say, the EU’s Ministry of Weights and Measures in Brussels?

So if we are facing a battle, why aren’t we fighting? I haven’t spoken to a single eventer who is anything but aghast at what has transpired recently at the FEI. Yet the most common reaction is a sort of resigned shrug, as if the FEI’s stranglehold on our destiny were some inconvenient but inexorable force of nature, like the 17-year cicadas, or a particularly pernicious cycle of drought years. Sure has been a dry spell. Yep, sure has. For a bunch of risk takers who enjoy galloping high-octane horses over fixed timber, we are a sorry lot when it comes to standing up for ourselves.

Of course, we are told that unless we kow-tow to our masters at the FEI, the International Olympic Committee (which wants a limited format at the Games, partly to keep costs down) will dump eventing. So, in essence, we are allowing the sport to be held hostage by the Olympics. To be sure, this presents a tough conundrum for a sport that is trying to grow in popularity and visibility. Potential sponsors will be attracted to the "cachet" of an Olympic sport. And as David O’Connor has pointed out, the Olympics pull the world together and project an appeal that crosses racial, religious, and ideological lines. So keeping eventing in the Olympics is definitely a laudable goal.

Having said that, participation in the Olympics is limited to just a handful of riders and horses every four years. Even recognizing the significant boost in visibility afforded by the Olympics, is it rational to make policy for thousands of eventers worldwide based on the requirements of one event every four years? We should resist the notion that the unique situation presented by the Olympics must necessarily drive all decisions relating to the sport. More fundamentally, we are deluding ourselves if we believe that we can save our sport by acceding to its gradual dismemberment. We are just as deluded if we believe that by making concessions to the "powers that be" within the FEI we will somehow activate a reservoir of goodwill toward eventing that to date has been sadly lacking. Twenty years as a jaded trial lawyer have taught me that a person’s past words and acts are a pretty good predictor of what is coming down the pike in the future. And the only conclusion I can reach after reading three years of condescending press releases, bizarre rule changes, and other assorted diktats from the FEI is that the gang in charge over there is not truly interested in improving or preserving our sport—they want to destroy it. Or at the very least, they want to alter it by degrees, year by year, to the point where the cross-country phase becomes little more than a highly technical, but essentially dull, show jumping "Derby" over a well-groomed course. If that happens, the age of the great "warrior" horses like Plain Sailing or Charisma or Giltedge will truly be over.

The bottom line for those who wish to preserve eventing is this: We are facing a fight whether we like it or not. Sooner or later, we will be forced to take a stand. Why not do so now, when the sport as we know it is still alive? Will it be said of American eventers of this era, as Winston Churchill said of Neville Chamberlain, that we had "a choice between war and dishonor," and that we "chose dishonor and got war"? Where is our Winston Churchill? Where is a leader who will take an uncompromising stand against those who are not acting in the best interests of our sport? Who will come out and say aloud that it is time to reclaim the power to control our own destiny—even if that means re-thinking our relationship with the FEI?

And what can be done by grassroots eventers in this country who want to see the sport preserved? First of all, vote with your feet (and your checkbook). Support organizers who are committed to running traditional CCIs. And agitate—make your feelings known to the USEF, the USEA, and the FEI. Most of all, get involved and stand up for this great sport. I am proud to say that the USEA Board of Governors, of which I am a member, is strongly committed to the preservation of the full-format three-day event. We will do everything we can to continue to sanction these events (even, if necessary, as "CCNs") so long as our membership continues to tell us they want them. We are particularly committed to the preservation of the "with steeplechase" format at the one- and two-star levels, so that Young Riders and Adult Amateurs can continue to experience the ultimate challenge.

Perhaps this is all just too little, too late. Perhaps the operative metaphor is not Winston Churchill, but Don Quixote. Maybe there is no realistic chance of reviving the spirit of the "golden age" of eventing, and we should all just go meekly into the well-supervised future the FEI has in mind for us. But it just strikes me as ludicrous that the United States—the dominant economic and political power in the world, and an eventing power by any measure—should abandon its pioneering spirit on this issue. Our country, with its still-wide-open spaces, is the ideal place to preserve the classic CCI. And even if eventing is facing its Dark Ages, we can take heart from the example of the medieval monks who kept scholarship and art alive for centuries with the hope of a Renaissance. Maybe, just maybe, if we all pull together we can keep the flame of true eventing lit until our "renaissance" comes. It is certainly worth trying. After all, it is our sport.

Copyright © 2003 United States Eventing Association