In the last 12 months, eventers have endured the debate over the Olympic eventing format, seen the development of the FEI Eventing World Cup (p. 16), and braced for the looming altercation over the format of the eventing championships at the 2006 World Equestrian Games in Aachen (Germany). From these developments, you’d think there was a groundswell of support for replacing the three-day event among those who actually ride in them. But, frankly, I just don’t see it.

I certainly don’t hear it from the advanced or international riders here. To them, the three-day event (or CCI) is what the sport is all about. To them, the horse trials are just preparation for the real test at the three-day event. They believe, as that wordsmith Jim Wofford said in the documentary film "Riding For America" 20 years ago, that the three-day event "is the crucible that burns away all that is impure."

Yes, some of these riders are gearing up for the World Cup and the Olympic CICs as a new opportunity, as a new challenge. But I haven’t heard anyone say, "Boy, I can’t wait to get rid of the three-day event." For them, it’s still, as the French translation for CCI suggests, the complete test.

And the U.S. Eventing Association’s membership sure isn’t clamoring to replace the three-day event with the CIC (international horse trial) format. Last winter the USEA’s leaders asked their members to e-mail or write to them with their thoughts on the subject. They received 1,400 responses, and a resounding majority of 90 percent insisted (many of them rather unequivocally) that they wanted to keep the three-day event. And that’s from a membership in which 90 percent ride at novice and training level, the vast majority of whom will never compete at preliminary or get the chance to contest a three-day event!

And three of the most popular non-racing equestrian events in the world are four-star three-day events’Rolex Kentucky, Badminton (England) and Burghley (England). The only sport horse competition in North America that compares to these events in spectator numbers is Spruce Meadows, the top-class show jumping competition in Calgary, Alta.

What does this mean? It means that both the participants and the fans love the three-day event. And that begs the question of why some influential people, primarily in the Federation Equestre Internationale, are trying to take the three-day event away from them?

The three-day event’s opponents claim it’s for safety, but that’s codswallop. There is no evidence’statistical or anecdotal’that the three-day event, at any level, is more dangerous than horse trials at the same level. Remember that painful series of a dozen rider deaths that occurred in the late ’90s? Twice as many of them were at horse trials as at three-day events. And I don’t recall any accident report from the deaths at three-days citing the horses’ physical condition. Three-days and horse trials each require jumping solid, complicated obstacles at speed, and the horses go faster in the CIC because the distance is shorter (with almost the same number of jumping efforts). Yes, the cost and availability of land are challenges, but not insurmountable.

The World Cup has been a boon to show jumping for 25 years, and the freestyle of the Dressage World Cup has made that sport considerably more popular. The World Cup may provide a similar benefit to eventing, but I know that most riders here hope that they’and others from Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand’can hold on to the sport’s centerpiece in the face of those who would make it an entirely different game.

Copyright © 2004 The Chronicle of the Horse