September 11, 2006

World Equestrian Games Journals from Aachen
Mack's Musings
By Father Mack (a.k.a.: Father Larry David McCormick)

“Loyalty to the Hometown Fans”, Page Two
Special to Dressage Daily #19

I come from a hometown of rabid baseball fans. I am myself an adamant aficionado of the sport. Before you scurry back to the top of your computer’s monitor to assure yourself that you did not mistakenly land on the web site of The Sporting News, permit me to assure you that this will (eventually) lead us ’round to the more pristine sport of dressage. But, first, I wish to impress upon you, cherished reader, the zeal with which I (and, I suspect, you) approach sport in general.

My passion for baseball made it very difficult for members of my family to understand how I could marry a person who was NOT a devotee of the Saint Louis Cardinals. My paternal grandfather would be rotating in his grave to this day were it not for the saving grace that Ruth is a fan of a team from “that other league” (she is a Yankees fan, you see) that did not compete against the Cards on a regular basis. Fortunately for me, Grandpa did not live to see a World Series in which the Cards and the Yanks faced each other across home plate.

Those, then, are my credentials. I write as one diehard to another. With our mutual commitment to sports at large and the sport of dressage in particular on the record, I come to the comments reported by Ms. Catherine Haddad in The Chronicle. Folks who do not subscribe to this publication or who have not found time to read recent issues deserve a brief synopsis:

With a not-at-all-peevish tone nor attitude, this gifted rider compliments the U.S. team that brought home the bronze medal and acknowledges their accomplishment. It is a very mature and urbane approach by an individual who was on the shortest of short lists to herself compete at Aachen.

Having demonstrated to even my most radical standard that she is a both the consummate competitor and a real grownup, Ms. Haddad followed with these comments, “The reality of this situation is that the selectors were not able to see my horse live, ever.…I take responsibility for not going to Gladstone [for the selection trials in the Collecting Gaits Farm/U.S. Equestrian Federation National Grand Prix Championship]. But I was surprised that our selectors were not present in Europe for our final competitions.”

AN INTERNATIONAL POINT OF VIEW

At this point the valid critique offered by Catherine Haddad may be placed into an international perspective which, I believe, will provide food for all our thoughts. As you may have read in the public press, the men and women entrusted with selecting teams from Australia and New Zealand have gone on the record as having preference for riders who contended on home soil. The hometown fan in me appreciates the sentiment.

Having written that, I must quickly acknowledge the extreme distances that Australian and New Zealand riders would be forced to travel – more importantly, the huge number of kilometers their partners the horses would have to be transported – to face the intensity of sport awaiting them in Aachen. If the USEF High Performance Dressage Committee, for whatever reason, could not/did not travel to Europe to see for themselves the progress of U.S. riders who train and compete abroad, it is a relatively trivial distance compared to that required of equestrian folk from down under.

The judicatories entrusted with selecting riders for the several horse sports must strike a balance. On the one hand there is a crying need to give the hometown fans opportunities to see the horses and riders who are under consideration. On the other hand, these horses and their riders must prepare for international contests by facing the highest rank opponents – usually on European soil.

After all my contemplation of the predicament these selectors face, I will readily confess that I do not have a solution in hand. Gone are the days when I together with the rest of the folks in the grandstand could shout, “Kill the umpire?” Not only am I more civilized than I was in those days (well, at least a bit more civilized), but the sport is considerably more complex.

What I AM able to do is urge all of us – fans, riders, and selectors alike – to rise to the level of Catherine Haddad and others like her who are appreciative of the consideration they were given in any selection process. It is an echelon not easily achieved but well worth the effort.