On the Line

Is it just me, or are next year’s World Equestrian Games are beginning to feel like they are upon us? Maybe they’re just upon me. This week I got the official approval for my media credentials, a very exciting moment for me. Even though it was just an email that said “2010 WEG Credential Approval Notification” and not something shiny sent through postal mail that I could tack to my bulletin board and gaze at, it was still cool.

In any case, the email inspired me to visit the WEG website, where I came to terms with some very important realizations:

1. I looked up the competition dates (I’ve got media access to dressage, eventing and show jumping) naively assuming that all three disciplines would be crammed together World Cup Las Vegas-style. But no, a full fourteen days stretch from the first day of dressage to the final jumping competition.
2. Crap. Can I possibly take a full two weeks off from my job(s) and life to indulge in fourteen days of international competition?
3. At $79/night for the cheapest hotel room (yes, most equine journalists must pay our own way!) can I even afford to?? Double crap.
4. I definitely do not know enough people who live in or around Lexington. Bribing or begging my way into some free accommodations is so not going to happen.
5. If I can’t see every moment of every discipline, how will I possibly pick and choose? Watching Moorlands Totilas’ freestyle or the show jumping top four horse swap is a choice I don’t want to have to make.
6. Sadly, I don’t have access to the reining competition, which means that I’ll have to devise a plan to sneak into it if Will Simpson makes good on his declaration to compete in both disciplines. That I will not miss!
7. Apparently this schedule that I am hinging major life decisions upon is “tentative and subject to change.” And that means what exactly?!?

The little ticker on the homepage informs me that I have 281 days to organize my life. I think it just smirked at me.

Ah Mondays. A horse person who works on Mondays is perhaps one of the very few people who looks forward to the first day of the week. At my shared facility most of the trainers take Mondays off, which means that in the winter months, the indoor ring that normally looks like Grand Central Station looks like this:

There are few sweeter things in life than a big empty indoor ring at a 300 horse, multi-trainer facility. I know there will be many more days this winter spent crushed together in the indoor, but today I was happy to be riding and teaching while the other barns had the day off.

The crowded ring added to the drama yesterday when an unsuspecting child and her pony came face to face with a very scared deer. All of us in the indoor witnessed this freak incident with varying levels of horror, disbelief, and (later) amusement.

(Disclaimer: Neither deer, pony or child were hurt during this incident. In fact child walked away tear-free.)

Small white pony, with even smaller rider aboard, heads out of arena on pathway towards the barns. An errant deer, antlers and all, somehow finds itself smack dab in the heart of the cluster of barns next to the ring. In a panicky search for human-free territory, it heads up pathway at top speed. Pony rounds corner at just the wrong time, and suddenly there are three panicked animals, pony, buck, and one child suddenly sitting in the mud. My group of four riders just happened to have a clear view of the altercation, but could only stop and stare in a horseback version of rubbernecking. They alternately jumped off their own horses in fright or stuttered a late warning “Deer. . .! . … Pony! lookout.”
The riderless pony takes off with the deer down the outside of the ring. For a moment pony and deer appeared to be running together, or perhaps racing each other in terrified flight-animal solidarity.

I wish I had taken a picture of that.

It’s been a dark and stormy week for the FEI. If you’re a horse-world newshound like me, you’ve heard already heard all about the FEI’s new Equine Prohibited Substance List. And if you haven’t heard yet, the big news is that for the first time in 20 years, last week the FEI chose to allow certain low levels of drugs in competing horses. Bute, Banamine and Salicylic Acid (aspirin) are three little substances at the center of what’s turning into one hell of a fight, with many countries, big riders and organizations already drawing lines in the sand.

Mclain Ward, USET veterinarian Dr. Tim Ober, USEF (which already allows for twice the amount of bute and banamine) and FEI president Princess Haya have all publicly voiced their support for the change.

Most European countries immediately spoke out against anything less than a zero tolerance policy. Both organizers of the Badminton CCI**** and the Aachen horse show have stated that their events will still run with a zero tolerance policy. That sets them up for a big showdown next year, when competitors who attend their 2010 events could possibly be consecutively sanctioned by the FEI to medicate their horses, and forbidden to do so by show organizers.

There has even been talk of a European boycott of the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games under these new rules. Oh boy. I don’t think the FEI would actually let that happen; no one wants to imagine a WEG without the Europeans. . .

With issues like this in mind, yesterday the FEI delayed implementation of the rule, which was to take effect January 1, 2010. The FEI will no allow for more debate and research into one of the most controversial issues to rear its head, well, ever.

Below are some strong arguments for both sides of this issue. What do you think??

Pro:

“The horse is the athlete in our sport and must be allowed the same controlled medication that human athletes are allowed. These medications are. . to relieve small muscle aches, and as a preventative measure for greater injuries.” –Mclain Ward

“These medications are not considered by WADA to be performance enhancing in human athletes and because of this distinction, they are not prohibited. By placing restrictions on the use of NSAIDS to include love level administrations and continuing a rigorous program of examinations and inspections, the FEI is providing for equine welfare. . .” -USEF

Con:

“Without clean sport, quite simply, you’re going to lose your public, you’re going to lose your sponsors and your sport actually is going to be as good as dead.” –Lord John Stevens, FEI ethics committee

“. . . the ‘progressive list’ will allow e.g. anti-inflammatory drugs and doses of painkillers to be applied at such high dosages that a competition start will become possible even for horses that are in fact unfit to compete.” –www.no-fei.com