PBITG: Be Careful What You Wish For

Zack’s Tack’s Managing Director, Peter Abisheganaden, cautions the ‘expert, practising horsemen’ to be careful if they wish to withdraw showjumping from the Olympic Games.  Once the toys are out of the pram, they may never be returned.

In her latest article, Pippa Cuckson of the highly respected Cuckson Report, asked the equestrian world, ‘if it was time to silence the ghost voters’ in the FEI.  Cuckson says, “One country, one vote has caused rumblings for many years” and that “There is exasperation and anger that the views of expert, practising horsemen continue to be quashed by newbies who don’t know enough yet to evaluate the pros and cons for themselves.”  Quite an astounding view of things.

At the heart of the issue was the Olympic formats for dressage, eventing and especially showjumping, which reduced teams to three riders, all of whom had to produce a score – no dropped scores were allowed in Tokyo.  It is the 3-rider-no-dropped-score format as opposed to the conventional 4-rider-with-one-dropped-score format that these expert, practising horsemen are so against, citing horse welfare and equitation as the issues.

To read the article on PBITG.com, please click here: https://www.pbitg.com/be-careful-what-you-wish-for/