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.
Cuckson writes:
Equestrian has faced ejection from the Olympic format and adapted the formats several times to tick the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) boxes. That is not easy, because the IOC wants sports to be cool, hip, inexpensive and oozing with universality (which means lots of countries taking part.)
The IOC will not increase the overall number of equine starters above 200 (jumping 75, eventing 65, dressage 60.) So, the only way to admit more countries at Tokyo was by reducing team sizes from four riders to three ‒ hence no dropscore. It was simple math, combined with the faint hope that newer countries might at least be able to scrape together three riders rather than four. We were told the IOC had instructed the FEI to “change or be changed.”
Knowledgeable people warned that no drop score would oblige riders to keep going when their horses were in difficulty for the sake of the team, and that “new” countries would be greatly overfaced by Olympic jumping and eventing tracks, especially those allowed to qualify at a significantly lower-level event. This all came to pass in Tokyo, though the impacts were most apparent in jumping, less so in dressage and eventing. This has resulted, so far, in the jumpers alone continuing the fight.
The FEI has 136 member countries but despite a marked increase in opportunities to secure a berth at Tokyo, just 48 managed to qualify a rider (compared with 41 at London 2012 and 43 at Rio 2016.) After a year’s postponement because of Covid, the 48 flags increased to 54, though on the day there were four no-shows ‒ so 50 flags at Tokyo in the end, ostensibly thanks to reducing team sizes to three riders each. Still, a sizeable 16% increase in countries.
Was it enough to keep the sport in the games? Yes, it appears equestrian sport will survive till at least till Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.
Yet the ‘practising horsemen’ of the International Jumping Riders Club’s (IJRC) issued a strong press release stating the strength of feeling of the top showjumping riders in the world, leading Cuckson to ask, “Are they saying it’s not worth remaining an Olympic sport if we cannot uphold standards of horse welfare and equitation? It is starting to look that way.”
Olympic Champion Rodrigo Pessoa said:
“The number one preoccupation of the FEI should be to represent our sport and the welfare of the horse.
“This [no drop score format] goes against the welfare of the horse. Our owners, the people that are involved in this, the real people that are involved, are telling you [FEI] it is the wrong thing to do. Is there too much pride in the FEI to say: ‘we tried something, it didn’t really work, but let’s try to find a better way going forward, so our sport can grow and be better, and for the welfare of the horse?’
“The majority of people who understand the sport ‒ not the majority of people [national federations] that vote because they do not understand what is going on, they don’t even have horses ‒ these are the people you should be listening to…. The people who are there day in and day out, you [FEI] ignore them.”
While horse welfare is trotted out as the reason for this demand to a 4-man team return, there were welfare inconsistencies at the Tokyo Olympics. An Irish jumping horse that was bleeding profusely through its nostrils was allowed to continue jumping without being stopped, while Singapore’s Caroline Chew was eliminated for a speck of blood in her horse’s mouth during the dressage competition. To many, the inconsistency was seen as mixed signals, and some doubt if horse welfare is truly at the crux of this issue.
If the IJRC really think that it is better not to have equestrian sports in the Olympics, then I would caution them to look sideways to the sport of polo.
Polo has not been played at the Olympics since 1936 games in Berlin. With the large number of horses used in a game, it is probably not a sport that will ever return to the summer games with its strict 200 horse limit.
Ordinarily, you would think the international polo focus would then be on the Federation of International Polo’s World Polo Championships, but in fact it does not gather that much attention. This is because with polo’s handicap system, it is only a 14-goal tournament, and not an open tournament that actually features the best in the world.
Countries are limited by the rules to players of a maximum of 5-goals. While it is called a world championship, the very best players in the world – the Cambiaso’s, Castagnola’s, Pieres’ – are in fact ineligible, because they are too high in handicap. Yes, the best polo players in the world are too good for the World Polo Championships. Imagine telling a dressage rider or a showjumper that she or he is too good for the Olympics and would not be allowed to compete.
If they were not limited, Argentina could field a 40-goal team. In polo, we know that 40-goal teams regularly blow away 30 goal teams by 20 goal margins. Malaysia, though South East Asian champions, could at best field a 10-goal side, a team that would be massacred with a cricket-type score by a 40-goal Argentina. For that reason, there isn’t an open world polo championship where the best four players of a country are fielded. It would not make much sense. No country could dream of defeating Argentina. When you realise that, you then start to accept it makes sense to have a FIP World Polo Championship limited to what the top countries call ‘medium goal polo,’ just so that we can have a ‘World Polo Championship’ that is played on handicap, not open.
Likewise, by limiting the Olympics to a 3-man team, the FEI’s compromise runs the danger of having to ‘dumb down’ the level of competition. They have to make it easier for the new countries in the Olympics, just so that they can have more flags flying at the arena. Figuratively speaking, it is lowering the bar, or perhaps in showjumping it may mean actually lowering the poles!
Perhaps the qualification process was at fault. Even before the Olympics, there were doubts about the qualifications of some riders, such as the rider from Sri Lanka. She didn’t make it even past the first round of the Olympics. Short of lowering standards, having riders qualify for the Olympics but not make it beyond the first few fences of the showjumping makes one wonder the enormity of the task the FEI Olympic Course Designer takes on. That looked spectacularly bad at the Tokyo Olympics for the non-equestrian viewer, wondering why these Olympians could not even jump a full course.
Neither is the IJRC offering a solution to the conundrum of both having more countries and 4-man teams. Their solution is to go back to the good old days – or drop showjumping from the Olympics. In my opinion, it is a dangerous line to walk. I suspect the IOC, and host countries are quite happy to do away with the enormous costs of hosting equestrian sports at the Olympic Games. By doing so, the IOC also avoids any question of horse welfare and the growing debate on the social licence we currently still enjoy in riding and competing on horses. Once the toys are out of the pram, I suspect they will never be returned.
What is the solution then? I don’t know. But I do know that something has to be changed to the Olympic format if it is to remain at the pinnacle of the sport. Or is it consigned to sink to becoming a ‘medium goal’ equestrian competition?
What’s the solution to more flags but keeping the same high Olympic standards, and not run afoul of horse welfare issues? I don’t have that answer. But I do know that for many Asian countries, the vote at the FEI General Assembly in Antwerp last month came down to an issue of whether a 3-man team helps Asian equestrian countries or hurts it. These so-called ghost countries voted for the chance to have more flags at the Olympics, and the result was a resounding 70-30 vote in favour of having more countries at the Olympics, not less. All countries live in hope of having an Olympic equestrian rider.
Olympic champion Rodrigo Pessoa, in support of the IJRC statement, has asked what the point was of keeping teams consisting of 4 horses and riders for European Championships, World Championships and Nations Cups, and then ride in the Olympics with teams of three. While I see his point, I also see that an Olympic format could be different from a WEG format, which also has changed recently from the top-four ride-off that used to happen for best individuals. The FEI World Cup Final is only for individuals, and also uses a different format of competition.
Admittedly, the World Equestrian Games (WEG) would still be a proper world championship for equestrian riders, and not a one-horse-race, so to speak, as it would be in polo. Even if Germany has dominated much of the world championships over the decades (just as it had the Olympics), the dropped score had allowed for closer, keener competition. And this year, it was Sweden that took gold in Tokyo’s jumping.
Is WEG the flag-bearer of equestrian competitions? Every Olympic year, I take an interest and watch sports that I don’t always generally watch. Sports like Swimming, Diving, Gymnastics, Judo, Track & Field, and even Modern Pentathlon get my 4-yearly interest only when the Olympics are on. While I have watched equestrian events at every Olympic Games since 1984, either live or on a delayed telecast, I can’t say I have bothered with watching every WEG. If I can’t find the world equestrian championships enthralling enough that I would watch it live, would the general public be interested to watch it? Does the WEG mean as much to non-equestrians as it does to us equestrians? What is the TV viewership of a WEG like, compared to the equestrian at the Olympics? Will the world watch the best riders compete for a World Championship if equestrian sports were no longer in the Olympic Games?
Who would care if equestrian sports were dropped from the Olympic Games, as Polo was after 1936. I believe every equestrian rider would. No FEI President or committee could survive such a catastrophe. I can tell you that every polo player would much prefer to have polo in the Olympics. The FIP has lobbied the IOC, and is even working hard to have the snow polo variant played at the Winter Olympics at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in 2026.
Will the world care if equestrian at the Olympics is dumbed down to medium-goal?
I’m not sure what the answer is, to those questions, or to the question of formats. But I do think we should be very careful what we wish for.
Recent Links:
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Starting Young
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What Covid Has Taught Me
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Forgiveness
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The Cost of Horses
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Showjumping at the Tokyo Olympics
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FEI Results Page Tokyo 2020
Heat and Humidity at the Tokyo Olympics
