Editorial,
December 8th, 2003
The
US Eventing Association has initiated the new Gold Cup Series for 2004. (Please
click here to read Sean Brescia's comments on the new series.) Sean represents
USEA's Sport Development.
The
following is a series of questions that all members of the USEA should be considering
regarding the Gold Cup Series:
Since
more that 75% of the members of the USEA ride at the training level or below,
what is our organization doing raising money, through sponsorship, to provide
prize money to Advanced competitions?
Why
are all four FEI Eventing US World Cup Qualifiers (CIC-W***'s) a part of the Gold
Cup Series? Each of these competitions has been asked by the FEI to provide $15,000
in prize money. The two spring qualifiers state, in the Omnibus, that they will
be providing $10,000 in prize money. Is this not sufficient for one Advanced horse
trial? Is it necessary for the USEA to provide more prize money to those competitions?
Is this an effort to defray a portion of the expense to the organizers? - or is
this an effort to augment the initial $10,000? Isn't this a case of "...
the rich get rich and the poor get poorer?"
Is
it correct for our discipline's national organization to support any competition
to the detriment of others? Red Hills (Florida), financially supported by the
USEA, runs against Southern Pines (North Carolina), which receives nothing from
the USEA, and against Jumping Branch (South Carolina), which also receives nothing
from the USEA. Galway Downs (California), financially supported by the USEA, runs
against Fort Worth Trinity River, which receives nothing from the USEA. Fair Hill
International (Maryland), financially supported by the USEA, runs against the
CIC*** Chatsworth, (Georgia), which receives nothing from the USEA.
Although
the USEA professes to treat the East Coast and the West Coast equally in the Gold
Cup Series, as of this writing, there are four Gold Cup competitions in the east
and only three in the west. Consider the distance from California to Montana is
more than twice as far as from Maryland to Massachusetts. Is this fair to West
Coast competitors?
Your
Editor would like to receive expressions of opinion from readers. Consideration
for printing on this site will be given to signed e-mails on all sides of these
questions. Please contact corac@mindspring.com
Cora
C. Cushny, Editor
