In the years since I met Jon, I have never, ever heard an unkind word spoken against him. And that’s pretty impressive, given the fact that I’m a journalist and I tend to hear the good, bad and ugly about everyone. I have yet to meet a single person who knew Jon, who didn’t like him. He was a kind person and he was kind to his horses.

My thoughts are with Jon’s family, and with his network of friends and clients,  all of whom must be grieving terribly at this time.

Jon, you are gone too soon.

Karen

Straight-Up

To read Equine Canada’s memorial to Jon, click here.

Remember way back in 2012 when Canada’s Eventers were the Bad News Bears of the Olympics? If you do, you can forget about that now. Just look at the results from Rolex  last week and Badminton, which finished today, Day of the Mon.  There’s only one thing Hawley and Ginny might have wished to repeat at Rolex from London, and that’s their best-ever dressage score. But look at ‘em now. If you want to try and bottle the positive energy emanating from this post XC interview with Hawley,  please sign me up for the first batch.

Hawley told me today that she is still completely mystified about what happened at Fence Three at Greenwich Park last year. She was apparently the only rider that no video captured at that complex; there’s video of Ginny running off, video of Hawley getting into the ambulance, but even youtube trolling has yielded no answers in the form of footage. But now that Ginny has proven herself once again on the course in Lexington, who cares? Hawley and Ginny are back, it’s official!

It merits a mention that also in the top twenty at Rolex were Shandiss McDonald on Rockfield Grant Juan (16th) and Peter Barry with Kilrodan Abbott (17th). If Shandiss dials in her pace (this was their first Rolex, mind you) and show jumping and Peter his dressage, we may be seeing quite a dream team assembling for Normandy next year. Oh and there’s one more pair in there, the TWELFTH PLACED Badminton combo of Rebecca and Rupert! Rebecca finished only 32nd after the dressage, but that was in a killer field – as Badminton always is. 51.3 penalties is not a shabby result by anyone’s standards except maybe for the likes of Michael Jung and Ingrid Klimke.  Rebecca and Rupert blazed around that big bad-assed Badminton track, and then showed how fit as a fiddle they are by putting in one of show jumping day’s most stylish clear rounds. Don’t believe me? Here, you can see it for yourself:

So Rebecca and Hawley have officially galloped away from the fail of London, and it’s time for the rest of us to gallop away with them, starting with our wallets. You may have noticed – either on recent posts here or in my At Issue column on the pages of Horse Sport Magazine – that the soap box I’ve been dragging around and climbing onto lately is about that perennial failing in Canadian high performance equestrian sport, fundraising.  OTP has a short attention span and probably could learn a lesson or two about luck or its evil opposite in a sport as demanding and risky as eventing; but whatever.  Now that they’ve pulled the cash – at least until the team can wave something else looking kind of metallic in their faces  - there is no point in griping, only going ahead with Plan B.

If you go onto Rebecca’s or Hawley’s Facebook pages you can see right there  how much these two fine athletes and their wonderful horses are inspiring a lot of people. They are succeeding in spite of the financial challenges – imagine what they could do if a little less of their energy were spent trying to make ends meet between successes. Hawley has plain old wonderful sponsors in Terry and Linda Paine – American ones. Rebecca has a list of corporate sponsors to whom she is deeply grateful – that goes without saying.   I don’t know what fundraising plans Canadian Eventing has up its sleeve, but even if they do have some kind of wicked strategy for filling the coffers to send our top riders and horses to the big gigs they need to do in order to win another medal at WEG, let’s not sit idle, m-kay? If any one of you dreams up any kind of fundraising event or program, I am hereby promising to contribute, and to get at least 25 others to contribute. A lot of little donations, a few big ones – they all add up and they all matter. Let’s go, Canada. These horses and riders have proven their worth, now let’s get behind them.

Yes, the organizers of the Summit didn’t decline to invite only me – as far as I know there were no members of the media or PR business invited. I don’t believe it was a deliberate slight. I suspect it was because there is a genuine and persistent belief in DC Land that words like ‘press’ and ‘media’ hold vaguely sinister but unimportant significance. Just one note to the wiser to the DC powers: if I HAD been invited, even if I couldn’t have hoofed it from the west coast all the way to Welly World for it, I probably wouldn’t have opened my cake hole about it on this blog like I’m doing right this minute.

I actually know for a fact that there was no deliberate campaign to keep me in the dark, at least not once the Summit had been reached. I’ve had some lovely conversations with people who participated, as well as formal interviews with Gina Smith (Chair HP and Chef d’Equipe) and the person described to me as the ‘Margaret Thatcher of British Dressage’, Desi Dillingham (whom I’ve not met, but after a phone chat I have an image of a pink drum playing bunny in my head).

I was also sent the summary report from the Summit, which weighed in at a hefty 29 pages. I’ve taken all I’ve gleaned and written about it for my monthly Horse Sport column ‘At Issue’, which will be in the June issue.  But there was so much more than I could fit into the article, including a few of my usual opinionations.

First, some observations. The group of 50 or so attendees was divided into six ‘break out’ groups to mull over a list of various issues facing DC. It would seem that the secretaries of the groups had a ‘no idea is too silly or outrageous’ attitude, and wrote them all down. A couple of zingers made it all the way through to the final summary. One group, charged with the task of hashing out ‘resource acquisition and sustainability’ (ie. buying and keeping good horses), had as one of their proposals ‘make it known that horses are for sale’. Uh, isn’t that precisely NOT the goal? The good news is that when a vote was taken, not one person voted for it – indicating that even whoever mentioned it knew they’d had a brain fart.

My other favourite bit from the summary is in regard to that ALL IMPORTANT TOPIC which has stymied Canada for so, so long: who should we have as our Technical Leader and what should that person’s role be? This topic was deemed so gravely critical that all six break out groups brainstormed it, with pretty consistent conclusions…except for one group, that is. In addition to such obviously useful qualities as ‘passion’ and ‘strong horse experience’,  Group Three had on their list that Dressage’s New Leader should be ‘evangelical’. Apparently someone was under the misapprehension that the Summit was about finding a new cult leader.

My overall impression of the Summit via second hand reports and the summary is that it was a step forward; but it’s one of those dangerous steps forward that requires someone to quickly build a set of stairs or at least shove a stool under the extended foot before it comes back to earth. Yes, dressage in Canada needs better fundraising (any would be a start), good support programs for top and up-and-coming horses and riders (any would be a start), good governance and a combination of staff and volunteers who are both qualified to do their jobs and have the right motives. Duh. This is not rocket science. But it would seem that quite a few people who turned up for the Summit were surprised how many of their fellow DQs were on the same page with them about what DC NEEDS NOW. That take-home lesson – that pretty much everyone wants the same thing – on its own makes the Summit a worthwhile exercise.

It was said by one of the consultants brought in to manage the Summit that if the community doesn’t take what was learned and identified as priorities over the two days and turn it into wine, the next thing to happen may well be civil war. Hyperbolic language you say? Perhaps a little, but I take the point. And I hope the DQs of Canada do too.

Of course, there is plenty to fill all the gaps in between these major events, and my finger is always on the pulse (or looking for one) of EC and that endless source of blog material, the good ol’ FE of I. TTY in a few days.

Two days ago, I performed one of the strangest duties I have ever been asked to do – correction: THE strangest duty ever. When my friend Jenn and her fiancé Simon began to plan their wedding, one of the questions facing them was who would actually marry them. I’m not quite sure which of them came up with the idea to ask me, but when I was down in Welly World this January, Jenn popped the question: would I be willing to get ordained as a minister so that I could legally marry them? Of course I said yes.

At first the whole idea seemed like a lark and a laugh. I signed up with the Open Ministry online (no test questions, just my name and address), gave my credit card info (ordination: free; certificate: ten bucks; shipping: $30) and proceeded to think no more of it for the next few weeks. Then, as the day crept nearer, I experienced a series of anxiety dreams that ranged from missing the wedding completely to having nothing to wear for the ceremony. THE WEDDING became something bigger and scarier than my own marriage 20 years ago – which took place in France and in French, which I did not speak at the time.

As I wrestled with my performance demons I did my best not to let the happy couple sense my fear. When D Day finally rolled around, I was surprised to find myself feeling strangely calm and prepared. As I  took my place on the gorgeous croquet court at IPC, in front of a crowd that included a who’s who of the Canadian equestrian community, I was able to finally silence the evil little chipmunk voices that had been screaming in my head. I did not fumble my words, I did not giggle (no thanks to Jenn’s uncle Guy, who tried his best), I didn’t cry.  Bride and groom performed to perfection, and my final duty – to toast them with uplifted champagne flute – was delivered with both joy and relief.

I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life in a wide range of fields – from cleaning kennels at a vet clinic, to teaching kids to up-down, to flogging books as a publisher’s sales rep – but I think it’s safe to say that taking advantage of a loophole in the US legal marriage system in order to marry my friends is the weirdest item I will ever put on my résumé.

And if you don’t believe today’s post, here are a couple of photos as evidence. I’m glad for the photos, too. If I didn’t have them to look at I’d believe this whole crazy week was just a dream.  I promise this is the first and last time I will ever blog about a wedding, but as it’s consumed all my mental and emotional energy for the past week, I can’t think of anything else to share with you today.

The happy groom and me

Awaiting the blushing bride, who arrived fashionably late

The happy couple

In case anyone out there is thinking about asking me to do this again, I’ve officially retired, like the horse that wins its only race.

One more quick note of today: I was intrigued to see that the EC preview/reviews came back so soon after I blogged about their absence these past few months. I’m sure that’s a coincidence though.

In view of the upcoming holiday, my Easter gift to you is the video below. The bunny is awfully cute, but I think someone needs a girlfriend. Happy Easter.

I had never heard of the so-called ‘independent entity’, the Equestrian Community Ingegrity Unit, nor had I heard of the company that runs it, Quest. It took me a few minutes of wading through the multitude of companies with this popular monosyllabic name before my web quest for Quest was satisfied. Now, if you didn’t do any googling  of the name ECIU or Quest, you might just think it was a disinterested third party which came to the conclusion that the sun shone straight out of the FEI’s butt through all the Latin American Olympic qualification shenanigans of last year.  But if you are a little teensy bit like me, you might have done even the most cursory of searches and learned the following:

1. ECIU is so  independent from the FEI that its home page in the internet universe is not even on the FEI’s website, oh no. It’s on another website, which has a remarkably similar name: feicleansport.org. Gosh, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that feicleansport.org is the spawn of the FEI.  Which of course it is.

2. Quest is in the employ of the FEI in running the ECIU. And before I get any ‘correction’ emails from the FEI M&C dept, let me say that I do not know the exact terms or relationship, but it’s clear as day that Quest is the company contracted to manage the ECIU for the FEI. That’s hardly an arm’s length relationship – there’s barely a hang nail between the two.

3. The Chairman of Quest is none other than former boss cop Lord Stevens, the very same Lord who was appointed by the FEI to be Chair of the Joint-Commission that of course recommended the creation of the ECIU. Cozy, isn’t it?

For her part, Yvonne has issued one last statement, though she did so ONLY because the FEI decided to issue its press release instead of just letting this final salt in the wound dissolve quietly. When I received Yvonne’s statement the other day, I had one question for the Muñiz’s: why on earth did they file a complaint with the ECIU, which is so obviously in service to the FEI? To me it seemed like about as good an idea as trying to win a law suit against someone by hiring his lawyer to represent you. It turns out it wasn’t Yvonne’s idea at all, but a recommendation from another organization (which shall remain nameless because I did not get permission to divulge their identity) as a final effort to see at least a smidgen of justice. Not only did she not get that, the ECIU declared the FEI completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever, which is definitely not what CAS concluded – as reported on my blog post of last fall.

Here is Yvonne’s last word on what has surely been one of the most humiliating and degrading experiences of her life:

“I have been informed by the Equestrian Community Integrity Unit that they have dismissed the complaint that was filed by me with regards to the treatment I have been subjected to by the FEI during my Olympic classification appeal. The ECIU indicates that there is no evidence to support my claims.

“I fail to understand the ECIU´s conclusion, taking into account the testimony given to the ECIU by witnesses that were present at all hearings, such as our national federation president. While I accept the report as is, I do not accept its findings and stand firmly by my allegations. Perhaps I was not physically or verbally abused per se, but I was certainly threatened, disrespected and diminished as a rider by certain elements of the FEI. Among other things, I was told in no uncertain terms that if my appeal succeeded the FEI would consider protesting my own results-that is a matter of record.

“Following the receipt of the communication of the ECIU, which was labeled “Strictly Private and Confidential”, to my surprise I was contacted yesterday by the FEI Press Department, looking for me to participate in a joint press release concerning the findings. In this message there was a suggested statement for me, indicating that I accept the conclusions and look forward to leaving this issue behind me. While I appreciate the FEI´s efforts, I do not accept the findings of the report. I have indeed placed the issue behind me, as I have retired from international competition a long time ago.

“My decision to retire has been reinforced by the latest changes in Olympic qualification being pushed forward by the FEI. As of now, there is even less opportunities for dressage riders from small nations to achieve their Olympic goals. Unless a country has the depth to field an entire Grand Prix team, it is basically out of the running for an Olympic spot. It is extremely unfortunate for the region, as this goes directly against the attempts to bring up the levels in the region. Why would a rider from our countries even make the effort to secure a Gran Prix mount and compete at that level, when all the extra spots have gone to nations that can field teams? It is also very disappointing to see that North and South American members of the FEI have failed to defend the interests of our regions´ riders once again.”

Yvonne’s last point, which was to have been the topic of today’s post before this latest unwanted chapter came along, is absolutely valid. I haven’t gotten my fingers rapped by the FEI’s ruler for a while, but after I post my opinions of the proposed new Olympic qualification formula in a few days, I expect I will become reacquainted with that special sting – that is if I haven’t already invoked Old Testament wrath with today’s thoughts.

The show jumpers did admirably at the Nations’ Cup in Welly World a couple of weeks ago, finishing second in spite of the fact that they were essentially a three man-and-woman team after Mac Cone’s ride Amour decided he did not aimer the course that day.  Here is a link to EC’s press release about it; I had to go and find it for you on Horse-Canada.com because no one at EC has managed to drag him or herself over to the computer and put the now-two-week-old press release up on EC’s own site. When EC starts falling down on the job with SHOW JUMPING news you know the ‘marketing and communications’ dept has reached a new low.

In dressage news, all kinds of ‘CAN’ abbreviations are turning up beside the names in the results for CDIs in Welly World, but you’ll have to do your own research into those results since EC decided in November to can its weekend previews and weeks in review, according to EC Prez Mike G. because Canadians weren’t doing anything newsworthy over the year end (never mind that we are now most of the way through the busiest show season of the year for dressage, which is Welly and Cali).  I asked El Presidente why these weekly bulletins had dried up with no explanation, so being the diligent fact finder he is, he dug around and found that in fact the stoppage WAS announced in the last week in review – of course it was down at the bottom of the page, and I would bet anyone a few umbrella drinks that more people missed it than saw it. I’d show it to you but the preview-reviews don’t get put up on the EC website and I don’t think I want to give you a link to my email. Anyhoo, you can take it on my word that there are a lot of Canadian names on the GP results in Welly World this week (Eurodressage.com is always a handy resource), though no one is blazing any trails into the 70′s (I’m talking GP, not freestyle) ever since David Marcus has taken a little break from showing.  EC’s lone press release about dressage results these past four months is, not surprisingly, also not on the EC site – but here is a link to it on trusty HorseCanada.com.  I wonder if PR was on the agenda at this past week’s DC Dressage Summit…here is a link to the press release about that event, which of course is not yet up on the EC site.

Now here’s a bit of a shocker: Canadian eventers (who are usually the poor cousin to the other disciplines when it comes to EC PR) had fair to middling results at the Red Hills CIC3*** (and two and one star) last week, which doesn’t seem THAT newsworthy – and yet it not only got  a press release, it went straight up onto the EC site.  Yes, the infallible illogic of EC has determined that winning World Cup qualifiers in dressage and coming second in a Nations’ Cup in show jumping are not worth the PR effort, but results from what is essentially a spring warm up event are. The press release itself is so pockmarked with errors it makes last year’s Olympic team announcement look like a Governor General’s Award winner. I have two questions for the unidentified author of that release: Where is Kinston, Ontario, and what exactly is a Throughbred?  In other eventing news, which you will not find on any Canadian website – don’t be silly – you can read all about what Steph Rhodes-Bosch is up to these days on EventingNation.com, where she is a guest blogger.

And finally, if you are interested in a report about how Canada’s Para-Dressage riders are getting ready for Normandy, wander on over to another non-Canadian source, dressagedaily.com, to read a detailed report (with quotes!) about how our Para stars did this weekend in Welly World.

Maybe I should be a bit less hard on the M&C staff at EC. I mean, for all I know they could all be suffering from a terrible case of restless leg syndrome.

Go Canada.

I love Bromont. It’s  in the middle of a heartbreakingly beautiful part of Canada (think Vermont with poutine). Not only that, when you drive through Bromont’s petite downtown on a warm summer’s eve, there’s a half-empty bottle of wine on every restaurant patio table. The place just begs to be enjoyed. Bromont has much to offer in terms of culture in the same sort of style that made Jerez (for me, at least) the most wonderful WEG experience ever. Accommodations in Jerez were limited and people just coped with commutes to the competition every day. Montreal is my second favourite city in Canada, after Vancouver bien sur. People who commuted from Montreal to Bromont for WEG would suffer little in return for enjoying the richness of that belle ville every evening.

To the Bromont Bid Committee, I wish you success. You need to lasso Mr. Harper if you are to have a cowboy’s chance of making this happen; if I weren’t so Conservative-averse I’d personally offer to swing the lariat.

If you manage to convince the FEI that they shouldn’t give Frank Stronach (yes, a technically Canadian businessman was in competition with Bromont until he decided he had more political fish to fry) a second chance to host in Austria, and that they shouldn’t consider Dubai’s Palm Islands as a last-minute venue (lots of water jumps!), then for goodness’ sake put some effort into getting Canada’s equestrian community on board. And rich sponsors, both corporate and otherwise. You’re going to need us all.

The conclusion I came to at the end of writing the article was this: while it’s too bad that OTP has completely dumped Eventing and Dressage from its payroll, cut Para funding in half and slightly decreased Jumping’s allowance for 2013, our high performance programs don’t live and die by what a government program decides to bestow upon them. OTP has made some exciting things possible, such as the European tours that sent riders in all four disciplines to play with the big kids . I won’t bore you all with yet another round of ‘boo-hoo DC’ for the perennially failing situation with the team technical leader, or adviser, (or godfather, or mean uncle, or whatever you want to call the role that was fulfilled first by The Dover and then by his charisma opposite, Markus Gribbe). In fact, that was probably the only OTP money which ended up being to no purpose. No, OTP could not have single handedly swept Canadians onto the podium in London. Having come to that realization, the natural next question must be: what WILL put Canadian equestrians on the podium at future WEGs and Olympics?

The answer lies with us, my friends, and some of our rich friends and associates, who must be persuaded to loosen their purse strings a little wider for the sport.  Jumping is in fair shape, as it traditionally has been, in this respect. Many of the top riders have good backing from sponsors, though we do see the odd horse we ought to have kept slip away (such as EC’s 2012 Canadian Bred horse of the year, to which I referred in last week’s post).  But the other three Olympic disciplines are seriously lacking in depth of equine talent. I feel like a broken record for pointing it out yet again, but the plain truth is that when everything goes right and everyone has their best day, Canadians have what it takes to win medals – ie. our Silver Eventers at WEG in Kentucky. But even a child learns early in life that you don’t count on everything going your way. And when it inevitably doesn’t, we just don’t have the horses to compensate for bad luck. The problem starts with the money, either to buy a horse that has already proven itself at the international level, or to keep, maintain and nurture a talented horse with a Canadian rider. I take my hat off with a great flourish for the Canadian owners who have supported Canadian riders. There aren’t enough of them.

I have done some comparing of Canada’s high performance programs and financial picture with that of the US, and it would be easy to blame the population difference. After all, it takes the same number of horses to make a team, regardless of your country’s size. But the US has ten times the population of Canada, and presumably that translates to ten times the number of rich people prepared to throw a gold coin at the sport. (Of course, recent performances at major games for US equestrian teams has not exactly been reflective of a kick-ass high performance program, dollars notwithstanding). But then I thought about Australia and New Zealand – two countries much smaller in population than Canada. They are continuous medal threats in Eventing, and Australia really proved some potential in Dressage in London. Is it because people isolated on their island nations are more patriotic and have more determination than those of us who rattle around in our giant cold northern land? I think there might be some truth to that theory. Their accents are cuter than ours too.

At the end of the day, Canada’s equestrian sports – all the stakeholder groups included – need to try harder to engage the public in their endeavours; we need to invest some serious energy into fundraising. The aforementioned charismatic (almost too charismatic) DC Technical Adviser proved that a dressage fundraiser can raise a lot of dough, when the WEG Team fundraiser produced a good chunk of change on fairly short notice two and a half years ago (I seem to remember something in the neighbourhood of $60k).  These things don’t happen on their own.  Stand alone one-off events are better than nothing, but we need to build fundraising programs that have momentum from the dedication to see them through beyond the next plane fare.

I don’t really know who can or wants to spearhead something for Canada along the lines of the USET Foundation. I do know a few people who would have been ideal but who have lost heart over the years. Sponsors don’t like being snubbed, or going un-thanked for their generosity, or treated like a cheque book with no valuable insight to offer. The next time you see a sponsor or horse owner at an event, go over to them and thank them for their contributions. I guarantee it can do no harm. And the next time you hear of a fundraiser being organized, you can support it in any number of ways. Even just turning up and buying a silent auction item is a start.  It’s a long road to having a fundraising infrastructure that will make elite equestrian sport in Canada a vibrant, sustainable entity. Even baby steps are better than the apathy that has pervaded the culture for so long.