United States Eventing Association

The Chairs of the Dressage and Eventing Committees, Frank Kemperman and Giuseppe della Chiesa, presented the proposed format changes for their individual disciplines in the two afternoon sessions at the FEI Sports Forum.

Evolution of Eventing

The evolution of Eventing was the focal point of the second afternoon session.

Charles Barnett, former Chief Executive of Ascot Racecourse, opened the session with an overview of key findings from his independent review of Eventing in the context of the Olympic Games, covering safety, risk management and widening the appeal of the sport from an on-site spectator and television viewer perspective.

Barnett’s final research project, which will thoroughly review the safety aspects of the sport through detailed analysis from FEI competitions and National Federations, will be delivered to the FEI in November of this year.

Giuseppe della Chiesa, Chair of the FEI Eventing Committee, then took the stand to open the session focusing on the future of Eventing.

“Eventing is not new to change”, he said. “We have already undergone major changes relatively recently to accommodate the Olympic challenges of cost, space and complexity. As with the other Olympic disciplines, we are now proposing new ideas to meet the Agenda 2020 objectives. We need to explore ideas and be prepared to adapt if the time comes that we need to change.”

Several proposals were laid out for Eventing, with the principle of harmonising with the proposals for Jumping and Dressage in order to develop a coherent Olympic Equestrian programme. The detailed proposals are available here.

The positive aspects of the proposals were highlighted from the perspective of the IOC’s core values of universality, excellence and spectator engagement, including more country flags for teams and emphasis on the value of Team effort; shorter competitions with more exciting and open results; no extra competition days; improved qualification structure, culminating in the “Olympic dream” being more easily accessible to smaller nations.

The adverse aspects of these proposals were also made clear: less flags for Individuals; increased cost of Cross Country with courses for two levels; best riders potentially not competing in Team competition; Team members not starting if previous teammates have failed to finish.

Further points raised in this session included separating the FEI Classics 4* circuit (individuals) from Olympic and Championship circuit (teams), and increasing qualification requirements for participation on the 4* FEI Classics (individual) circuit.

Reviewing Cross Country penalties (refusals; knocking obstacle flags) and saddlery (Cross Country bits) was also raised, alongside considering the development of indoor arena Eventing, and looking closely at whether Eventing needs a globally recognisable descriptor to ensure the sport is easily understood by a mainstream audience.

Several discussions followed the Eventing session, with the Eventing Rider’s Association and the Australian, British, Dutch, German and Irish Equestrian Federations focusing on the strength of the Cross Country phase for audience impact, the need for consistent 3* or 4* Eventing, the team/individual split and the importance of underlining the FEI’s “Olympic” equestrian athletes.

The FEI Eventing Committee highlighted that all points raised during the FEI Sports Forum 2015 will be further discussed in Open Forums taking place during 2015 at the Pan American Games in Toronto (CAN), at the Olympic Groups F&G meeting at Boekolo (NED) and at the FEI European Eventing Championships at Blair Castle in Scotland (GBR).