United States Eventing Association

Yesterday evening, on the Chronicle of the Horse Forums, well-known eventer Denny Emerson put out an idea to encourage riders to take a crack at completing a long format event.

“I don’t have any miraculous ideas,” Denny wrote on the forum. “If I did I’d have shared them long ago, but there’s one little thing I can do, which is to give lessons for half price to any riders, in any year, who have finished a full format 3-day, half-star, one-star, any star you want, in that calendar year.”

Denny knows that a lot of people have talked about how beneficial the long format is for some horses and riders, and he said that he was just trying to think of a way to persuade people to give the long format a try.

“The long format is such a worthy thing to keep around, and I believe in it so much,” Denny said, “So I just wanted to put my money where my mouth is.”

Denny does not think that people are going to be coming running for lessons, since there are not that many people out there actually competing in the long format events. Rather, Denny sees this as more of a “symbolic gesture.”

Denny hopes that other companies, organizations, and instructors will follow his lead and offer monetary incentives that will give riders that little push they need to compete in the long format events.

“This idea may spread or it may wither and die,” Denny said, “But there is no support so good as monetary so it is worth a try.”