United States Eventing Association

Some Parting Thoughts From Outgoing USEA President Kevin Baumgardner

USEA president Kevin Baumgardner completes his three-year term on Saturday, December 11. The following is his final president's letter, which will also be published in the edition of Eventing USA that will be mailed to the Association's members this month.

The other day I was startled to learn that an email I’d sent rocketing off into the internet ether on September 30 did not arrive at its destination until more than three weeks later, on October 24. I suppose that doesn’t sound so remarkable, except that when I pushed the “send” button on my Blackberry I was sitting in the Kentucky Horse Park main stadium watching the first day of the Eventing dressage at the World Equestrian Games, and the intended recipient and her own messaging device were probably within shouting distance in the same stadium. While I have no doubt that my high-tech message skipped merrily around the globe a few dozen times with as little sweat as La Biosthetique Sam nailing his flying changes, I find it just a smidge ironic that the same message could never actually bring itself to bridge the hundred yards or so necessary for the timely accomplishment of its mission. In point of fact, it did not put an end to its unauthorized frolic in cyberspace and slink shamefaced into my friend’s mailbox until nearly two weeks after she returned to England. And the gist of the email? Want to join us for dinner tonight?

Oh well. With apologies to Stephen Hawking, that little episode of “Lost in Space” started me thinking about the “relativity” of horse sports in our 21st -Century world. Imagine, if you will, an extremely powerful telescope trained on earth from a planet circling a star some 32 light years away. What images of human-equine partnership circa 1978 would be visible to the inhabitants of that mythical planet? As Lexington, Kentucky spun into view, those far-away aliens might see Ralph Hill and Sergeant Gilbert negotiating the notorious Serpent—while a two-year-old boy named Buck Davidson toddled amongst the spectators. Now focus your mind’s eye on an even more powerful telescope, situated on a planet 148 light years from earth and pointed in the direction of Richmond, Virginia. Images of Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart and his 1,200 cavalry troopers literally riding a circle around George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac—the ultimate cross-country round—might just now be arriving in the lens of that telescope.

The moral of the story? As with all aspects of our frenetic modern life, change happens very fast in the relationship between humans and horses. We have seen a lot of that change in our own sport over the past few decades (though some things remain constant: when the World Championships come to Lexington, the Canadians bring their “A” game). And yet Eventing is fundamentally a timeless endeavor. Merely to climb onto the back of a horse and pick up the reins is to make a statement that firmly pushes back against modernity and our ever-metastasizing obsession with devices, gadgets and virtual reality. Any Eventer will attest that there is no “virtual” in the equation when horse and rider are galloping down to a cross-country fence. Even the most exquisitely bred equine’s brain remains thoroughly resistant to the computer age, and is indeed rooted deeply in pre-history. When I look into the sharp eyes of a champion Event horse, I see an inward-looking telescope projecting a very different kind of relativity: I see the same mingled shadows of apprehension, glory and arrogance that must have been visible in the eyes of Bucephalus, Traveller and Man O’ War.

But enough about relativity. Let’s talk about the here and now. This is my last opportunity to use this space to inflict my views on you, and I intend to make the most of it. Here is my own personal take on the “timeless truths” about the sport of Eventing, updated to 2010:

It is still the greatest sport in the world. Take it from someone who repeatedly failed to escape involvement in the controversies that have rocked our sport over the past decade. Long versus short format, horse and rider safety, course design, professionals versus amateurs, organizers (or officials—take your pick) versus competitors, return to play, and yes, even the dreaded hard-copy versus online omnibus debate (there’s that virtual world intruding again)—I’ve seen it all. Yet I’m convinced that for all the squabbling it has inspired, the sport of Eventing remains the finest on earth, a uniquely magical enterprise. Those of us who are lucky enough to be a part of it ought to cherish every single moment.

There will always be some who will claim that the move to the short format, or current trends in cross-country course design, or the types of horses folks ride these days, or the rise of a professional class of riders, or the unfathomable actions of this or that governing body, or the sheer number of rules, or the sheer number of horses Phillip Dutton enters in a single open preliminary division, or whatever else they find unsatisfactory about Eventing in the modern era, has somehow “ruined” the sport. It has been my lot in life over the past three years to listen to a whole lot of variations on that theme of hankerin’ for the good ol’ days, and, candidly, I think it is about ninety percent hogwash. Don’t get me wrong. I take a back seat to no one in my willingness to stand up and be heard when I think there is a problem with the direction of the sport, and I have the scars to prove it. Like many other classic-format believers, I am concerned that we must be on guard against a creeping erosion of horsemanship. And no one can deny that we have endured some extraordinarily ugly moments in recent years, many of them the predictable consequences of efforts to turn our small niche sport, an activity centered on a non-negotiable commitment to the welfare of the horse, into what it cannot become and frankly should never become, i.e. mainstream mass-media entertainment.

But ruined as compared to what? Participation in Eventing has remained remarkably high over the past few years despite the severe economic challenges of the Great Recession. In fact, 2009 and 2010 were two of the five biggest years ever in terms of American Eventing starters. The most significant fact is this: Nearly a decade into the short-format era, the predictions of doomsayers (myself included) that the cross-country phase would inevitably be reduced to a mere afterthought have been confounded by the reality that it remains the vibrant centerpiece of our sport. Go to any Event and walk through the stabling area at about 7:45 a.m. on cross-country day and you will still feel that wonderful mixture of tension, anticipation, hope, fear and determination—that jazz in the air that no other sport can replicate. Those who aspire to complete a classic-format three day event still have the opportunity to do so at the training and preliminary levels, thanks to the SmartPak Equine/USEA Classic Three Day Series. And the cross-country test continues to meet my own personal measure of authenticity: When I edge my horse into the start box, in any division, and hear the starter intone “5, 4, 3 . . .” I still can feel my pulse thumping in my ears!

I am reminded of a song by Huey Lewis and the News that was released in the ‘80s, the decade that is sometimes described, perhaps with just a touch of selective nostalgia, as the “Golden Era” of Eventing. The defiantly positive message of that song, proclaimed at a time when pop music aficionados could be excused for grousing that Chuck Berry and the Beatles seemed to have permanently given way to the likes of Johnny Rotten and—gulp!—ABBA, was that “the heart of rock ‘n roll is still beating.” I firmly believe that today the very heart and soul of Eventing, the pure thrill of galloping a magnificent horse across country, likewise remains alive and well. It is a living miracle in this post-modern age, one that is replicated regularly at over 230 USEA Events all around the country and at hundreds more around the world. Granted, like all miracles it is extremely fragile. We all know that our sport is more or less constantly endangered from an array of forces both within and outside the horse community. That said, the sport we have today remains a very fine thing. It is well worth preserving.

Best of all, it appears headed in a very positive direction. As I write these words, I am sitting on an airplane returning to Seattle from Southern California, where I just witnessed the Galway Downs International Three-Day Event, a four-day-long smorgasbord of Eventing that featured the first CCI*** ever held in the Western United States. I predict that Galway Downs 2010 will forever be remembered as a game-changing weekend in the development of the sport of Eventing, in not only the West but indeed the entire country. Organizer Robert Kellerhouse is a true visionary who sees the advent of a West Coast three-star as more than just a regional happening. Already, his vision is becoming reality. With a huge assist from the Professional Riders Organization (PRO), five horse-and-rider combinations based on the East Coast—Casey McKissock and Special Blend, Imtiaz Anees and Interwin, Allison Springer and Arthur, Kristin Bachman and Gryffindor, and the eventual winners, Jennie Brannigan and Cambalda (along with Cambalda’s owner, Nina Gardner)—traveled to Galway Downs to take on the Best of the West. Mark my words, more will come next year. And what a triumphant competition it was! All weekend there was much buzz about Ian Stark’s three-star cross-country course, which was tough, technical, imposing—and very fair. In fact, all of Ian’s courses, in classic and short-format three-day divisions as well as preliminary horse trials divisions, were expertly calibrated to reward forward riding and sort out the fields without punishing the competitors or their horses. It is fitting that the “Flying Scot,” known as one of the greatest practitioners of the art of positive riding in the sport’s recent past, has focused his course designing career on getting past the false choice between “technical” and “gallopy” and instead synthesizing the best ideas from every era into a fresh new vision of what it means to ride boldly across country. To my mind, Galway Downs 2010 was a very encouraging peek into the future of our sport.

Galway Downs took place just a month after the 2010 WEG, a competition that was equally inspiring, and one that should firmly put to rest the notion that in the age of the short format the international elite of the sport can no longer put on a grand spectacle of cross-country riding. Mike Etherington-Smith’s mammoth but brilliantly conceived course was a true championship test for any era, and for the most part the horses and riders were up to the challenge. Forget about who prevailed on the day; the real winner at the Kentucky Horse Park this fall, as at Galway Downs, was the sport as a whole.

The greatness of the sport of Eventing is not, however, merely a thing of championships, three-day events and so-called destination events. That greatness is evident on the ground at every USEA horse trials across the nation, and in every division. You can see it on the faces of kids kicking their ponies home in beginning novice divisions just as clearly as you could see it on the face of Michael Jung on the podium in Lexington.

All together now: Volunteer! The sport of Eventing will survive and flourish only if those of us who love it continue to give freely of our volunteer time. Look at all the greatest leaders in the history of the sport in this country, from Alec Mackay-Smith and Jack Burton to Rebecca Broussard and David O’Connor, and an invariable feature of their careers has been the willingness to put in massive volunteer hours. Will those in the sport over the next 10, 15, 25 years live up to their example? I will repeat something I have said again and again over the past three years: I worry that the very success of the modern-day sport in projecting a highly “professional” look may, perversely, obscure the very real economic challenges that lie just below the surface. I wince whenever an Eventer who should know better tells me that we riders are the “customers” of landowners and organizers and thus, if we deem “customer service” lacking, should simply vote with our feet just as if we were shopping at, say, Safeway. Oh really? Sure, some horse trials run at a profit, but I’d wager that if you were to sit down and work out the true economics of running an Event—which in the “real world” would mean paying the organizer, the secretary, all the office help, and every volunteer jump judge, warm-up steward, parking volunteer and other worker a fair-market wage, as well as amortizing the farm’s mortgage and property taxes (and the wear and tear caused by two or three hundred horses, all the people and vehicles, etc.)—you would be amazed that anyone with a shred of sanity would even think of putting one on. This sport is, first and foremost, a labor of love for everyone involved in it. So please, abandon that “customer” mentality and recognize that if you become too choosy, you may end up with no choice at all. Most importantly, if you love the sport of Eventing, show a willingness to put your hindquarters where they (figuratively if not literally) belong, namely into a folding chair out on the back forty of your local horse trials, jump judging beginner novice division “D” in the blazing sun at 4:20 p.m. on cross-country day. My fondest dream for the future is that every time the urgent call for volunteers goes out, we will continue to see all Eventers, celebrated Team riders as well as backyard amateurs, queuing up to put in their time. That is where the rubber hits the road in this sport, and the moment our members think they are above that kind of personal contribution, the sport’s days are numbered.

Fun, Camaraderie, and Adventure. Incoming USEA president Brian Sabo recently mentioned to me that a touchstone of the Association’s policy in the years to come should be the preservation of our culture of fun and camaraderie for all members. Brian has a way of cutting to the nub of things. What could possibly be more fun than a USEA Event, particularly one experienced in the company of your best friends, human and equine? Eventing is an outing for the whole family, adults and children, riders and non-riders alike. The friendships we forge amidst the intense ups and downs of our sport are profound and lasting. And what other sport involves such a wonderful (and wonderfully quirky) mix of men and women, children and adults, professionals and amateurs, riders and officials, owners and grooms, lower-level competitors and Olympic medalists? We are, one and all, truly blessed to be a part of the Eventing community.

I would, however, add one more concept into the mix: adventure. I never want our sport to lose that special aura of bold adventure, the quality that drew most of us to it in the first place. To me, everything about Eventing is an adventure, and not just for the horses and riders. Think about all the people whose hopes and dreams go out on course with even the most humble competitor. I love to hang around during the running of a novice or beginning novice cross-country division and watch the trainers, parents and friends craning their necks and bobbing expectantly on the balls of their feet as they wait for their students/children/heroes to gallop into view. No one needs to explain to them the special rewards this sport offers to those who have the courage to embrace the unknown. To me, the sport of Eventing evokes the words of the American mountaineer/adventure writer Rick Ridgeway, who wrote that had he been born in the early 19th Century instead of the 20th, he probably would have eventually found his way to New Bedford and shipped out to the South Pacific as a foremast hand on a whaling vessel. Why? Simply to find what might be over the horizon, to test his mettle against come-what-may, to experience adventure. Any Eventer would understand.

But it sometimes seems that like horseback riding itself, a sense of adventure, and its close cousin the ability to assess and accept risk in a responsible fashion, are anachronistic concepts these days. Instead of celebrating the crazy, wonderful adventure of life, our modern society sometimes appears to be bogged down by an all-pervasive sense of fear. Look at what dominates the headlines: Fear that the stock market will go down. Fear that terrorists will strike. Fear that the wrong person will win the election. Fear of getting hurt. Fear of failure. Fear of the unknown.

We Eventers have to be better than that. No one finds adventure by shrinking from his or her own shadow. Please don’t misunderstand me. There are occasions when a healthy dose of fear and respect is a very good thing. We have all seen how quickly the wheels can come off when boldness is not tempered by reason and responsibility. But surely the essence of being an Eventer is the polar opposite of the mentality of mindless, paralyzing fear. It is the willingness to put one’s heart on the line despite the knowledge that failure is a distinct possibility; it is the acceptance—indeed, the embrace—of the inevitable ups and downs experienced by those who are willing to persevere in pursuit of a worthy goal. What better way to celebrate life itself than by climbing aboard a spirited horse and galloping audaciously across-country? Let’s keep that spirit of adventure alive.

“We happy few.” Speaking of adventure, one of the most memorable moments in all of Shakespeare comes in Henry V, when in the St. Crispin’s Day speech, the young king exhorts his small army to greatness on the eve of the battle of Agincourt. “We few,” he addresses them, “We happy few.” On October 25 my good friend Malcolm Hook, no stranger to quirkiness himself, sent me a “Happy St. Crispin’s Day” email, complete with a handy link to Laurence Olivier’s performance of the St. Crispin’s Day speech in the definitive 1944 movie version of Henry V. How fitting, I thought. Those of us who inhabit the very small but incredibly intense subculture of this sport really do make up a “happy few.” At the same time, I was reminded of something Eventing legend Lucinda Green has repeatedly emphasized. According to Lucinda, it is not enough to turn in a technically flawless performance. Our sport is about joy. Joy in the partnership between horse and rider. Joy in the freedom of riding across country. Joy in the simplest sense of celebrating each day. Lucinda herself has always exuded an irrepressible sense of joy. I commend to all of you the iconic film clip of Lucinda and Regal Realm bursting through the massive “bullfinch” at Burghley in 1982. Both horse and rider attack that heart-stopping obstacle with the high-spirited insouciance of Errol Flynn! Every one of us—every Eventer among “we happy few”—should aspire to such a feeling.

Here is what makes me optimistic about the future of this sport: I saw a lot of that same sense of joy this fall, in all divisions at the American Eventing Championships as well as on those splendid cross-country days at the WEG and Galway Downs. Kick on, and carpe diem . . .

* * * *

If the Ghost of Horse Trials Future had suddenly appeared to me right after I completed my first USEA competition in April 1993 and prophesied how thoroughly the sport of Eventing would consume and enthrall (and, yes, sometimes threaten to impoverish) me over the next seventeen years, I would have sent him packing. After all, it had hardly been an auspicious debut: my first horse Beau Geste, always the jokester, chose the occasion to come to a neat stop, like a car that had been expertly angle-parked, right in front of the very first competition cross-country jump of my life—and then added insult to injury by swiveling his head around and giving me a look that said, in equal parts, Surprise! and Can’t you do better than that? I remember thinking that there surely had to be less public ways to humiliate myself.

But as the song tells us, time can do so much. And so here I am, still rolling with the punches dished out by this sport and by the people and horses that give life to it. As of December 11, I will complete my three-year term as president and leave the USEA Board of Governors after fourteen consecutive years in the Association’s national or area leadership. As someone who is constantly preaching the gospel of “new blood,” I can scarcely fail to recognize that it will be high time for me to move on. But before I do so, I want you all to know how deeply honored I am to have had the opportunity to lead this organization and contribute to the direction of the surpassingly marvelous sport of Eventing. And I have enjoyed every minute! Thank you all for the trust you have placed in me and, most of all, for your friendship.

Mind you, I will remain a passionate and committed Eventer. You will still see me out on the circuit, chasing the grand—if sometimes elusive!—dreams that bewitch all of us whose happy fate it is to live and work with the noblest of horses. And you will still see my name on the rolls of those who contribute regularly, with volunteer time as well as money, to ensure that our community remains strong, and our dreams remain alive, for future generations of Eventers. I ask only that each and every one of you do the same.

All the best,

Kevin Baumgardner