Pot Luck

There once was a time when Eventing experts and veterans could compete fairly in ‘open’ classes, much to the satisfaction of those rightly competitive in their field of expertise.  Yet now with the uprooting of open classes, these experts and their highly experienced horses are able to compete at the lower levels with no penalty. Competitive pre-novice riders are being penalized for their commitment at their level because experienced Edgar is pot hunting.  Removing the ‘open’ classes allows competitors to achieve success by competing in a class low enough that they are able to win. It fundamentally undermines the belief that training hard grants success.  And it’s not just the means of unfairly ‘pot hunting’. Because Eventing has become an almost unaffordable sport, it’s unreasonable to compete against experts as it reduces your chances of success.  I mean $65 to run an 80cm class is just ridiculous and quite frankly rather absurd. And all you win is a rosette and voucher. With the rules at one-day events stating you have to walk home if you have three or more stops, you basically don’t get anything from coming out. You have paid this large sum of money to get to the 5th jump and are told to walk home. Unless you are riding dangerously or your horse is obviously not having a bar of it, I don’t believe it is skin off the officials back to allow one to continue. If entry fees are so high should you not be getting closer to what you pay for? If you can’t win back your entry fee by completing the course successfully, you should at least be allowed to attempt to finish the course, in reason. If you clearly have no chance of winning because of the field you are up against, should you at least know you can use the course for training purposes, hopefully getting past the 5th jump?

Open classes resolve the issue of unfair ‘advantages’ (if you can call it that) and allow everyone to compete fairly at their preferred level?  Those that are competitive at say 1star, winning regularly, are perhaps becoming irritated, and rightly so. Their chances of winning back their entry fee have been diminished with the passing of this legislation.

What I would like to know is the reasoning behind removing open classes and instead changing the format to CNC*, CNC** and CNC***. Not only does this allow experts to be highly competitive at lower levels but it also confuses people, thinking they are running a 1star for example, when really they are actually running an old format novice class. But I guess that’s not a major problem. The real problem lies in the ability for experienced riders and horses to be in a competitive position below their level of expertise (in reference to the horses and rider combination).

Should we bring back open classes or it is truly a dog eat dog world, with every man out for himself?