Comment

Comment by Jackie Cochran on May 29, 2013 at 6:21pm

It is not a conspiracy, it is a reflection of the history of the Olympic riding tests. 

The equestrian sports in the Olympics were limited to what the European and American (North and South) cavalry officers rode when these competitions first became part of the Olympics.  What is now 3-Day Eventing used to be called Military since the only people initially allowed to compete were cavalry officers.  Civilians could do the Dressage and Show Jumping I think, but of course the cavalry officers competed in those too.

Long ago the vast majority of jumping developed using the English hunt saddle, then after Caprilli the Forward Seat jumping saddle was developed.  Dressage had switched from using the old type dressage saddles (the Spanish Riding School still uses them some) to ones based on the old English Hunt saddle.  The English saddle spread far and wide because the British Empire once "owned" a quarter of the globe, and of course the East coast of the USA used English saddles for fox-hunting, trail riding and gaited riding, cultural remnants of us originally being an English colony.  This meant that English riders could be found on each habitable continent and it was the most INTERNATIONAL riding method back then.  In those days Western riding was considered local, like all of the cow handling horsemanship back then.  Each country had its own traditions, saddles, bridles, and training methods.  Even if Western classes appeared in the Olympics the "cowboy" riders of other countries would be disqualified because their saddles are so different (no horn, very different tree set-up).  For one the Argentinan and Uruguayan gauchos would object that their sports suitable to their horses and tack were not included too. 

It has only been in the past few decades that Western riding (USA) has expanded abroad, same with Saddle Seat horses and riding, thus enabling truly international competitions in these disciplines.  One reason these fields do not have enough international competitions is a severe lack of a choice of judges from many different countries.  Most Western class judges would probably be from the USA or Canada.  Around 40-50 years ago I remember there being talk of trying to get cutting horses into the Olympics, but since most of the judges would have been from North America it never got off the ground. 

Thoroughbred horse racing has a history centuries old.  There is a well established list of classic races with big purses which means that racing probably never felt the need to compete in the Olympics for just a medal--i.e. no big fat purses.  Most of the classic races are open to horses from other countries, often predating the Olympics by a century or more.