For those who have not read it yet, the US federations have published their response to the proposed changes in eventing at http://useventing.com/news/usef-response-fei-proposed-changes-eventing

Personally, I have to say that I agree completely and wholeheartedly with everything the USEF has presented in this response. I am nowhere near as experienced a rider as many of the names participating in the revision process, but many of the concerns I had with the proposal seemed to me to be pure common sense, evident to anyone with even a general idea of how eventing works. The USEA proposal addressed all of them, often taking the exact words out of my mouth. However, across all sports, two of the biggest pushes in the whole 2020 Initiative have been internationality and marketing, and I think these deserve some further commentary regarding my specific opinions.

The fact of the matter is that, particularly in matters of safety, equestrian sports and particularly eventing are not like many other Olympic sports. If you send an ill-prepared or inexperienced track and field athlete to the Olympics as a gesture of "internationality", the worst thing likely to happen is that he loses or cannot complete his races. If you send an ill-prepared or inexperienced horse/rider pair over an Olympic cross-country track, THEY WILL LIKELY GET SEVERELY INJURED OR DIE. While a more marketable sport with wider participation is a great thing to have, it is IMPERATIVE that the FEI and IOC recognize this fundamental difference between our sport and many of the more popular or mainstream sports at the Games. If the IOC willfully persists in its naïveté, the FEI must be the ones who stand up for the safety of the athletes and assure that they are not being placed in harm's way just so the IOC can make a quick buck. This same concern applies with regard to maintaining a 4th athlete and drop score in the team competition- they must remain so that riders are not pressured to make poor decisions regarding their health and safety just to keep their team in the competition.

As for marketability of the sport, I think the issue is not that eventing (and equestrianism in general) is unmarketable, but that it is currently very poorly marketed. There are many millions of people, young and old, who are interested in horses even though they do not themselves ride - the reaction of the American public to American Pharoah's Triple Crown victory ought to be proof that there could potentially be a massive audience watching any equestrian event that is televised! But the potential is not reached. I think the FEI have taken a very self-limiting attitude towards this: their marketing seems to be predominantly directed at those who are already involved with the sport rather than reaching out to find new fans. Furthermore, they manage to get very few events televised nationally (at least here in the US), and the web stream that they provide as an alternative is behind a restrictively high paywall, making it difficult or impossible to draw in new or lay fans through this avenue even by accident. Rather than changing a unique, recognizable name to something easily confused with a completely different sport, the FEI ought to focus on using its considerable resources and influence to make "three day eventing" a household term for anyone interested in horse sport. *That* is the way to assure a large audience bringing in revenue when the Olympics roll around.

(As an aside, I find it absolutely absurd that the IOC has chosen to place the onus of the Games' profitability on individual sports by drastically altering the nature of their competitions, rather than on themselves and host cities by 1. choosing bids that are fiscally responsible to begin with and 2. taking measures to ensure that costs are kept under control from the time of selection until the closing ceremony. This is the most incredible feat of blameshifting that I have ever seen.)