One thing I dislike is the elitist attitude this has. Only the wealthy are good enough to learn my rc method!
Money and dedication don't automatically go together. They are seperate... I know plenty of wealthy people who aren't particularly dedicated. One girl wouldn't even come out to ride her extremely nice show horse if something better came up. Always drove me mad watching a horse of that caliber go to waste, and how someone could spend that type of money on a nice horse to not put in the time to learn to ride and show him properly. I also know plenty of people who give up other things they could have just so they can train their dogs and trial, and work very, very hard.
I don't think it is so much about finding the best and weeding people out if they aren't serious by asking them to pay 5k... After all, the girl I mention had a 100k horse... it was nothing for her to drop that kind of money and not give two thoughts to him just being wasted by her lack of interest. He was just another thing she could afford. I think it really comes down to marketing. What better way is there to get her even more business of people willing to spend 5k than to pick wealthy people who will be out trialing every weekend because they have the money? They will be out exposing others with that type of money to her small circle of people able to benefit from her training method.
It was said best by a marketing person who did some business for a stable I used to assistant train at. It isn't the small people we really want to cater to. We want to get everyone in the door, and then focus on the ones with the money to go on and buy an expensive show horse (commission, or direct sale from the stable), put it in full training (big money, as opposed to $30 a week for a lesson), and take their horses to shows with us ($350-$1500 per show). Not all stables operate like this, but at a lot of them, there isn't a place for the small person.
I don't want to see this sport go down that path. Only the wealthy succeed. Only the wealthy are welcome. The Saddlebred world is one of the most elitist sports I participated in. The amateur owner trainer wasn't welcome. Trainers didn't want those who weren't lining their pockets at the shows, taking away their clients placements, making them look less credible because someone was able to do it on their own without a big name trainer. There is no place for the less expensive horse. Here, even at the B and C shows, the big name horses showed up. Average 3 gaited horses were dropped down to be country pleasure horses for an easy win. True country pleasure horses (often more affordable horses) had no where they could compete. You could truly see the money winning. How high a horse trotted and how verticle its neck set directly linked with how much it was worth. Even at what was supposed to be the intro level, where people were supposed to be showing academy on lesson horses (horses that earned their living by being lesson horses in lesson programs), people broke the rules, and would ride their expensive hoses in training in the classes by having one other rider ride their horse for the show to create the appearance that the horse was used in lessons. While these academy classes weren't supposed to be judged on the quality of the horse (equitation was judged on the rider, pleasure on how the rider rode the horse) how often do you think the training horse won, just because it looked so much better than the rest? Even if the rider wasn't very good, it presented a better picture.
I don't want to see this sport go down that path. It could so easily. I think there has been a big shift, particularly in the last year, of what people are paying. With the advent of the online courses, what a person needs to spend to stay current has gone up. Of course, with the exception of this most recent incident, information that might not have been accessible to people before because of where they live might now be available to them.... if the price is right.
One of the things I loved about this sport from the get go is I didn't have to be rich to be good. I can be competitive, and I don't have to be rich. Sure, I can't travel to foreign countries to compete, but I work hard, and see the results of that hard work. I have dogs who can and do win. It has nothing to do with the money I spent on them.
