[DarkStarrx]

United States Equestrian Federation Chief Executive Officer John Long has announced the development of a Blue Ribbon Panel that will assemble to evaluate the performances of the USEF's High Performance teams within the global landscape of Olympic level competition.

"This Blue Ribbon Panel will take apart everything that we did leading up to London 2012," said USEF CEO John Long. "This is an opportunity to evaluate every single thing that we do to put our teams together with a fresh perspective. While funding will certainly be a consideration, I'm hoping the Panel will look elsewhere for solutions charting our return to the Medal stand. From my perspective, we must rekindle our focus and passion for being the best and I'm looking forward to the Panel's recommendations along these lines."

Link to Article

It will be interesting to see what comes of this, how far back they are willing to look, and how objective the panel is going to be. There are a lot of things to work through that's for sure.

[MIKES MCS]

Start with developing an actual team .. Riders who ride all year together as a USET team ... We sent 4 individuals to the Olympics and got 4 individual rides . 1 coach ,1 stable, 1 team, 1 base of operation , horses owned by or on loan to the team for extended periods of time. . Salaries for the riders /coaches / grooms / Team vets / Team blacksmiths/ Team doctors, Team mentality working together to produce one goal . If a rider wants a life outside the team then a USET Olympic riders life isn't for them.. Long term , Develop our own horses and riders from scratch. Develop a marketing strategy that attracts Corporate Team sponsorship

[Amage]

From the outside looking in....USA do very rigorous selection trial VERY early in the Olympic year. With the exception of some individuals jumping alot to get qualified for the Olympics in the latter stages (eg Billy Twomey for Ireland) the USA jumped more big classes over the eight months than any other team. And going by blogs by Beezie Madden & Reed Kessler they had alot of jumping at team training right before London. Surely having horses peaking at WEF for initial selections and then aiming for that again in August is completely unrealistic. The British horses didn't jump half the huge tracks that the USA horses did and it showed!

[Trevelyan96]

A blue ribbon panel will only be as good as the individuals on the panel. If its full of the same old players with the same old excuses and complaints about financing, we'll be exactly where we are for WEG and 2016.

We need people who can recognize and nurture talent, stop showing our good horses to death for qalifying points, and create a system that can train them to peak when the time is right.

[Blugal]

There is a thread on this in the Eventing forum. The majority of posters on that thread aren't happy with the make-up of the panel.

[Mac123]

Start with developing an actual team .. Riders who ride all year together as a USET team ... We sent 4 individuals to the Olympics and got 4 individual rides . 1 coach ,1 stable, 1 team, 1 base of operation , horses owned by or on loan to the team for extended periods of time. . Salaries for the riders /coaches / grooms / Team vets / Team blacksmiths/ Team doctors, Team mentality working together to produce one goal . If a rider wants a life outside the team then a USET Olympic riders life isn't for them.. Long term , Develop our own horses and riders from scratch. Develop a marketing strategy that attracts Corporate Team sponsorship

...Funded by?

I mean, that sounds great, ideal, even, but talk about $$$$. Where do you propose the funds come from? It's a genuine question, I'm not trying to be rude.

[GingerJumper]

It's great that we're evaluating what happened in London, but only if that results in CHANGING what went wrong for us. I just hope it doesn't end up being "whoops, we didn't do so great this time... let's try it again the exact same way next time around and hope it ends up differently."

[lauriep]

Start with developing an actual team .. Riders who ride all year together as a USET team ... We sent 4 individuals to the Olympics and got 4 individual rides . 1 coach ,1 stable, 1 team, 1 base of operation , horses owned by or on loan to the team for extended periods of time. . Salaries for the riders /coaches / grooms / Team vets / Team blacksmiths/ Team doctors, Team mentality working together to produce one goal . If a rider wants a life outside the team then a USET Olympic riders life isn't for them.. Long term , Develop our own horses and riders from scratch. Develop a marketing strategy that attracts Corporate Team sponsorship

And how, pray tell, do you propose to finance this? The individual riders have enough trouble getting sponsors and paying bills. USET donations are way down because the new mentality in this country is "Why should I care about/support the elite riders?" Not only funding the purchase, care and training of the BEST horses, but paying riders the equivalent of full time wages, and insisting they commit 24/7 to the Team? And fulltime vets, farriers, grooms? Not gonna happen.

A way must be found to work within the system we have now, and again, it will cost bucco $$$$. And the other FEI disciplines would have to be given the same opportunities. I know there ideas in the works for pieces of this, but it will take many years even once a way is found to do this.

[MIKES MCS]

No offense taken at the how to fund question.( There was a time when this was done.. not saying that time can be re-created) My answer is to make it a business.. Create numerous training facilities , Open to the public, host shows / lessons / boarding training, but as a non profit all net profit is funneled into a seperate Team program. Before some says Boarding and training facilities and shows don't make any money.. the good ones make lot of money All managers and trainers would go through a training process in order to create consistancy. Diverseify, any system or product that could be manufactured or produced from an equestrian standpoint under and marketed undser a USET lable , Sell it.. Those are some of my ideas.