No, the horse was not sabotaged for political purposes or unfairly judged. The gold-medal-winning Brits, including Charlotte DeJardin on Valegro, were superb. Truly breathtaking. They deserved the victory. Rafalca was good but not in that class. Her canter pirouettes are not wonderful and the passage and piaffe, eh. She is a good girl, a fine horse, just not quite of that caliber.
But to be quite fair, the US is a relative newcomer to dressage. They’ve been pursuing it in England and Europe for 500+ years, one way or another, and the depth of talent there is incredible. It’s BIG business there. Until forty years ago, however, very few Americans had even heard of it. We’ve come up to speed fast, partly through importing European horses and breeding them here, partly from bringing European trainers over. We aren’t quite there yet, though we get closer all the time.
Another consideration is that some of our top talent does not pursue dressage as a competitive sport but as an art form, so they’re out of the mix. And the European nations’ government support for horse-breeding has created an industry we can’t approach here.
Disclaimer: I hate the FEI and its hypocrisy. Politics is involved, but NOT in ways that prejudice the judges against American horses and riders. The judges here are doing pretty well; it’s the commentators on the rides who are, um, nuts.
A wonderful mare, yes. Except for Peters, the US simply did not show well. Jan tried to put a good face on it.
“I wish the scores would have been a little bit higher, but I’m really happy with the horse,” Ebeling said. “She went great. Didn’t really have mistakes.”
Rafalca is competitive here [US], not so competitive there [Olympics].