It’s been interesting to read reaction on social media to the FEI’s suspension of the UAE, posted by disparate (and maybe desperate) parties around the world who make their living selling endurance horses to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It is strongly rumoured that if the suspension drags on, the UAE will simply set up an […]

The marathon debates in Lausanne earlier this week, into the remodelling of equestrian sports for our survival in the OIympic movement, were stimulating and enjoyable. But now that I have slept on it for a few nights, too much of the discussions at the FEI Sports Forum seemed like change for change’s sake. FEI technical […]

There is a glimmer of hope that at least the UAE’s equestrian federation, the EEF, is not quite as untouchable as it thought.

Colleagues discussing the latest drama in Middle East endurance often use the phrase “you couldn’t make it up.” But making it up seems exactly what the UAE has been doing for years, with the “bogus” ride scandal eclipsing everything else about the unvarnished awfulness of desert racing. The FEI has launched (March 10th) an investigation, […]

My phone has been red hot this past week, with colleagues keen to discuss the politics behind the FEI’s unprecedented cancellation of two UAE CEI’s as the endurance crisis escalates. So it was a relief when one buddy called with this practical query: will disaffiliating these rides affect horse and rider FEI qualifications for anything […]

In Middle East endurance, the number of FEI disqualifications and yellow cards handed out are inversely proportional to the number of offences occurring.

Two weeks after the Al Reef double fracture scandal, the FEI president has finally managed to say something, in this email today to national federations, a cut-and-paste embellishment of something sent to the many individuals and groups who have already written in to complain. Call me a cynic, but it’s funny how the damage limitation […]

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. That’s just as well, because the greater the scandal, the briefer the utterance we get out of the FEI. I refer of course, to the hideous image of Splitters Creek Bundy perched on his shattered forelegs at the CEN in Abu Dhabi on January 31st, which the […]

Given the catastrophic issues raging in another equestrian sport, the Kiwi eventing community are lucky that the only thing apparently exercising them at the moment is whether or not Andrew Nicholson should be reinstated on the NZ performance squad, after an altercation in a very fraught situation that any other grown-ups would have sorted out […]

The initials CSI can apply to both the official FEI abbreviation for an international jumping show, and the name of a global TV crime franchise.