Equestrian question

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

I highly doubt I will get an answer but I figure it is worth a try.

Now that I have followed equestrian for a few years, the one thing that has always puzzled me is how they choose the number of riders for each competition. Sometimes it is four, sometimes five, and sometimes six. Also, this information is never published before the meets in any previews so as a fan it is almost impossible to analyze an upcoming meet or to try to predict its results.

Well, I checked the official Varsity Equestrian rules, and it says a minimum of four must compete in each event, but the insititutions (coaches I assume) agree to the number in each competition and it can not be changed 15 days prior to the competition. So, the number of riders is set way in advance. It seems like that would be very important information to include in the press releases and on the schedules.

Obviously, this opens up a world of strategy in the offices of the coaches before the riders ever mount a horse! If a coach knows he/she has four fence riders better than the other school has and that the flat riders are pretty equal, wouldn't they push to only use four riders? And of course the other coach would push for five or six to try to steal a point over fences. Does the home coach have the final say if there is no consensus? Kind of a silly little strategy play if that is the kind of thing that happens regularly.

I could understand if a small program doesn't have enough skilled riders to have more than four riders in each discipline, but most of the schools have well over 20 riders on their roster so I can't imagine that ever comes into play. Plus VE allows up to 15 scholarships, so even with partial scholarships it would seem every program would have at least 12 riders who are good enough to compete.

I guess the other possible valid explanation for a smaller meet would be a lack of available horses since each horse can only be used for one pair of riders per competition. If the horses are the limiting factor then it would make perfect sense to limit a meet to 4 vs. 4.

In general though, I would think the point of the sport is to encourage competition and opportunity so they would want as many riders as possible to be able to compete in each meet. I hope this is the case.

Whatever the reason, if the meet size is known over two weeks in advance it would be nice if it was more standard to release that information in the advance press releases.

Just curious...

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

A couple of other things I thought of after posting...

I guess time could be a factor. If a team buses to a road meet and has to bus back home for a home meet the next day they might want to cut the total time at the event.

Also, the team could reduce travel costs somewhat on an overnight trip or a trip requiring a plane ride by taking less riders so they may negotiate using smaller teams for financial reasons.

I still bet the answer is going to be the horses.

Speaking of betting, I assume there is no wagering on equestrian in Vegas - but if there is wouldn't they need to know the number of riders before the meet?