F.E.I.
As you all probably know, I had surgery on my back in the end of October, am really still convelessing and have only partial feeling in my right leg from the knee down. Nerves are very strange and complex things, I’ve come to learn. Anyway, I am much better now, but for the first three weeks after my operation I was on a lot of strong medications.
Which brings me to the day, a couple of weeks after surgery, when I was laying on my couch in a definite haze when the phone rang. In my limited state of consciousness I answered, “Hallo” and heard a faint voice say, “Hiah” to which I naturally replied with another, “Hiah” after which I heard, “No, Robert. It is Haya.”
Even in my stupor, I realised what I had just said to the Royal Princess of Jourdan who also happens to be married to the king of Dubai. So now I froze while trying to assess the damage at the same time as figuring out how to proceed with this conversation. Should it be, “Pardon me, Your Royal Highness” or “I am very sorry, Princess Haya?”
Luckily, she and I go way back to the mid-eighties when we were both competing on the European show circuit, she in jumpers and I in dressage. We would meet and joke around in the elevators on our way back from the shows and she was so amazingly down to earth that it was very easy to feel like she was just another cool “girl.” So after much deliberation, my final answer was, “How’s it goin?”
Princess Haya was just as down to earth as she had been 20 years earlier and we laughed and reminisced over old times and discussed the difficult things going on in the dressage world, most recent of which was her asking the entire Dressage Committee to step down. And then came the big question- Would I consider sitting on a temporary Dressage Task Force to keep things moving forward in the sport until the next D.C. could be elected?
Now, I had gone off all committees a long time ago and had just retired from my business as well on October 1st. I had also been extremely happy with my new found freedom and time to spend on non-horsey activities. And here I was again, high on painkillers and at the veritable precipice of saying “yes” to yet another stressful appointment, one I definitely never believed I would ever even need to consider. So I asked the Princess if I could think about it over night and, after our conversation lasted another 10 minutes, agreed to go on the Task Force. I still blame it all on Vicodin!
I did have the presence of mind to say that I would only consider such a job if I would be allowed to make it my mission to help create a new and totally democratic, transparent process by which the next Dressage Committee (and hopefully all F.E.I. committees) would be nominated and elected.
And Her Royal Highness agreed, so here I am, on my way to Frankfurt on January 10th for our first official meeting. The good news is that, unlike the last group, which consisted of 6 people who, though well respected and experienced, were all judges other than one active rider, this one is made up of one person from each major stakeholder- one judge, a rider, one trainer (me), a Chef d’Equip, one organiser and a major horse owner. This gives us the diversity of views necessary for the best interest of the sport.
And as soon as we have the selection process in order to correctly form the next Dressage Committee, it will be my greatest pleasure to fire myself!
