Team Dressage Observations

I just watched the end of the team dressage competition. Has anyone else given thought to the fact that this is a sport where women were not allowed to compete for years, I guess because it came out of military moves, and now they dominate the sport? The German gold team had no men on it and the silver and bronze teams had one man each. Women had the very top scores--even one of the U.S.A.'s women is 7th overall. Stephan Peters (originally German, now ours) is #10 overall, which may make him the top scoring man in the competition, but I'd have to go back to NBC to be sure; one of the guys on a medal team may be higher, but the other is not.

I've got a theory about this: women do better with the partnership concept that is so important to dressage.

So why do I have to be up at 4 a.m. to watch this stuff live? You folks on the east coast have it easier than we do. I'm not complaining too much: I love the fact that we can watch all of the horse competition for the first time ever. And I did get to watch the final four riders and the award ceremony this morning at a reasonable hour. Good thing I went into work early. The high speed internet at home has had a few hiccups when I've tried to watch there.

Last night, I noted with annoyance that the Oxygen recap only showed portions of the first day of dressage, with the exception of the U.S. rider. Since she's in 7th place going into finals, that was not such a bad decision.

I'm planning on watching the many hours of replay of team dressage because I want to watch some of the other rounds, like that of the 67 year old Japanese rider. He had the team's top score, but he didn't make the finals. That's o.k. It gives all of us hope--and an argument when family members (like my mother) think I'm too old to be messing around with horses.

I think they should put medals around the necks of the horses. They did all the work. I'm just saying....