Dear Rita,

Many people have wondered about my motivation in writing this particular blog about the future of American dressage as I envision it. Some people have labeled it as self-promotion, although most have viewed it as political suicide to speak out against the old, established way of doing things. Some people think I’m interested in coaching or managing the team. However, none of these assumptions is correct from my own perspective.

Dear Rita,

Of the Four Ways Forward for Dressage in the USA— Training, Management, Logistics and Marketing—we have already talked about the training and coaching I hope to see for our team in the future. The U.S. team coach needs to work closely together with a team manager to help prepare future combinations for prolonged international competition.

2. Management and Preparation

Dear Rita,

I’ve given much thought to the state of our sport in the USA since the London Olympics in August. Many people have offered their opinions about why the U.S. teams didn’t medal in London. I don’t believe that winning makes you right and losing makes you wrong. Sport is not that black and white. But I do believe in learning from past mistakes and in stealing every last bit of helpful information that you can from the people who out-perform you in competition.

Dear Rita,

In the last segment of the Schultheis Chronicles I told the story of Mr. Schultheis’ death. That was a bit premature since I hadn’t really finished telling you all of the stories from my time with him, but I guess everyone knew how the story would end anyway.

Dear Rita,

All my life I have believed in excellence. Not in perfection, but in excellence. If you are pursuing perfection, you have already failed, for perfection exists all around us all of the time. Achieving perfection is simply a matter of perception.

Excellence, on the other hand, is something for which we should strive. It’s definitely worth pursuing and is defined both by the moments that bring us to now and by the moments that we can envision in our future.