AND THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS...
Don't use an F1 car to go shopping! I've been putting off writing about Louis' outing with Jaguar yesterday because if I'd written a report at this time last night, it would have sounded very bitter indeed, as opposed to just a little bitter! At the end of the day, poor old Jaguar wasn't on form, but as far as I'm concerned, Louis rode like a demon, showing a level of maturity far beyond what his 12 years on Earth and exactly two years in the saddle should allow. His reward was 50-point-something and last place. Don't get me wrong, it's not the fact that he lost that annoys me (while his progress thus far has been nothing short of rocket-like, fairytale endings simply don't exist), it's that he couldn't compete as a horseman...

Having been a diehard motorsport fan ever since I took my first steps, I shocked everyone when I stopped watching F1 a few years ago. Why? Because lately the team with the biggest budget always wins - the freedom of design doesn't exist any more and the skill of the drivers is irrelevant. As such, the car with the best electronic gizmo that R&D funds can buy wins the race, and the person standing on the podium is just a passenger. In my opinion, that's not a sport that breeds true champions. In fact, with the way things are set up nowadays, with next to nothing in place to allow drivers to progress from a grassroots (for which you can read 'sensible budget') background, I'll go so far as to say that it ceases to be a sport at all.

What yesterday highlighted was it's the horse that's by far the most important element in Dressage, which frankly saddens me, as it reflects the F1 syndrome. A friend who rode in the Olympics said a $4,000,000 budget was allocated to each rider through sponsorship during his time in competition - it's all starting to make sense, but that doesn't mean you have to agree with it. As such, today's results will basically determine Louis' future in the sport.

Out of principle, I will not buy a 'better' horse, because I don't believe in abandoning friends when they've done nothing wrong. And besides, Louis loves Jaguar as his partner - he wants to compete with him, full-stop. Personally speaking, that's the kind of spirit that impresses me more than the desire to simply collect medals on a horse with which the rider has no bond. He was happy enough, as it happens, and was the same with his mount yesterday afternoon as he is on gold medal days - it was me that was left disillusioned by it all. This isn't Keiba, where crossing the line first is the only thing that matters, it's about honing the rider's skills and developing the communication side - the creation of Jinba Ittai. Or at least that's what I thought it was about!

If how the horse looks is three-fourths of the game, this lack of competitiveness leaves three options as I see it - we either keep going and come last all the while (and with most folks only looking at results, not how they were achieved, that rules out any hopes of the boy being spotted); we go back down to the lower ranks, rekindling the enjoyment of true competition at the heavy cost of sidestepping the challenge (which definitely goes against the grain), or we walk away having learnt that you can't beat the system. With my own life on hold in Japan, because, as an outsider, I don't even have the chance to go up against the system, let alone beat it, this would be a particularly painful decision to have to make.

They say bad things come in threes. Well, yesterday was event location for starters (not my favourite place by a long way), my new camera breaking for some reason (somewhat ironic, given the current political situation, being from a top Japanese brand but made in China!), and Louis' results, which, despite the Japanese reputation for efficiency, I still hadn't seen in writing when I left the arena, over three hours after the finish. I guess it's time to drink a gallon of tea, scream loudly in the bath (the option of pulling out hair went a long time ago), and see what the rest of today brings...