CNN to Air Story On Women's MMA Sunday Night

It requires conditioning and athletecism. Its a sport.

My mother went to college on a partial equestrian scholarship (cross-country, jumping, and steeplechase) and barely made ends meet as a music teacher until she was in her mid-40s. Yes, she got access to horses at a public stable growing up, but part of that was because she had a part-time job teaching people how to ride while in high school. She did not come from rich family. She just happened to have a father who grew up on a farm and still loved horses himself. While people who are heavy into equestrian events are more likely to be upper-middle class or upper class than most folks, a lot of people in that scene just come from families of farmers and ranchers. And when you get to race horse jockeys, which can be grueling, brutal work, you almost never see rich people doing that.

As for yachting/sailing, I have no idea how rich people are in that scene, but after looking it up, the entrance fee for youth sailing at the Golden Gate Yacht Club (defending America’s Cup Champions) is $200 a year. That includes participating in races. That’s less than a boxing gym. The main criteria is just an interest in the sport. I would guess there’s a disproportionate amount of rich folk, but at the elite level it can be a career and you’re usually sponsored or patroned. Also, sailing and yachting can be dangerous as fuck. There are sailing events with individuals and yachting events where you’re talking about groups of up to 30 people working in precision in sometimes deadly conditions in checkpoint races. People routinely fall overboard and storms can come out of nowhere and capsize boats. It could probably be put it on the list of sports with a higher fatality rate than MMA, next time a bill comes up in NY state.