Speaking personally here,

Steeplechase comes at a bad time of year. When I was in school it was during exams, and when I was working, it was at the end of year when I was out of vacation time. I really have always wanted to do this race but, the fact that it takes a lot of driving to get to, necessitating at least a day on either side of the weekend for transportation always presented a problem for me.

That being said, now that I'm closer, that mitigates the problem, however, I've retired from competitive sailing. (Cue up the jokes about how I was never in it, its ok, I'm a big boy)