USDF decides to release DATA

[rebecca yount]

To their credit, USDF has addressed the issue of releasing the data that we have been asking for. I received this email this afternoon, from the executive director of USDF. It is a cc of the message to the PVDA president, who had made the request in writing on behalf of PVDA.

"Dear Marne:

I am responding to your request for a USDF generated data report on behalf of PVDA. The USDF Management Committee of the Executive Board has had a conference call to discuss USDF’s stance on this matter within the context of the USEF Dressage Committee’s Standards Proposal being developed. During this call it was decided that USDF would make data available, within reason, and through its normal data services protocols as outlined on our web site. This decision was made to support the best interests of all USDF members and GMOs. I apologize for the delay in this decision.

Our ability to provide specific data is limited to the structure of our data base and staff resources. We will do our best to provide you with what you want within those confines. Our standard “discounted member fee” for custom reports, queries and/or statistics is $80 for the first 30 minutes of IT time and $35 for each additional 15 minutes. Please resubmit your specific request to our IT director Chad Compton at ccompton@usdf.org. He will then contact you with a cost estimate, confirm the details of your request and provide you with custom report form for you to sign and on which to provide payment information. For more information about all our data reporting services available, please refer to http://www.usdf.org/fags/ReportingFees.asp.

Thanks you for your patience in this matter.

Best regards,

Stephan Hienzsch
USDF Executive Director"


Good for USDF!!

[Hidden Pond Farm]

That's great news. Sounds like the "check is in the mail". Just hope the check is what you're expecting.....

[Aleen]

Presumably they have already crafted this query for the Dressage Committee - why should there be anything other than a token fee?

Aleen
WHH Dressage

[JRG]

Seriously, I have to pay to see the data that is changing the rules of a sport I subscribe to with member fees. Someone stick me with a spork, I am done.

P.S. I couldn't get the link to work.

[Touchstone Farm]

Seriously, I have to pay to see the data that is changing the rules of a sport I subscribe to with member fees. Someone stick me with a spork, I am done.

P.S. I couldn't get the link to work.

Yes, that's what I thought too. We have to pay for a query that will affect the membership? it's not like we're asking for advertising purposes or some "business" reason. Should the GMOs now charge the USDF when they request data or help from them? :-)

Well, I AM glad that they released the data, but...it is just very, very odd.

[SGray]

Presumably they have already crafted this query for the Dressage Committee - why should there be anything other than a token fee?

Aleen
WHH Dressage

I'd think that DC would have asked for some type of statistical analysis vs the raw data that is being request by RY et al

[canyonoak]

I cannot count the number of times USDF has contacted our GMO for data that USDF has lost, misplaced, have no records of ever obtaining, etc etc.

What I think would be a nifty solution would be if all the interested GMOs agree to co-pay for whatever raw data is found to be necessary and desirable to order by Rebecca and her intrepid crew of analysts.

And I can only hope in the interest of transparency and fairness, that the GMOs are charged the same rate that was charged to USEF's Dressage Committee.

please insert smiley icon to counter any unintended negativity.

[ise@ssl]

I'm completely convinced that there are huge warehouses somewhere in the USA that hold rag-tag boxes of data owned by the USEF and USDF and other horse organizations with NO list of what they have or where to find it.

It's a complete disgrace that all of these show results are not transferred by data lines and programs into a central data base that is backed up for security purposes.

It's such a ridiculous situation when they slap fines and threats on show secretaries for not sending information (usually by fax!) immediately and then it just POOF ....goes where???????

[lorik]

Ise,
I'm starting to think my basement is one of those warehouses! :eek:
We're required to keep the records of every show we do for at least three years. Imagine how many show secretaries there are in the US keeping all of those records.

[slc2]

if there is some data i might be able to load it into a database that would allow easier searching, if it's in a csv file or spreadsheet.

[sm]

: it was decided that USDF would make data available, within reason, and through its normal data services protocols as outlined on our web site. This decision was made to support the best interests of all USDF members and GMOs. I apologize for the delay in this decision.

Great! We can pull together and resolve this. Now let's just find a way to actually fix the bad riding.... there are many good suggestions on this BB alone.

Perhaps we can also increase participation in USDF All Breeds Program as a direct result: if the focus rewards riders, harmony, and training to a greater extent than the ratio out there now. I'll bet you more riders will show up to learn dressage correctly...

[yaya]

Seriously, I have to pay to see the data that is changing the rules of a sport I subscribe to with member fees. Someone stick me with a spork, I am done.

P.S. I couldn't get the link to work.

There was a typo in the link in the OP (q's and g's look a lot alike, don't they?)

Here is the correct link:
http://www.usdf.org/faqs/ReportingFees.asp

[Touchstone Farm]

I cannot count the number of times USDF has contacted our GMO for data that USDF has lost, misplaced, have no records of ever obtaining, etc etc.

What I think would be a nifty solution would be if all the interested GMOs agree to co-pay for whatever raw data is found to be necessary and desirable to order by Rebecca and her intrepid crew of analysts.

And I can only hope in the interest of transparency and fairness, that the GMOs are charged the same rate that was charged to USEF's Dressage Committee.

please insert smiley icon to counter any unintended negativity.

I already sent Rebecca an email offering $$$. And I think at our next GMO board meeting, I'll bring up charging the USDF for their data and other requests from us! After all, we don't even have paid staff...just volunteers! :-)

[Cowgirl]

I think it's great that you all are getting the data so that you can challenge the Qualifications Rule Proposal. I think it's great that you are getting the data, despite the arrogance of the USDF in charging a fee for it! LOL!

I have to say that I don't think the Qualifications Rule Proposal has anything to do with the protection of the horse, abuse or anything of that nature. I think that's their front story in order to push the thing through, but it is so transparent that such a system will have absolutely no impact on riding in the US. Plenty of the people who "abuse" (and I'm not sure that abuse is the right term--perhaps overwork, punish, badly ride, etc. would be the correct term) and encourage "abuse" will already grandfather in. Others will be able to get their scores, even if it takes them longer, by finding the right judges. There is no unified system of training in the US that can support an increase of quality of riding in the US, nor is there any policing of instructors. This week alone I learned about yet ANOTHER "trainer" advertising herself as an FEI trainer in my area who has been riding less than five years and is not certified, bought a trained horse, and has a bunch of clients already. If this happened in my profession, the person would go to jail, however it is RAMPANT in this sport. If they want to increase the quality of the riding, then they need to do something about the fact that anyone can hang out a shingle and train. Don't expect the victims of these charlatans to figure it out on their own--they are paying for help because they lack technical knowledge of the sport. If the USEF/USDF really did care about improving the quality of riding in this country, they'd do a better job of policing the instruction.

I think the Qualification Rule Proposal is ALL about improving the perception of American Dressage to the international community to benefit the high performance riders and nothing more. The high performance riders have been complaining about bias against them for a long time now. We are the only nation at the top of the sport that doesn't require riders to qualify to ride in a CDI (because to do so would cut down on the entries; CDIs are REALLY expensive to run; and we'd lose our CDIs). This presents a negative impression about the quality of our riding in the US to the international community. So naturally, one way to improve this perception is to make riders qualify (and grandfather in the riders who will ride in the CDIs) to ride in regular shows, so that all riders who compete in CDIs are "qualified". It is short sighted and will probably destroy dressage in a lot of areas on a local level. But I think that no matter what efforts you make (at least those will be on the record when the time comes for them to pay the piper on this rule change), the proposal is going to go through. Why? Because those at the top of the sport think they need it. I have nothing more to back this up than what I've observed, similar to the proponents of the rule change with their arguments. But since I have not observed abuse at shows by those that the Rule Change is most going to affect (ineffective riding maybe, but not abuse, and anything that approaches abuse is being done under instruction and coaching) and since the USEF/USDF has not offered any real support for the training problem that is apparently creating these bad/abusive riders, I'm thinking that my theory is probably closer to the truth of what the back story is.

All I can say is Good Luck. I don't wish to discourage you because I think it's very important to get it on the record that the Rule Change was opposed and that it lacked a foundation in fact. I think the USEF/USDF has a real problem with its fiduciary duty to its members if it pushes this thing through without data to support it.

[Whisper]

Sorry, I phrased that badly. What I meant was that the IT people should discover what the most common queries are likely to be, and create a user-friendly form in PHP, or use one of the wrappers that are designed to integrate SQL databases with web pages to allow people (can be restricted to members with accounts) to choose one or a combination.

For example, search by name of horse and/or rider, search by show name, search by date range, search by score range, search by level. It's very inefficient and poor use of the IT department's time to create a new query each time.
If a database has sensitive information such as addresses, payment info, etc., the columns with the data which is to be made publicly available should first be extracted into a new database. To make it more scalable, it can be separated into multiple databases which each cover a range of years.

I know that the USDF had a web-based query function last year, as I used it a couple of times, and some of the query results are still saved in cache on Yahoo (for example). So, it is not as though they have an ancient database that is incompatible with that approach, like the one I had to hex-edit to create each month's file. ;)

[J-Lu]

Do they have a bona-fide statistician, as opposed to an IT person, on staff?

I'm certain that the public queries right now (i.e. Rebecca) will be very similar to the DC queries. If done once for the DC, they should be made public for free, IMO. As a USDF member, I feel entitled to view policy-making reports without having to pay for the IT people to generate them a second time.

[SGray]

Do they have a bona-fide statistician, as opposed to an IT person, on staff?

I'm certain that the public queries right now (i.e. Rebecca) will be very similar to the DC queries. If done once for the DC, they should be made public for free, IMO. As a USDF member, I feel entitled to view policy-making reports without having to pay for the IT people to generate them a second time.


or perhaps there could be a discounted price for subsequent generation of the same report

[Hazelnut]

Let us know if $$ is needed to obtain data you may need, Rebecca.

[rebecca yount]

Thanks everyone. I think at this point PVDA is going to pay if they end up charging anything. They already have prepared an Excel spreadsheet, or several of them, for the DC, so maybe they won't charge more to send it to PVDA. Thank you. ry

[canyonoak]

<<I think the Qualification Rule Proposal is ALL about improving the perception of American Dressage to the international community to benefit the high performance riders and nothing more. The high performance riders have been complaining about bias against them for a long time now. We are the only nation at the top of the sport that doesn't require riders to qualify to ride in a CDI (because to do so would cut down on the entries; CDIs are REALLY expensive to run; and we'd lose our CDIs). This presents a negative impression about the quality of our riding in the US to the international community. So naturally, one way to improve this perception is to make riders qualify (and grandfather in the riders who will ride in the CDIs) to ride in regular shows, so that all riders who compete in CDIs are "qualified>>



Yes.


It is just so unfortunate that the real needs of dressage in this country are so unbelievably far removed from the misguided desires of certain members of the DC to be perceived as 'movers and shakers' by certain members of the international dressage oligarchy.

[claire]

Speaking of addressing the real needs of the US equestrian sports industry, what about focusing on a data base to track performance?

from another BB:

It's absolutely incomprehensible that there is not a shared, publically-accessible national performance database in this country. It would be an obvious asset for sporthorse sales, for breeders, for mare owners making stallion choices, and yes, for also tracking scores overall, seeing am. to pro ratios, or what-have-you.
Granted, USDF is starting to makes bits and pieces available, but it honestly doesn't take that much to throw up a web interface and make some standard queries available to the common user.

Sure, make it members only, as a member perk - I'm OK with that. But to turn around and charge EXTRA to pull data, which should be available anyway, which was actually promised years ago - that is simply ludicrous.

These orgs. HAVE money - crikey, look at the building fund for USDF's move to the Horse Park. For such a small amount of data / users, etc. which the USDF or even USEF would need, the system architecture and setup cost, and ongoing maintenance is truly nominal (I speak from many years of experience w/ global IT environments). This is small potatoes in the greater IT scheme of things, and the fact that they drag their heels and hem and haw is inexcusable.

Data access should be, in this day and age, a BASIC member benefit of these organizations.

[sm]

Data access should be, in this day and age, a BASIC member benefit of these organizations.

I'm going to jump in here, I'm on a fast horse so no flame suit needed:

1) AQHA charges for info: http://www.aqhamembers.org/FS/samples/index.cfm?ACTION=DSPHTML&PAGE=SAMPLESHOWMENU

2) The Jockey Club charges for some info and offers some free http://www.equineline.com/dotCommonEQL2KHome.cfm?CFID=18523149&CFTOKEN=10905136.

Now either of these registries are MUCH BIGGER than USEF and USDF combined. If you want to see state-of-the-art data tracked, look at the Jockey Club family of companies... Okay horsie, it's time for that gallop now :eek:.

[canyonoak]

Among the FREE info offered by the Jockey Club:


<< Racing Recap / Results
• Graded Stakes
• Non-Graded Stakes
• Allowance Results over $15,000
• Maiden Winners

also:

• Product Samples
• Top Sires by Earnings
• Consignor Sponsored Catalogue Updates
• Leading Breeders
• Online Names Book
• Products and Services >>


and as I recall, most of this info is UP TO DATE and EASY TO ACCESS.

I can go check AQHA, but am already so impressed by that organization, can only wish USEF, let alone USDF, would study the structure more closely as a role model. (And yes, I know that there have indeed been close studies of AQHA and its success by varous other horse-sport and horse-related organizations)

[claire]

Now either of these registries are MUCH BIGGER than USEF and USDF combined. If you want to see state-of-the-art data tracked, look at the Jockey Club family of companies... Okay horsie, it's time for that gallop now :eek:.

sm, I wouldn't expect it to be "free". I just think that we are paying for statues and buildings and now qualification standards (and a qualification standard IS going to paid for by increased dues and show fees ;) )

If the point is growth and improvement of the equestian sport:
Wouldn't an improved performance tracking system for horses be of greater benefit?

Wouldn't improved training and growth of our YR programs be of greater benefit?

Wouldn't additional funding for GMO clinics for amateurs be of more benefit?

Wouldn't additional funding into the health and safety of our riders and horses be of more benefit?


You know, I don't think people would really mind if USEF raised membership dues for training programs or safety studies or data systems to track performance that would actually work toward the improvement and growth of equestrian sports in US.

Just be more transparent about the real intent and engage the membership in the decision process.

[ShotenStar]

...
Just be more transparent about the real intent and engage the membership in the decision process.

I would like to think that all of the discussions re: the performance standard are pushing the DF and EF in that direction .... maybe at a glacial pace, but still moving towards that.

We could help that process along: since we are going to get the data, what questions do YOU want answered?

A few caveats:
--the data is show results (rider, horse, test, score, judge, date, location), so specific/detailed questions like 'how many black horses are winning at 1st-1' are not realistic.
--questions about individuals (rider or horse) are not really appropriate. We need to be looking at more global issues related to the current state of US dressage.
--there will not be an instant turn-around. The people doing this are volunteers with real lives that need time and attention (and we don't have the data in-hand yet ...), so some patience will be required.

Ask and we will see what the data tells us ....

*star*

[claire]

ShotenStar,

But what if the "problem" is with the scoring system?

After reading Rebecca's observations at her show, if this ride is being scored in the 60's:

In one case, a 3rd level test, the horse was inverted, back dropped and locked, overweight (sorry, had to say it) rider slamming up and down on the horse’s back, kicking, poking with spurs, jerking on the curb rein.

How can there be any objective conclusions of any merit drawn if the scoring or measurement of of the tests is not accurate or consistent?

I really appreciate all the work you and Rebecca and pluvinel have done but I just sincerely wonder about this.

[ShotenStar]

As pluvinel posted on UDBB, there are tools and techniques that can be used to evaluate the 'measurement' systems (i.e., the scoring set-up) to determine if it actually measures what needs to be measured in a way that is useful and relevant.

And I do believe this is a legitimate question to ask: are we scoring the Right Things in the Right Way?

*star*

[ise@ssl]

Another HUGE benefit from a performance tracking system is providing documentation for horses when they are bought or sold. The current system used by the US- ETAL organizations facilitates fraud. A person can say a horse did this that or the other in another state or across the country and unless the buyer knows someone in those areas - it's almost impossible to verify. PLUS - you have the almost obsessive "changing names" game in this country - so who's to know if the horse with that name is really the horse that's for sale??

I've pushed for a decade for a system that tracks a horse for life ACROSS DISCIPLINES. This is done in Europe and has been for a very long time. It's not ROCKET SCIENCE - I feel it's the OBLIGATION of our NGB - the USEF to provide this. They were offered the system Europe uses almost 10 years ago and the guru's at the USEF said "oh no we want to design our own system" NOTHING has really happened in all that time. But buildings were built and bricks were laid and we still have people answering the phones that don't have a clue and seem to change every few months.

Having bred TB's before Warmbloods - I can tell you the Jockey club proves without a doubt that these systems can be built and they built there's way before complex computer systems were even available. The USEF constantly passes the buck on this BUT constantly ups the fees and takes our money to hire more "fluff" people at the top - we need worker bees and SOMEONE WHO CAN BUILD A DATA SYSTEM.

[sm]

sm, I wouldn't expect it to be "free". I just think that we are paying for statues and buildings and now qualification standards (and a qualification standard IS going to paid for by increased dues and show fees ;) )

If the point is growth and improvement of the equestian sport:
Wouldn't an improved performance tracking system for horses be of greater benefit?

Wouldn't improved training and growth of our YR programs be of greater benefit?

Wouldn't additional funding for GMO clinics for amateurs be of more benefit?

Wouldn't additional funding into the health and safety of our riders and horses be of more benefit?


Claire, you're right: I was somehow focusing on the "free" part, way back from posts 4 & 5. Yes, it would be perfect to get back to the DC with a counter proposal to deliver on a comprehensive data system that works.

We would get more respect from Europe (if that's what the DC is after, who really knows) with a user-friendly tracking system/interface (ex., AQHA, JC) rather than whatever they're up to now with a second Qualification Proposal.

[sm]

ShotenStar,

But what if the "problem" is with the scoring system?

After reading Rebecca's observations at her show, if this ride is being scored in the 60's....

How can there be any objective conclusions of any merit drawn if the scoring or measurement of of the tests is not accurate or consistent?

I really appreciate all the work you and Rebecca and pluvinel have done but I just sincerely wonder about this.

This is the element that is killing off the USDF All Breeds Award program, and discouraging average people with average horses from even learning dressage. I've heard many disheartened riders: I put in a quiet but better prepared test, and this horse -- they go on to describe a poorly done test with all sorts of basic errors -- wins.

[SGray]

Councils

Adult Education Council
Awards Council
Competition Management Council
Competitors Council
FEI Jr/UR Council
GMO Council
Instructor Trainer Council
Nominating Council
Technical Delegates Council
Youth Council
Youth Executive Board


Committees

Audit
Bylaws
Freestyle
Historical
IMO (mission: to promote dressage interest, education, and competition within middle, secondary and post-secondary schools.)
Judges
Membership
ParaEquestrian
Regional Championships
Sport Horse
Young Rider Graduate Program

[sm]

sorry SGray, I'm not following your comment (?)...

[SGray]

I think the lists give an indication of priorities/focus