The U.S. Equestrian Federation has a new blood rule in the works, USEF Director of FEI/High Performance Horse Sport Hallye Griffin said at a USEF Town Hall on horse welfare held Tuesday in conjunction with USEF Pony Finals in Lexington, Kentucky.

While some sports already have specific rules about blood on a horse, the new rule would apply to all USEF breeds and disciplines, unless the breed or discipline already has a more stringent rule in place. It states that if blood appears on a horse’s mouth, that horse is to be stopped and blood wiped off the mouth. If the horse continues to bleed, it will be eliminated; if not, it may continue. The rule will apply everywhere on the competition grounds, not just in the show ring.

“If there is blood on the horse that is rider-induced, let’s say there’s a hole from a spur, then they are out of the competition,” Griffin said. “That [rule] is in the final stages of approval now. In this case, since the hunter and jumper disciplines don’t have a specific blood rule, this is a rule that would then apply.”

In addition to discussing imminent or recent rule changes, the town hall panel—consisting of Griffin, USEF CEO Bill Moroney, U.S. Hunter Jumper Association President Britt McCormick, USEF Senior Counsel for Dispute Resolution Anne Guillory and USEF Integrity Unit Investigator Jon Lathrop—addressed several dozen attendees on a variety of topics that aren’t yet rule change proposals.

One of those topics? An immediate provisional suspension for any horse that tests positive for a prohibited substance.

These would not apply to therapeutic substances but only to category III and category IV drugs. Category III drugs, like opiates and antipsychotics, are not indicated for use in horses, and category IV drugs like GABA and Phenibut are not FDA-approved for use in horses and may be misused to alter the performance.

With this concept, a horse that tests positive for a category III or IV substance would be immediately provisionally suspended for 60 days, as would the horse’s owner, rider and trainer, pending the outcome of an investigation. The Fédération Equestre Internationale has a similar rule in place. 

Trainer and USHJA Hunter Working Group chair Robin Rost Brown pointed out that, while the FEI designates the athlete as the person responsible for a horse, a rider in national hunter/jumper sport may have little to nothing to do with the care, custody and control of the horse.

“What we’re talking about is that, yes, the athlete would be included,” Griffin said. “For us it’s about making something that people would feel the impact of. Because right now the feedback we’re getting from people is that when there’s a positive, and the person responsible is the trainer, we’re not able to make the impact that we’re wanting to make with the suspension.”

“The feedback we’re getting from people is that when there’s a positive, and the person responsible is the trainer, we’re not able to make the impact that we’re wanting to make with the suspension.”

Hallye Griffin, USEF director of FEI/high-performance horse sport

The Possibility Of A New Whip Rule

Along with a universal blood rule, USEF is considering a universal whip rule as well. Right now the language being discussed by the organization states that “a whip may not be used in anger or to punish a horse.” The USEF is also discussing whether there should be a limit to the number of times a horse may be struck.

Brown said that three strikes per incident seemed about right.

“On a personal note, I would rather school a horse with a dressage whip and not abuse them with spurs to get them reactive to my legs,” she said. 

Trainer Berry Porter wasn’t sure about the USEF’s “anger” wording.

“I think that the language is a little dicey anyway, when you start talking about anger and not to punish a horse,” he said. “With the entire purpose of carrying a stick with the reins—if they go to the water, they stop, you hit them. That’s a punishment, right? So I think the language, for sure, is dicey. I would have to lean towards two [strikes]. I think that usually, when you see people hit a horse, they hit twice, and then if they … pick up their hand and hit the third time, [they are] usually pretty pissed off, right?”

Porter said that if the whip were to be eliminated, one unintended consequence would be seeing more electric spurs in training.

“I know that it’s probably not something we want to talk about, and it’s not a popular opinion, but we use electric training aids to train 15-pound dogs, companion animals,” he said. “And it’s not just accepted, it’s expected, right? That is the norm. So I think when you start talking about taking away something, you have to notice something else is going to step in with it, within its place, and obviously not [while] competing. But I think that you’re going to see the popularity of electric spurs rising when you start taking away sticks, and the ability for people to use sticks. So I think that’s also something to keep in mind.”

Electric spurs are prohibited, and in 2021 show jumper Andy Kocher received a 10-year suspension for horse abuse from the FEI after an investigation determined he used them in both competition and training. At the time of his suspension, Moroney and U.S. Jumping Chef d’Equipe Robert Ridland both referred to the use of electrified spurs as abuse—something USEF has expanded its rules to prosecute off competition grounds.

Other Topics Of Discussion 

• Griffin brought up a new welfare initiative that USEF will be rolling out in the coming months, inspired by a similar program put forth by the German national federation: the stoplight system. This program aims to help empower stewards and officials to address abuse by relying on a common sense approach that compares evaluating horse welfare to traffic light colors. 

If a horse being schooled looks happy and comfortable and isn’t exhibiting any signs of distress, they’d be in the green zone. One who is, for example, grinding its teeth or has a gaping mouth while going around, moves into the yellow zone.

“Then it moves into the red zone,” Griffin said. “Is it bleeding? Are there lesions? Is there a blue tongue? What do we do in those situations? There are times when—I’ll use the [phrase] from [USEF Chief of Sport] David O’Connor—when we need a ‘take-a-break moment.’ The steward goes up and says, ‘Hey, it looks like you have something going on. You need to step back and take a break.’ And hopefully an exhibitor will hear that, the trainer will hear that. And if they don’t [and the action continues] there’s recording warnings, there’s yellow cards, there’s elimination that can happen.”

• Moroney said that more barns are starting to use security cameras in stables, schooling and longeing areas, which could be useful for many reasons.

“My understanding is some of that technology can even tell you the behaviors of the horse, like how much water he’s drinking, and all sorts of things which are pretty interesting,” he said. “When we were in California the same organizer who made the commitment to the ‘don’t spray the horses in the face’ signs committed to putting cameras in the schooling areas and the longeing areas by next year.”

• In eventing, riders must achieve a prescribed minimum result at one level before advancing to the next. McCormick wonders if that concept of minimum eligibility requirements would work well in the horse show world, especially for the jumpers, citing concerns over dangerous riding that trainers don’t feel empowered to stop.

Trainers, McCormick said, sometimes feel that riders insist on moving up the levels, and that if they tell their students that they’re not ready to advance, those students will swap trainers. 

“If you’re coming in, say, the 1.15-meter classes or the 1.05-meters, you’d have to show that you and your horse can successfully complete a certain number of clear rounds,” he said. “It’s not about winning. It’s about safety and capability before you’re allowed to move up to the 1.20-meter [division], or the 1.30-meters. One of the biggest things we’ve heard feedback-wise is that the trainers are saying, ‘Well if I don’t let this person jump bigger, they’ll leave and go down the street and ride with somebody else.’ They will. I think we have a duty to protect not just the riders but the horses.”

“It’s not about winning. It’s about safety and capability before you’re allowed to move up to the 1.20-meter [division], or the 1.30-meters.”

Britt McCormick, USHJA president

Amateur hunter competitor Piper Klemm, the owner and publisher of The Plaid Horse, pointed out that horse showing is expensive, and that will keep some otherwise capable riders who are doing homework at home from being able to move up the levels appropriately without adding extra classes or horse shows to their schedule.

• Panelists asked for feedback about several initiatives aimed at leveling the playing field as well as ensuring horse welfare. McCormick suggested the possibility of requiring horses in major classes to be in on-site stabling for 24 hours before a big class, possibly classes awarding $10,000 or more. He pointed out that with more equestrians buying farms near mega-facilities and not stabling on grounds, they are not on a level playing field with horses that have been living on a horse show ground and are being monitored differently.

McCormick also talked about enhanced testing and monitoring, especially at USHJA properties such as the Platinum Performance/USHJA International Hunter Derby Championships (Kentucky). He said that they’ve tried out several initiatives already, including secure stabling for the derby finals horses who advance to the final handy round, and beefing up the drug testing regimes, to the point where USHJA paid USEF for additional testing.

“We’re a little hampered by logistics,” he said. “There aren’t enough veterinarians around. You would think that Kentucky would be the easiest place [to get drug testers]. It’s one of the hardest. You know, talk about Northern Michigan—it’s almost impossible. Where I live in Texas, we get tested every day, because Texas A&M is right there. For me, testing for qualifiers is just as important, if not more important, than [testing for a] championship, because that’s where you have, maybe a different mentality.”

• Moroney reported on several takeaways from the USEF Veterinary Convention held in Ocala, Florida, at the same time as the Longines League Of Nations—Ocala (Florida). Vets there emphasized that competition horses, in general, needed rest and downtime between strenuous competitions. Also, they remarked on the need to feed supplements and medications to horses only if their veterinarian recommends them for their specific horse. Supplements, he said, generally aren’t FDA tested or approved, and may contain prohibited substances in them.

Moroney compared this to when the USEF started limiting horses to one nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. For 16 months the USEF allowed exhibitors to continue to use two NSAIDS but required medication reports for those horses. What officials discovered was that some barns were putting many—or all—of their horses on two NSAIDs, rather than tailoring their NSAID dosage to what each individual horse needed.

“From 12.2 [hands] to the 17.2 [hands] they all got the same thing—all the same regimen, every single horse in the barn, every single week,” he said. “It was amazing to see what we thought confirmed: That people aren’t necessarily finding out what their horse needs; they’re doing what they’re used to doing because they learned it somewhere in their education and in their process of being a horseman.”

• One father who is new to the sport and had a 12-year-old showing at USEF Pony Finals spoke up to say that he has struggled to understand how his daughter is progressing through the sport due, in part, to a lack of transparency in judging. He said he didn’t care about blue ribbons, he just wanted to understand better and see his child improve.

McCormick suggested that the information and videos produced for training judges could be shared with exhibitors, especially those new to the sport.

“We also have to re-educate and continue to educate people who have done this their whole life, because you have to stay modern,” he said. “You have to stay with the times. The horses have changed. The courses have changed, the venues have changed. Everything that we do now is different than it was 20 years ago, and so our job is to try to come up with a solution to all of those questions so that at the end of the day, the mom or the dad, or even the rider or the trainer sitting at home or sitting in the stands, can watch that performance and go, ‘Yeah, they got that right.’ ”

• Moroney said exhibitors need to be proactive about reporting concerns to stewards and horse show management. He talked about a recent USEF Town Hall in California where one participant complained that horses were being sprayed in the face at washracks, but he hadn’t reported it to anyone officially. The show manager was also at the town hall and by the next morning had installed signs at every washrack in English and Spanish stating that it was prohibited to spray horses in the face.

Klemm said that as long as stewards are hired by horse shows, rather than the USEF, it’s hard to ensure they act in the interest of the federation an instead may be swayed becausee they’d like to be hired back by the horse show. She pointed out that the USEF hires its own drug testers, for example, rather than the responsibility falling to the show.

“We actually are looking at that and probably starting with something like a chief steward that would be trained at a higher level by USEF that would be the first steward that has to be hired,” Moroney said. “[Chief stewards would] be hired by USEF and we’d charge back to the horse show. I think it actually helps with the process of raising the pay to a level that makes it worth being a steward.”  

• Guillory said USEF processed more than 800 reports of horse abuse, non-sexual misconduct SafeSport violations and other rule violations. (The U.S. Center for SafeSport handles all reports of sexual misconduct; USEF handles bullying, emotional misconduct and others.) 

“We expect that volume to be up this year with the [new] unethical treatment rule put into effect [this year],” she said. “Our goal of the reporting process is that even if you do not like the outcome, you feel that you were treated fairly and had the opportunity to be heard.”

Guillory also pointed to the new warning card system that went into effect April 1. Recorded warnings and yellow cards are published on the USEF website. 

“It is a successful change being used. I think it’s helped address behavior and conduct and also educating people about, ‘Hey, that’s against the rules;’ ‘Hey, that’s illegal equipment;’ ‘Hey, put your dog on a leash.’ ”