In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of Jacobellis v. Ohio, a First Amendment dispute in which a theater owner sued the state of Ohio over its attempt to ban him from showing a French film with an explicit love scene.

The court had the difficult task of trying to precisely define obscenity, and why the film did or didn’t meet that description. But rather than trying to construct a strict definition of obscenity, Justice Potter Stewart famously and simply said: “I know it when I see it.”

The stakes aren’t constitutional—and the proposed definitions won’t make one blush—but the long-running discussion over whether the U.S. Equestrian Federation should establish a rule limiting the number of classes a horse can do at a single hunter/jumper show comes down to a similar assertion. In this case, however, “I know it when I see it” refers to horsemanship—or the lack thereof.

The challenge has always been in setting a specific number of classes, especially considering the huge range of factors that determine whether a horse or pony’s show schedule is “too much.” What might be exhausting for a thick-bodied warmblood might not even faze a Thoroughbred. Should the limit be the same at 2’3” as it is at 3’6”? Does a class limit just mean that a horse will be longed for an hour to get it quiet, and does that defeat the purpose?

The topic has often come up at U.S. Hunter Jumper Association town halls and other discussions of horse welfare, where everyone seems to agree there are a very small number of problem competitors and many people urging governing bodies to protect both the horses and the sport in this age of heightened attention to welfare issues.

At USEF’s mid-year board meeting in June, the board of directors approved several extraordinary rule changes related to horse welfare, including the implementation of hair testing and stricter rules regarding a horse returning to competition after a collapse. The board also adopted position statements on horse welfare and overuse.

The overuse position statement reads in part:

“Indicators of overuse include a decline in performance, physical capabilities, movement, and/or mental well-being. Observable signs may involve physical signs of discomfort, exhaustion, lameness, changes in stride, resistance to move forward, use of both leads, and deterioration of jumping style. This is not an exhaustive list of symptoms or combinations thereof and it is imperative that officials use their experience, horsemanship skills, and equine knowledge to make an informed, non-biased decision regarding the horse or pony’s health, safety, or well-being.”

The position statement isn’t a rule and doesn’t set any numerical class limits, but it does put into black and white the federation’s support for officials who feel horses are being overused and want to step in. Essentially, it backs them up when they say, “I know a lack of horsemanship when I see it.”

Input From Veterinarians

In March, USEF held a veterinary summit in Ocala, Florida, attended by about 30 veterinarians from around the world, USEF CEO Bill Moroney said.

“[Overuse] was one of the topics that came up there,” he said. “And at the end of the day, everybody realized: Setting a number is not the easiest thing to do in the world. It’s pretty challenging, right? Because horses, like people, are all different,” Moroney said. “It’s very individualized by horse and by breed or discipline as to what would constitute overuse.”

USEF put out a white paper from the veterinary summit summarizing the discussions. “It includes a section in it about overuse of horses and the challenges of just setting a defined limit of, let’s say, three classes a day or something like that, or per competition, and how that doesn’t really satisfy things,” Moroney explained. The position statement—which USEF collaborated closely with Equestrian Canada to write, Moroney said, noting that organization put out a similar statement—distilled the discussion from the summit into a checklist (albeit incomplete, he stressed) that officials and competitors alike could use.

“We wanted to give people an understanding of the signs of overuse: How do you know that a horse is in distress? What are the signs of that you’re seeing? Potentially an alteration of gait. You’re seeing a reduction in performance. You’re seeing signs of fatigue, etcetera, that are occurring,” he continued. “And that way, the entire community would have something to go to, to be able to understand better how to calculate and manage the use of the horse and ensuring that we’re not overusing them.”

“We wanted to give people an understanding of the signs of overuse: How do you know that a horse is in distress? What are the signs of that you’re seeing? … [T]hat way, the entire community would have something to go to, to be able to understand better how to calculate and manage the use of the horse and ensuring that we’re not overusing them.”

Bill Moroney, USEF CEO

Another important takeaway from the summit was the importance of frequent evaluations and conversations with a horse’s veterinarian, Moroney said.

“Part of the process is making sure that the horse is getting regularly attended to by a veterinarian at home, right?” he said. “[There should be conversation] between the vet and the trainer and the owner of the horse, so that everybody’s on the same page as to what that horse’s fitness level is, and how it is responding to the amount of of competitive experiences that that trainer and rider are utilizing the horse for, and just making sure its well-being comes first—and that has to include those regular veterinarian checks and those conversations between all of the parties to assess where that horse is at.”

Moroney said it’s important for competitors and trainers to educate themselves on the statement and discuss it with their veterinarians. “We have a very robust set of mechanisms to report situations where they feel a horse’s welfare is being compromised,” he said “I think it’s incumbent then on somebody who is at a competition to understand what they’re seeing and what they’re reporting on, and does it rise to that level. I also think it’s very important for people to share that statement with their vets so the vets know the conditions under which they’re showing and training and all of that, so that they can help them understand the nuances of seeing those signs [of overuse]. We can give them a statement, but I think their veterinarian, that’s the normal person caring for that horse on a regular basis, can help them understand the nuances.”

Moroney said the feedback from officials has been positive so far, and that USEF is working on support resources for officials to help them address concerns with competitors in productive ways.

“I think people always want something extremely definitive that you can have in black and white, and no shades of gray. And I think the hardest thing is officials are put into a position of having to make judgment calls, and we live in a world where there are a lot of challenges to any decision anyone makes, right? Which makes it very difficult,” he said. “But I think that’s why it’s so important to try to give them as much information and as much education [as possible] about how to deal with the situation.”

It Comes Down To Conditioning

USHJA President Britt McCormick said the organization was involved in discussions at USEF that led up to the publication of the position statement. He feels it strikes a healthy balance between acknowledging that some competitors may be asking horses to do too much while also giving officials the latitude to use their discretion rather than enforce an arbitrary number of classes. He emphasized that overuse has less to do with a number of classes than whether the horse has been appropriately legged up for that workload.

“If a horse is conditioned for the job it’s being asked to do in the field, it is almost impossible to overuse a hunter or a jumper,” McCormick said. “So when you take a look at the gamut of what horses do for a living—working ranch horses, endurance horses, even dressage horses, eventers—hunter/jumpers, on the use level, are way low. Most of them don’t even break a sweat. If they do, it’s short bursts, intermittent. A class lasts, you know, 90 seconds, maybe two minutes at most.”

When discussing the issue with those who have lobbied for USEF to set a numerical limit, McCormick said they usually offer about 12 classes per show as a logical cap.

“Let’s just play this out: So let’s say your typical 3’3” green has its secondary job as a children’s hunter or an adult hunter or whatever. So five classes plus two warm-ups, let’s just say for the green division, that takes place on a Wednesday and a Thursday. So that’s seven [classes],” he explained. “Then it maybe has a Friday derby day—that’s two trips—and let’s say it does the children’s hunters and equitation. So five more for the division, maybe two more warm-ups and five medals. You’re hovering around 22 classes over a five-day period, [about] four classes a day. It’s less than 30 minutes of work.”

Another theoretical example that is often offered is “school horses that go around 18 times over crossrails,” McCormick said.

“Again, if they’re conditioned for that job, I don’t have a problem with it. What I have a problem with is when somebody does one of two things: Either the horse is not conditioned for the job it’s being asked to do, [or] it’s stressed,” he said. “So, visible signs of stress, that’s no good. And I think that’s something that, if we’re in the field [at a competition], you walk up to those people and you say, ‘I’m sorry, your horse looks like it’s stressed. You need to get off and go put it up.’ That can be riding, that could be longeing, that could be sitting on it at an outdoor horse show for three or four hours, and it hasn’t done anything, but it’s never had a chance to get a drink of water. It’s never had a chance to go back in the stall and be by itself for a second. There are all different levels of stress; it’s not just classes.”

While the position statement encourages officials to use their discretion, the lack of a hard limit does allow leeway for competitors to dispute their assessment, McCormick acknowledged. 

“I think the judges do [feel empowered to act] in the hunter world. And, I mean, I’m a judge, so I don’t mind saying it. I think most of us would go, ‘Hey, look, we don’t want to see that horse again because it looks fatigued,’ ” he said. “I think the stewards, obviously, they always feel better with some kind of a rule in place, but I think that the ones I’ve talked to feel better about making the call. And it’s not a punishment; I think everybody comes to it from an education standpoint. So the [statement] is made, I think, to be educational and give a little bit of bite if you need it.”

A Lack Of Education

Cricket Stone is a USEF C1 ‘R’ steward and sits on the USHJA board of directors. If she has concerns about a horse’s workload at a competition—usually brought to her attention by a judge—she said she approaches it with the goal of education, and brings the show veterinarian or another steward along when she voices her concerns.

“I just approach the trainer and say, ‘You know, part of my job is education. I am concerned that your horse has been entered in a number of classes today,’ ” she said, adding that time spent in warm-up and standing around at the ring factor in as well. “If it comes down to them getting a little belligerent, which sometimes they do, I usually have spoken with management about these things, and management will usually back me up, or back the vet or the judge up, and just say, ‘Hey, you know, this is something that we’re working on combating in our sport right now, is how we look to the public. It doesn’t mean that you don’t see it in a different light. However, to the uneducated eye, this is what is being seen, and this is not a good look for the sport right now.’ I always try to fall back on education before going to any kind of a warning card or something like that, because 99% of it is honestly lack of knowledge.”

She calls the position statement a good start but noted that it’s not going to solve a lack of knowledge among trainers. 

“You can’t regulate horsemanship. People feel like we can regulate number of classes, number of jumps, things like that, but what you’re really trying to do is regulate horsemanship, and that’s an educational thing, not a regulation issue,” she said. “I learned from very, very good horsemen who taught me about horse welfare before everything else. That’s so important, because you cannot take a horse show career and turn into profession without the knowledge to back that up, and unfortunately, that’s what’s being done right now. We need to get back to educating. We need to get back to mentorships. We need to get back to internships, apprenticeships, whatever it takes, where people learn the basics of the career, which involves the care of the horse, the well-being of the horse, prior to showing.

“For right now, as a steward, I’m very appreciative of this statement, because it gives me, if nothing else, backup from USEF if I say something.”

Cricket Stone, USEF steward

“This will never happen, but I’m a huge proponent of some kind of certification or licensure for trainers, because right now, I mean, anybody can be a professional. They just check the box,” she continued. “There’s no regulations in place for that, which is what needs to happen in order to make the real change that we need to see in the business right now. So for right now, as a steward, I’m very appreciative of this statement, because it gives me, if nothing else, backup from USEF if I say something.”

Everything Comes Back To Horsemanship

Sue Lyman has operated West Riding, a training business near Middleburg, Virginia, for over 30 years. She’s also chair of the USHJA’s Horse And Rider Advocates Committee. She agrees with Stone that there’s a significant lack of education contributing to the issue, and has even advocated for a program similar to SafeSport that people would have to complete before they show, demonstrating knowledge of welfare rules, for example, or even just schooling ring etiquette and proper longeing techniques.

“The problem with education is people don’t really go out to get educated unless it’s going to benefit them,” she said. “So I think that people who are good trainers, who do this because they like horses, are aware of that issue, and we get frustrated that people … don’t learn and do the best thing for the horse. Because, I mean, that’s how we were brought up, and that’s why we do it.”

Lyman also thinks that writing a rule setting class limits would be difficult, but said she felt horse show officials were generally up to the task of policing overuse.

“I think that show managers and stewards are super helpful,” Lyman said, noting that she’d gone to show management about longeing issues in the past and found them to be proactive when an issue was brought to their attention. 

“I think DiAnn Langer, in her article that she wrote [about speaking out against abuse], said people need to stand up for the horses. Like, why are we so afraid about what’s going to happen to us? Gosh, get a backbone. If you like horses, speak for horses, right?” she said. “I think if you are respectful, you know, definitely go to the stewards and go to show management, try it. You can’t write a rule for every single little thing of abuse; if you see something that’s abusive, then report it.”

Back in 2022, trainer Miranda Scott was so disturbed by incidences of overuse that she wrote a letter to the USHJA membership in In Stride magazine.

“ ‘A horse only has so many jumps in him,’ ” she wrote. “This is a statement I often heard from the great old horsemen who shared their wisdom with me as I was growing up.”

Scott, who taught at Meadowbrook Stables in Chevy Chase, Maryland, for 16 years and counts Kathy Kusner as one of her mentors, also sees a lack of horsemanship as a root cause.

“I really take horsemanship seriously. I see some of these young professionals don’t take care of the horses,” she said. “That’s why I wrote that article. So many of these younger professionals sort of go through horses, you know, and if that’s how your business model works, so that every time you break one, you gotta go buy a new one and can make that commission. It’s not about the longevity of the horse and the quality that the horse has so it can have a good retirement. I’ve just seen so many very bad horsemanship decisions, in very nice places.”

Scott said she’s skeptical of trying to set a limit on classes through a rule, since situations can be so variable. “I think creating a rule that people will abide to [is difficult], because even [though there’s] a rule on drugging, they still seem to be drugging ‘em!” she said. 

“I wish we had the kind of integrity in our sport that people would just do the right thing to do the right thing instead of trying to cheat. There are always those cheaters. I would like to believe that there’s more people out there that are trying to do it right than wrong. But I think we have to talk about [horse welfare] and …  [create] a positive, peer pressure to do right by the horse.”

Words Aren’t Enough

Jay Duke, a former professional hunter rider who is now a clinician and course designer based in Calgary, Alberta, has been advocating strongly for a rule with a limit on the number of classes. He’s also the founder of Safe Horse, a non-profit advocating for horse welfare and well-being in equestrian sport. He said he’d like to see USEF—and Equestrian Canada—do much more.

“It all sounds good, but it’s not actually helping the horses,” he said. “Something concrete needs to happen to make it better, because every single week all across the country, there are horses being shown in excess … not a lot of horses. It literally is like 4% or less, but it’s still happening to some horses, and the federations need to do something concrete to help these horses out. That’s No. 1. And No. 2 is they need to do something concrete to show the world that they care about the health of the horse and are vested in their interest in the horse, and instead of just saying fancy words and not actually doing anything.”

Like other members of the industry interviewed for this article, Duke pointed the finger squarely at a loss of horsemanship, saying simply: “There used to be better horse people. What’s happened? You know, the industry has gotten very large. There is no regulation on training and who can be a trainer,” he said. “There’s more and more horse shows, and there’s more and more disposable income for people to go through horses faster, and not as much need to keep horses sound and going for longer terms, because people can just buy another one. So without question, it’s become a bigger deal. It’s happening more often than it used to for all those reasons.”

Duke, who is on the USHJA Horse And Rider Advocates and Safety Committees and has been working with USEF and USHJA on the issue, said he agrees with McCormick that horse show officials should have the discretion to step in when they think they need to, but that there are complicating factors.

“No. 1 is the judges and the stewards are hired by the horse show management,” he said. “Horse shows are a pretty big business … it is in their best interest that horses are entered in more classes from a financial perspective, I’ve been in horse shows where horses and ponies are entered in 25-plus classes, and I’ve never seen horse show management do a thing. I’ve seen that dozens and dozens and dozens of times. I don’t want to make the horse show managers the bad guy, but they’re in the business of making money.

“So if the stewards and the judges were assigned by USEF, I would have no argument with that [position] statement. They’re not,” he said. “Because, of course, you know, stewards and judges are also in business and they want to be rehired by the horse show. But it’s in their best interest to make the show manager happy, and [if] you’re taking money away from show management, then they’re not going to be happy and you won’t get rehired. It’s a very flawed system.”

Duke also takes issue with putting this welfare issue so squarely on the shoulders of judges and stewards, who already have so much on their plates and are overworked and underpaid.

“Every professional will tell you this; I just say it how it is: I have seen horses in under saddle classes given ribbons that were lame. Hundreds and hundreds of times. It should not be on the judges to make that call,” he said. “Judges already have, typically, two to four cards running at a time. They work from 7:30 a.m. until dark. They have super long hours. And now you’re saying, ‘Oh, let’s give them another responsibility, be responsible for horse welfare.’ That, to me, isn’t realistic or fair at all.”

It’s similarly unrealistic to expect stewards to be able to police this issue, he added. “They’re grossly underpaid. They’re overworked. There’s not enough of them at the horse shows. Some of them don’t know what a lame horse is,” he continued. It’s not realistic to expect a steward to have the time to go through a list of 600 horses to see which ones were entered in too many classes, he said. 

“It would have to be pointed out to them. And I do know, again, dozens of examples where it is pointed out to them, and they don’t do anything. I’m not here being negative towards stewards individually, but that’s just not a realistic fix at all,” he said.

Through conversations with dozens of show managers, trainers, riders and others, Duke has come up with his own proposed class limits, and has started a petition urging USEF and Equestrian Canada to adopt them, writing: “There are countries that do impose class limitations, it is time that the USA and Canada do what is best for our sporting partners, and for the horses that do so much for us.”

“I would prefer that that did not need to happen. It obviously must happen for the sake of the horses,” Duke added. “But I wish there was the education, the certification, the horsemanship… I wish people loved the horses more. There’s a lot of professionals in the sport and there’s a lot of owners in the sport that the best interest of the horse is not what they’re there for. I’m not saying anything radical here; I’m just saying all the quiet stuff out loud.”

Duke said he’s confident that the issue of overuse will at least be addressed in educational programs, even if USEF does not end up supporting the implementation of a rule right now. The limits he’s proposed are a starting point, he added.

“I’m not saying it’s perfect, and maybe it could use some tweaking … or adjustments, but it is something which I feel is a compromise, which stops the worst of the abuse. It also shows the public that we care about the horses,” he said, adding that many participants don’t understand the precarious position horse sports are in.

“People don’t realize how this sport is in danger.… Just look at horse racing. And if you don’t understand that, do your history on where horse racing was 100 years ago and where it is now,” he said.

Duke emphasized that he feels the overwhelming majority of those involved in horse showing still put the horse first, and are more than happy to scratch some classes if they think a horse has done enough in a day.

“We’re talking about a very small minority of people that are abusing the horses,” he said. “I mentor and work with a lot of trainers in their 20s and 30s, and to a fault, they all [are willing to scratch classes when a horse seems tired], every single one of them, not even a question. This [proposed rule] is for the 5%.”