The last day of the U.S. Eventing Association Annual Convention, Dec. 6, held in Reston, Va., found members dragging after a wild night spent at the 50th Anniversary and Hall of Fame Gala on Saturday.

But the members of the Board of Governors rallied for their early morning meeting and started off the public session with a good discussion with Tremaine Cooper, who co-chairs the Eventing Course Designers/Builders Committee with Dan Starck.

Cooper expressed concerns over the lack of “R” course designers in the United States, people who can design advanced courses. He said of the three candidates who tested for their R in the last seven years, only one passed.

Cooper proposed introducing a restricted level for designers who are ready to design intermediate courses but not advanced.

“Rather than looking at hundreds of courses, I think the best way to learn is by doing it yourself,” said Cooper. “We’re not looking at developing another license. We should develop some kind of list so organizers know this is a possibility, but we have to make sure people know they’re not an R.”

Kevin Baumgardner also took the opportunity to ask Cooper if he’d be willing to act as liaison with the group studying frangible technology. Although the USEA is funding part of the studies, apparently the BOG has had a hard time getting information and data from the studies.

Cooper said he had some concerns over the frangible studies. He pointed out that what works in the laboratory may not work in the field.

“It’s great that we’re looking at every possible way to make jumps safer. There have been a bunch of designs and contraptions put forward. Some of them are in use,” he said. “But it does make me a little apprehensive that they’re going ahead without a review. There’s a jump out there now that’s been in competition. It’s fantastic that they’re trying new things, but I’d never put it on one of my courses. There are some other consequences if it activates that outweigh any safety that it gives.”

Baumgardner explained that he wasn’t asking Cooper to decide whether something was a good design or not. He just wanted to make sure that someone was communicating the direction of the frangible studies with the BOG. Cooper agreed to be that go between if he could share the duty with Starck.

Malcolm Hook, chairman of the U.S. Equestrian Federation Eventing Technical Committee, explained to the BOG why his committee wouldn’t support a petition put forth by the Young Rider and Juniors Council to open the CCI* up to 18-21-year-olds at the North American Junior and Young Rider Championships.

“There were two problems with the structure of the proposal,” said Hook. “The first is that to increase older riders might disenfranchise the younger riders. But the larger problem is that the [Fédération Equestre Internationale] won’t consider a change in one discipline that will affect all disciplines.”

Cindy DePorter, chairman of the Adult Riders Council, announced the locations for next year’s Chronicle of the Horse/USEA Adult Team Challenge. The western ATC will take place at Woodside (Calif.), the central ATC will run at Greenwood (Texas) and the eastern ATC will take place at Waredaca (Md.).

The BOG also decided in favor of putting the dressage tests online so that organizers could download and print them instead of paying USEA for paper copies. However, the USEA will charge approximately 10 cents per starter for the downloaded tests during the transition period from paper to digital.

Basically, it would be cost-effective to make the tests available exclusively online or to continue selling them, but offering both options keeps the hassle factor high for USEA without providing any income. So during the transition period, organizers who don’t want to download tests may continue purchasing them from the USEA for 30 cents per test, and everyone can try out the new online system without costing the USEA money.

Carol Kozlowski asked about changing entry date policy so that those who enter on the opening day of an event would be able to recoup some of their expenses if they had to withdraw after the closing date.

“Organizers complained that riders weren’t sending entries in until the last few days,” she explained.

The BOG agreed that this policy created a win-win situation, but they decided not to make it mandatory. Margie Molloy promised that the Organizers’ Committee would notify organizers that they had this option.