At every competition I attend, I’m approached by U.S. Equestrian Federation and U.S. Hunter Jumper Association members who have questions, concerns and ideas about our sport. To be honest, sometimes it can make for a long day, but as someone involved in the governance of our sport, I understand that these members need to express their feelings.

I also believe it’s the duty of all of us who are committee members, directors or officers of the USEF and USHJA, as well as the other recognized affiliates of the Fede-ration, to be available to our members to help them navigate our sport.

One of the hottest topics this year has been the standards of our hunter and jumper competitions. The USEF Rule Book has many rules referring to requirements for competitions ranging from officials to courses to prize money to number of classes and more.

What the Rule Book does not contain is what many people are coming to understand as the amenities of horse shows. Things such as permanent versus temporary structures—restrooms, seating, stabling, wash racks, etc. Amenities are the extras that can affect whether you like or dislike your experience at a competition.

The USHJA Show Standards Committee has been wrestling with this dilemma for the past two years, and they’re making progress on developing a system of identifying and evaluating horse show amenities similar to the AAA method used for evaluating hotels.

The “amenities score” would be an identifier for each competition in addition to its USEF rating level. Members would be the source for obtaining the information used to derive each competition’s amenities score.

Here’s an excellent avenue for members to give direct input by evaluating a competition on what it does to go the extra mile for competitors and their horses. This is in addition to the USEF Competition Evaluations, which you need to fill out for both positive and negative aspects of the competitions you frequent.

In addition to the amenities score identifier, the USHJA leaders are currently developing a facility directory so that competition facilities can describe what they have to offer to the consumer. Exhibitors can access this directory and find out details about show facilities.

Evaluations are critically important as the Federation goes forward in the process of competition license renewal. Many of the existing competitions were given a license of three years, which will terminate at the end of 2008.

This situation means that to continue being recognized by the USEF, these competitions must apply for renewal of their licenses for 2009 and beyond.

In the process of determining renewals, the Federation will be reviewing everything in the competition’s file including positive and negative evaluations, as well as information that the Federation has gathered due to the full reporting of competition results and other data. This information includes determining if a competition has been repeatedly canceling classes that are part of their rating requirements, the number of competitors in the classes at competitions and whether prize money was actually paid.

Deficiencies in compliance with USEF regulations and poor performance may result in a reduction in rating upon renewal to the extreme of denial of license renewal.

It’s equally important that competitors file positive as well as negative competition evaluations with the Federation. This is your opportunity to make a difference in your sport! Instead of sitting around complaining, get a form and spend the 10 minutes filling it out and the $0.41 to mail it to the Federation.
While forms are supposed to be available in the competition office, this isn’t always the case. All Federation evaluation forms are available through their website at www.usef.org. Very soon there will be a link on the USEF homepage that will take you directly to the evaluation forms.

If you don’t have Internet access, call the office at (859) 258-2472 and ask for the competitions department and request a USEF Competition Evaluation form. Or, you can just send them a letter with your opinions.

We have all heard of the horror stories of competitors turning in evaluations at the competition office or to competition officials who then share what is regarded as “confidential” information with everyone at the show.

Along with this blatant disregard for Federation rules are the rumors of stabling in Siberia and harsh treatment by competition officials if the evaluation is not deemed positive in their opinions.

Whether any of this is true or not, to avoid the possibility of this situation from happening, I tell everyone to send their evaluations directly to the Federation offices in Kentucky. This goes for all evaluations, including those for licensed officials. Mark the envelope confidential and address it to the applicable department. The Federation strictly enforces the confidentiality of these evaluations, and you will have the greatest peace of mind sending them directly to Kentucky.

The Federation needs to hear from its members in writing, not by telephone regarding the conditions at USEF competitions in order to make any changes that will provide better competitions. The USEF officials can only act on written submissions signed by the evaluator.  This way, evaluations that describe problems can be compared to Steward’s reports and evaluations from other competitors to determine whether an investigation needs to be conducted and whether the competition in question needs to be notified of a deficiency and put on warning that unless the situation is corrected, their license may be in jeopardy.

With the enactment of the licensing and review process by the Federation, members finally have the ability to make a difference in the quality and quantity of our USEF competitions.

That said, it’s also the responsibility of the Federation to give the competition a warning and allow the managers to correct the situation to the satisfaction of the USEF. This is the correct process to use and allows the competition officials the chance to make things right. If they don’t, it was their choice and they pay the consequences for not complying.

Right now, it worries me that in most cases the membership has provided no evaluations on competitions, so all these competitions can be reviewed on is whether they complied with the basic requirements from the USEF Rule Book.

I still find it amazing that with our sport growing by leaps and bounds, there are so few evaluations sent to the USEF. I’m talking about the fact that for all of the shows and people attending them, we only receive a couple of handfuls.

So maybe everyone is satisfied that all competitions are the best they can be and satisfy every exhibitor. Somehow, with all I keep hearing, I don’t think this is the case.

So what can we do to get past the apathy that exists and get our participants to evaluate the competitions they attend and the officials working at them?

Incentives such as drawings for free memberships and other perks may be ways to help encourage members to submit the evaluations. Another incentive is to make the process easier, faster and simpler for everyone involved. The online forms must be easy to find and must be able to be completed online.

I’ll be working on this process with USEF leaders as well as increasing the time allowed for submitting evaluations. It may be that one of the best ways to boost evaluations is to do a random selection of a percentage of the competitors at each competition, offering them incentives for completing the evaluations.

The USHJA leaders will be working on developing a system that will help to encourage response to our amenities surveys and perhaps the USEF can tag along for competition and licensed officials evaluations. Every USEF recognized breed and discipline affiliate must encourage its members to complete evaluations and help to make this easier for them by adding a link to the Federation website that will take you directly to the evaluations.

It’s plain and simple to me. The only way for the Federation to help you is for you to help the Federation. The governance of equestrian sports is a partnership between the members, their elected or appointed representatives and the governing organizations. Take the time to be a part of your sport, complete the evaluations available to give us input on what’s right and wrong about our community. Once you have done your job by providing your input, the Federation can do their job.

Bill Moroney