St. Louis—Dec. 10

How do we encourage good decision-making?

Whether it was with regard to deciding when to move up or when to continue on if things go awry at a competition, or implementing biosecurity practices, encouraging riders to make good decisions was a huge point of discussion during this year’s U.S. Eventing Association Annual Meeting and Convention, held Dec. 7-10 in St. Louis.

One initiative, the newly formed Eventing Coaches Program Ambassadors, was introduced during the first board of governors’ meeting. Through the program, ECP instructors will wear a badge while attending events and be available to assist. Jennifer Howlett Rousseau, vice president of education at large, presented the initiative and said that there would be a sign-up form available at events complete with the available ECP instructors’ names and contact information.

“[They] would be available to help for general advice, to walk courses or coach competitors,” she said. “They can be made available to be a future coach. Each would have their own fee structure and be responsible for their own liability insurance. They are not obligated to assist if asked, but as ambassadors for the sport of eventing, they will try if they can be safe and effective.”

Liability was the largest concern for board members, and Lauren Nicholson, the vice president of active athletes at large, expressed concerns about the potential damage to reputation if a trainer took on an unknown rider or if a bad accident occurred that it could reflect negatively on the ECP as a whole.

One suggestion was that riders had to sign liability releases with any ECP instructor they worked with at a competition, just as they would for a lesson, and that the horse’s EquiRatings Quality Index—a risk management tool that rates a horse’s likelihood of having a good round—should be shared with the instructor, as well as whether a rider is on the watch list.

Lower Level MERs Debated

Concerns about safety spurred three USEA members from Area I—Katie Murphy, Melissa Alaimo and Linnea Ackerman—to propose requiring minimum eligibility requirements introducing loss of qualifications at the lower levels.

Janet Gunn, a technical delegate in Area II, felt strongly that this was an impractical suggestion. She pointed out that many trainers are capable of bringing a new horse out at training and that many riders utilize unrecognized events in lower levels before competing recognized training.

“[With this] I think if they want to move up to training, there’s an incentive for them to say I’m not going to bother to do recognized, I’m going to stay at unrecognized, and that’s losing entries,” she said.

This rule change proposal, and all rule change proposals must be voted on by the USEA board before moving to the U.S. Equestrian Federation board to be voted on during their mid-year meeting in June. While the USEA took action on the general rules on their docket, they chose to review the eventing-specific rules during their January board meeting, in advance of the Feb. 1 USEF deadline for forwarded rule change proposals.

Keeping Records Of Verbal Warnings

During the Safety Committee Open Forum, Rusty Lowe spoke on behalf of the Rider Safety Committee. One of the discussion points was formalizing verbal warnings and making them available to licensed officials for future events. While these warnings would not result in formal action, formalizing them would allow licensed officials to keep an eye on riders who previously caused concern—particularly for those at events outside of their area.

“[Verbal warnings] could get added to the TD report, and a list of verbal warning could be given to the officials like the watch list,” said Lowe. “Perhaps if they receive two verbal warnings in a period, they can be transitioned to the watch list.”

Conversation repeatedly returned to examples of attendees seeing concerning individuals. In the end there was a push for everyone to be more proactive about speaking up to officials when they see something that concerns them rather than watching in horror before turning the other way.

Biosecurity Rule Discussions

Personal responsibility also was a factor in a pair of proposed general rules related to mandatory twice-daily temperature checks of all horses on a competition ground and mandatory reporting of febrile horses. Whether logging temperature is truly enforceable was a major talking point. Some pointed out that, while the Fédération Equestre Internationale has an app where temperatures are recorded, this rule change has no framework for reporting and no requirement for the amount of time between readings. The board ultimately disapproved the proposal due to concerns about the enforceability.

“[USEF chief veterinary officer Stephen Schumacher] joined us on a call and said he was aware it was not probably going to pass, but they want people to start thinking about accountability and understand they should be monitoring their horse’s temperature,” board member Sharyn Antico said.

A proposal that would make it mandatory to report a febrile horse also caused some concern, as horses’ temperature can fluctuate naturally and some horses run hotter than others, but Antico clarified that if a febrile horse was reported, that the on-site veterinarian would be called in to determine why the horse is presenting with a fever and determine appropriate action. Ultimately the board approved the rule.

Keeping The Sport Robust

During the Organizers Open Forum, Antico led a lively discussion surrounding several problems experienced by competition organizers: low entry numbers, inflated costs and the effect of late entries. She pointed out that, except for a few select events, there’s an increasing problem with most entries coming in on or after the closing date. This becomes particularly problematic for events that have to bring in stabling or need to hire a sufficient number of officials. 

Some events offer a discounted entry fee if you enter earlier, and many events impose a late fee, but even when the fee is substantial, some riders prefer waiting until they’re sure their horse is fit to compete and pay a late fee. While many organizers have a late fee, some end up waiving it to encourage entries to prevent cancellation.

Four-star eventer Gina Economou admitted that she’s called organizers or secretaries at the eleventh hour to get into an event. She suggested that just as some competitions do a tiered entry fee to encourage early entry, perhaps the late fee should be tiered as well. “What if the late fee was scaled?” she said. “At five days [after the closing date] it’s $50, two weeks until the event, $100. The week of, $200. The later we enter, the worse we pay. I’m OK with it as a rider.”

Rick Dunkerton, who serves as the Area III chair and runs the scoring and entry website evententries.com, shared one way that he’s gotten people to enter earlier.

“One thing I’ve found is that people are entering later and later because of refunds,” he said. “We do refunds weekly. We provide a path for that, and it’s been amazing what that’s done. People are more willing to enter. People say thank you for the refund, we weren’t expecting to get that until three weeks after the shows. It’s been a big push, and it’s helped a lot.”

Tim Holekamp, a breeder and owner, suggested that officials within driving distances of events could enter their availability to officiate into a database, giving organizers a list to work from when they need a last-minute hire, instead of having to rely on personal relationships or busting their budgets on expensive last-minute flights.

Loss Of Events

The loss of events is also a substantial problem, as USEA treasurer Brian Murray emphasized during his report to the membership. While the number of starters has remained relatively flat, there was a 9.3% decrease in the number of events held in 2023 due to reasons like property sales, burnout and death.

In a more targeted way, the topic came up again when the board reconsidered allowing a new event to run in Area IX. After voting down the inclusion of a July 6-7, 2024, event at Mile High Horse Ranch in Parker, Colorado, earlier this year due to concerns about it being detrimental to Arrowhead Horse Trials (Montana) and Summer Coconino Horse Trials (Arizona) which run on the same date, the board decided during its annual meeting to reconsider. Laura Backus of Pendragon Stud Equestrian, a farm local to the proposed horse trials, spoke on behalf of Mile High, arguing that without it Area IX would not have any events between June 22 and Aug. 3, which would be detrimental to the sport in that area. She estimated that Mile High would bring an additional 100 starters to the area’s overall number for the year.

“Mile High is well established, and [owner Vanda Werner] is extremely excited to have a recognized event,” Backus said. “She got John Williams to do courses; she’s hired her officials. She’s very excited; she is planning to go no higher than training. She has no space for a classic three-day. [In Colorado] historically two to three people go to Arrowhead, and they’ve been prelim riders and their novice friends or students. Mile High is not going to have prelim, so those people will still send horses to Arrowhead, and those who go to Coconino are still going to go because they have intermediate, prelim and the classic.”

The board voted to approve Mile High for one year and re-evaluate for the future to ensure that it doesn’t negatively impact existing competitions.

Other Action

• The board voted to change the age of the “master” leaderboard from 40 and above to 50 and above. The Adult Riders Committee is also working with the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee to come up with a different name for that leaderboard.

• The board approved three motions brought forward with regards to the Young Event Horse Program: It voted to match the FEI policy on age of horses born in the southern hemisphere, so that their official age changes Aug. 1 rather than Jan. 1 as happens with horses born in the northern hemisphere. The East Coast and West Coast championships will now have a championship fee of $50—there is no change to the starter fee for qualifiers. It also voted to enter contract negotiations with Twin Rivers (California) and Maryland 5 Star at Fair Hill to hold the championships for an additional two years. The mandatory inclusion of banks and ditches as part of the cross-country course will be added to the contract.

• A rule change proposal involving the use of official video in making decisions regarding the field of play was voted down. The USEA Rules Committee felt that it was important to create an eventing-specific video rule to address situations like videos taken by jump judges which would supersede any general rule. The group plans to draft the rule in time to vote on it before rules are required to go to USEF.

• The Young Riders And Juniors Committee is working toward reuniting the young rider championship with the FEI North American Youth Championships for dressage and show jumping in 2026. The eventing championship will remain a USEF championship until it draws teams from other countries, at which point it can return to FEI championship status.