his month I’ve gone to five different association conventions involving the breeds and disciplines of the U.S. Equestrian Federation, since I’m the president.

Despite getting tired of the hotels and traveling, these trips again–as they always do–inspired me about what we’re trying to achieve. Each meeting had people full of passion for their horses and true interest in how to take their sport further.

And they made me realize that it really is my job to just listen at most of the meetings. I did confer several times with the different organizations’ leaders, but mainly I like to wander into members’ meetings and forums and just listen to what’s going on. This gives me a perspective on the programs and on the true gripes that managers or riders or trainers have with the way that our organizations are set up or functioning. I’m looking at their concerns and problems a little differently than I used to.

So let me start by saying that the real gain to what the USEF is doing now is that it’s succeeding in becoming a real staff-driven organization. Fortunately, our USEF staff is very professional. Not perfect all the time, but very professional.

No one can be perfect, and with an organization as big as ours, there are bound to be mistakes. We try to acknowledge these mistakes when they happen and address them and apologize for them if necessary. But we’re always striving to do the things we do better.

Remember that our basic mandate, under law and by agreement, is to regulate the sport, and it’s a topic brought up by all of the affiliates and breeds that currently make up our sport and our federation. The USEF is made up of the best and brightest from all of these organizations so that our rules and programs meet this mandate responsibly. Two of our most important and comprehensive programs–the drugs and medications program, which was established almost 40 years ago to keep some from gaining an unfair advantage, and the all-important hearing process–were each initiatives brought forward from the breeds and disciplines.

These two programs are vital to our mission, but they don’t always make the federation’s initial relationship with a competitor a positive one, as you can imagine. But we absolutely need rules–and rules enforcement–as human nature is not always honest.

The challenge of scheduling shows is another vitally important mandate of ours. This is a very challenging issue as there is so much demand for shows and just 52 weekends a year. The process of date allocation requires constant vigilance as more and more competitors want to come into the sport more and more shows are needed.

It’s a great problem to have, but it’s a constant discussion between representatives of all of the breeds and disciplines to come up with the best answers. Like a perfect dressage score, it’s an ever-evolving process that will never be completely achieved.

With the creation of our unified federation three years ago this month, we came up with a model that is really working, both financially and philosophically. Consequently, our committees have started several new programs, programs that we should have always been doing.

A program to support financially struggling shows is one that we started last year. It was offered to the breed shows first, and we made a lot of money available to shows that were having a hard time covering expenses like the medical requirements or insurance premiums. A grant program helps cover these costs so that these important member services won’t be reduced or the shows lost.

We’ve also improved the way we market our sport. The purchasing of television time for different shows and events (like the Rolex Kentucky CCI**** broadcast on NBC) has led to a new exposure for horse sports to the greater public. Our support of the Olympic and World Cham-pionship programs for the F�d�ration Equestre Internationale disciplines has grown, but it still needs more. The national programs for the FEI disciplines and those of the national affiliates are at an all-time high. The creation of a Youth Council, which will meet for the first time at the USEF convention in January, is an exciting program to involve young adults in the federation’s and the sport’s future.

These are just a few of the initiatives that the USEF’s leaders have taken outside of the regulatory mandate. These are the programs that benefit all of us who want to take the sport forward.

The USEF is at a time in its organizational life when we should decide what we’d like it to be like in 10 years and farther, and a group of people is about to make recommendations on what they think that future could look like. This group represents a wide cross-section of the USEF: Gary Zimmerman (the chief executive officer of the Arabian Horse Asso-ciation), Ellen di Bella from Morgans, Scott Hassler from dressage, Christine Tauber from hunter/jumpers, Andrew Tempkin from eventing, John Long (the USEF’s CEO) and I have been meeting over the summer to try and put forward a long-range strategic plan.

One of the ideas we’ve entertained are new levels of membership that aren’t competition-dependent. Another thought is a level of regulation that’s less strict for community type shows. We’ve also investigated reaching out to non-competing equestrians, to making the federation a resource for all things horse-related.

That’s a direction that we leaders are really going to have to grapple with. Right now the federation is a sport-minded organization, so we have to decide whether we should take our mandate beyond that and be the promoter of horses in the United States? I believe the answer is yes, we should.

The U.S. Equestrian Federation is here because competitors want it to be here. It’s your organization. It’s not here for the sake of promoting itself. We, the federation’s leaders do listen, and I hope that if you have a thought or an issue (preferably one with a solution) that you’ll make the effort to tell us.

We serve at the pleasure of our constituents, and that’s you.


David O’Connor