O’Mara is busy spreading the word about equestrian sport

By Nancy Jaffer
January 30, 2018

Tom O’Mara’s equitation championship-winning children once enjoyed more name recognition than he did.

But the former investment banker has become high-profile through his roles in the U.S. Equestrian Federation and helping insure that equestrian competition continues to be part of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which organizes programs for 24 sports (including football, baseball and basketball) at 1,281 colleges and universities.

The Rumson resident did an artful job moderating the USEF’s inaugural Competition Summit in Lexington, Ky., earlier this month. That role fits him well.

“I worked on Wall Street for 30 years, so there were a lot of contentious conversations with clients, customers, corporations, employees and regulators,” he explained.

While Tom is affable, with an engaging personality, at his core he is a serious negotiator and problem-solver.

“I’m pretty good at being in the middle of groups of people who don’t see eye-to-eye on things,” he observed, citing his experience in the financial world.

“I had to solve problems on a daily basis, which usually came about because people had a different opinion about something. I do think that’s one of my strengths,” continued Tom, who was managing director at Cowen and Co. and Credit Suisse First Boston. Now he works as a consultant, advising people involved in financial technology as to how it could be used.

His family has a long history with horses. Tom’s grandfather, Thomas Mason, who rode with the Essex Foxhounds, also was a hunter judge. In fact, when his children were planning to get married and each suggested they wanted to tie the knot on the last weekend in May, he turned them down because he was judging at Devon. The weddings had to be the Fourth of July weekend, he told them, “because that’s the only weekend there isn’t a horse show.”

Tom’s uncle Thomas Mason Jr., rode in the Maclay finals at the Garden, and he has cousins who are trainers and farriers. Although Tom’s time in the saddle involves just an occasional trail ride, his wife, Liz, rides, while daughters Casey, Abby and Meg were active in showing. Son T.J. won the Pessoa/USEF Medal and the Platinum Performance/USEF Talent Search as well in 2016.

Meg, who topped the Medal finals in 2012, rode NCAA at the University of Georgia, where she was the National Collegiate Equestrian Rider of the year in equitation on the flat and over fences. Abby also rode for Georgia, and the girls’ participation got their father involved.

There are seven competition outlets, including rodeo, saddle-seat and eventing, as well as hunt seat, for riders who want to compete while pursuing their higher education.  The best known is the Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association, which offers English and western classes, permits both men and women to compete and is associated with 400 colleges.

In an effort to present more opportunities for female college athletes, the NCAA began an equestrian program in 2002. The goal was for the National Collegiate Equestrian Association to include 40 schools, but when the numbers fell far short of that, NCAA equestrian was on the verge of being dropped in 2014 at the recommendation of the Committee on Women’s Athletics.

Tom was among those who rode to the rescue of the program.

“I spent more time lately on equestrian things than not,” he said. Tom had seen the difference that riding made in his childrens’ lives.

“It helps develop character traits such as discipline. They have a commitment and they know not everyone in the world can do it and they are privileged to work with these animals and have the opportunity to have it be part of their life,” he observed.

In that vein, he realized how important it was for equestrian to remain as part of NCAA.

“That’s big time,” commented Tom, now co-chair of the NCEA’s national advisory board which is working to expand equestrian in the NCAA.

“The NCAA started something called an emerging sport to create more opportunities for women in collegiate sport,” he said. “There are only two designations, championship and emerging.”

The problem originally was that there was just one metric—participation–to measure the success of the program, which enables the schools to offer scholarships to riders. While equestrian was given 10 years to get to 40 member schools for NCAA, at the deadline, they only had 25. A two-year extension still didn’t get the number to 40, and the situation was serious.

At the same time, Tom pointed out, there are a number of championship sports that have 50 teams but only 200, 300 or 400 participants across the country. In contrast, there are 900 women riding on NCAA English and western teams.

Common sense prevailed over the metric.

“We’re not dropping a women’s sport. We’re in a Title IX world,” he said, referring to the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, and is best known for breaking down barriers in sports for female athletes.

The recommendation to scuttle equestrian was tabled and it was decided to keep it as an emerging sport. Tom noted that four years ago, when colleges were approached about adding NCAA equestrian, the response was, “I thought they were dropping it.”

Now, however, that “black cloud” is off the sport, and “there are more conversations with universities about potentially adding the sport than ever before,” according to Tom. He said there are 23 schools signed up, with 20 actively competing, three new ones set to take part at nationals in April, and four more coming on next year.

Universities love the equestrians, said Tom, “and here’s why. They’re the highest quality student athletes that most of those schools have. Most are the number one GPA (grade point average) of all their athletic teams and the number one community service hours of all their athletic teams.”

Tom is one of two independent directors on the 19-member USEF board; in other words, he is not connected to any one group, breed or discipline. And he’s not in the horse business.

“Tom is the perfect independent director,” noted USEF President Murray Kessler.

“Not only did he have a family that competed and multiple equitation finals winners…he also has been very, very involved in NCAA and has been a leader in that.

“When we look to balance out our board, we look at…how do we match the board against where we’re trying to go strategically? A huge leak in the bucket is when kids go off to college. We are trying to bring the entire intercollegiate and high school community into USEF,” Murray continued.

“Who’s leading that? Tom. Besides all of his value as a board member on moderating meetings…he’s been getting more and more involved on the world stage,” Murray pointed out, referring to Tom’s trip to Lausanne, Switzerland, last year to moderate an FEI (international equestrian federation) meeting on a new invitation system for riders to participate in shows.

Tom has more work cut out for him as the chair of a task force that will do a strategic review of USEF’s drug testing laboratory. It has been the target of criticism after a major mistake in handling a sample resulted in the nullifying of heavy fines and suspensions for a well-known trainer and rider, a year after an announcement that a horse they showed  had tested positive for a prohibited substance.

The appointment is a mark of the regard with which Tom is held in the organization and the fact that he can play several key roles.

“What I just love about him is how connected he is to one of our major strategic priorities with building this sport and bringing the joy of horse sports to as many people as possible,” concluded Murray, citing the USEF’s “joy” mantra.

That’s what Tom is all about as a board member.

“The intent is for an outreach of our sport to people who are not in our sport,” he said.

“It’s a great sport, whether you ride or not. Our sport is interesting. Everyone in our sport knows it’s interesting. We have to tell the story to people outside of our sport.”