“We are listening,” was the U.S. Equestrian Federation’s key message during its virtual annual meeting, responding to a perennial complaint from members who feel their views are not considered by what some have seen as a top-down organization.
Hearing the voices of membership and affiliates is a priority for Tom O’Mara, who succeeded Murray Kessler in the USEF presidency as the meeting ended over the weekend.
Meanwhile, USEF is actively soliciting members’ thoughts, including organizing a competition task force to deal with reform of its often-contentious competition licensing process. It’s also putting together a group to handle the issues of restive amateurs who recently have asked for their own “bill of rights.”
“The listening part is obviously critical and I always felt there was the ability to do that, but you’ve got to listen when people say it’s not happening. We have to make sure it’s happening. That’s why we need a concerted effort to listen, learn and lead together,” said Tom, quoting a slogan from the USEF marketing department that lays out the pathway for change.
USEF President Tom O’Mara. (Photo © 2020 by Nancy Jaffer)
People can’t always get an immediate response from USEF, as they do on social media, but they shouldn’t feel it’s a lack of transparency, Tom stated. The organization takes note of all input
“Serve the members. That’s our job,” he emphasized.
Tom, the federation’s former treasurer, noted USEF is a “revenue-constrained” organization, so more members would generate more sponsorship, meaning extra support for affiliates and other purposes.
“Great programs take more money,” commented Murray, who donated $50,000 of his own funds as a parting gift for para-equestrian development.
Murray Kessler, former USEF president. (Photo © 2020 by Nancy Jaffer)
During the meeting, the board voted $50,000 for an Opportunity Fund. That will go toward new diversity, equity and inclusion grants for organizations offering equestrian outreach to minorities and under-served communities.
“So many people in the U.S. love horses, but the joy of horses doesn’t mean that you have to be a competing equestrian,” said Tom, who sees other possibilities.
“For so long, our association and its predecessors focused on riding, training, competing and showing a horse. That’s our mission, as the National Governing Body, to make sure there’s an opportunity from the grass roots to high performance, and to field U.S. teams.
“We cannot lose focus on that. Sport is the most important thing. However, around that, is our job as an NGB to get everyone to ride a horse…or to watch someone ride a horse?” Tom asked, knowing there’s plenty of potential in the latter.
Retired from an investment banking and business development career, the USEF president is a problem-solver who will devote full time to his new role. That means a lot, since his record includes helping assure that NCAA equestrian would keep going for college riders when it was in danger of being cancelled, and leading the task force that worked out a drug-testing partnership with the University of Kentucky, after USEF’s own testing lab ran into major problems.
When USEF and the lavish new World Equestrian Center in Ocala reached an ugly impasse over show dates, Tom was involved in a thinking-outside-the-box compromise last month that enabled WEC to run under the National Snaffle Bit Association umbrella while avoiding sanctions against FEI riders, owners, horses and officials taking part in the facility’s winter series this year.
Tom O’Mara and Beezie Madden, the 2019 USEF Equestrian of the Year, at the 2020 awards ceremony. (Photo © 2020 by Nancy Jaffer)
“Glad to have WEC throwing a bit of disturbance into the show world,” one person wrote on social media about the drama. But USEF still feels it’s important to have shows that it licenses held at WEC.
“It’s a phenomenal facility,” said Tom.
“We have to work through the process to get there. I think it will be worked out over time.”
In other matters:
- USEF is ramping up its compliance efforts to insure shows meet expected standards. For this year, there is a new compliance director, and goals are to increase visits by those who will grade shows on everything from footing to facilities and developing a scorecard system that can categorize where competitions meet, exceed or fall short of regulations.
- Despite Covid, nearly two-thirds of the horse show calendar was able to run, with 729 license modifications needed to make it happen. USEF officials and staff put in a mighty effort to keep things going during the pandemic once showing began again June 1 after it had stopped for 11 weeks.
- Going forward, the competition task force will be working with a membership survey that drew nearly 4,000 responses (more than half of which were from those involved with hunters and jumpers) on how licensing can be improved for the 2,300 USEF horse shows.
- Suggestions focused on making licensing less restrictive in some ways and more restrictive in others.Members’ ideas also included mileage expiration after a certain number of weeks or years that a show runs, along with lack of compliance to standards as a reason for ending protection. Another idea involves no restrictions for smaller regional shows running against national or premier shows. There is the thought as well that show facilities which are owned or leased long-term by an applicant should have date protection that makes sense for organizers who are investing money into the venues. Another meeting on the subject will be held Jan. 25.
During the USEF’s virtual awards ceremony, show jumper Kent Farrington won the International Equestrian of the Year title. No surprise, as he was the lone nominee. Names of candidates for the William C. Steinkraus Trophy are put forward by each of the Olympic discipline affiliates, but “Kent was the only nomination we received this year,” a USEF spokesperson said.
The announcement of nominees came out Dec. 16, and voting continued through Jan. 2. Liz Halliday-Sharp, the first woman to become U.S. Eventing’s Rider of the Year since 1981, would have seemed a possibility in that discipline. Ditto Boyd Martin, who took the 4-star-Long national championship on Tsetserleg in Tryon, N.C.But as USEA CEO Rob Burk explained,
“Unfortunately, the USEF requires all nominations for the Equestrian of Honor or the Horse of the Year to be submitted by November 9. The USEA Rider of the Year came down to the very last event of the year from a points perspective and our season ends on November 30th. Our season was still quite active as of November. When the USEF reached out to us in October, we were not yet prepared to submit an annual Horse or Rider nomination; however we indicated that we were interested in submitting nominees for those awards once the season was closer to a conclusion.
“Once the Tryon CCI-4*L (November 11-15) was completed, we reached out again to the USEF but they indicated that the nominations were closed at that time. So unfortunately for us, the timing of the USEF award prevented submissions.
Another international discipline, dressage, saw limited FEI competition between March and the end of the season, but Adequan®/USDF Grand Prix Horse of the Year Suppenkasper was undefeated in 15 starts this year, under the guidance of Steffen Peters. His final victory came Nov. 22 in the Thermal Desert Dressage CDI3* Grand Prix Special .USDF President Lisa Gorretta said USEF’s timeline on nominations was “earlier than we were prepared for” and therefore no name was submitted.
Said the USEF spokesperson, “We’ve discussed this internally with our team and it is something we plan to address with the affiliates for the 2021 awards nominations process, since it’s the first time we’ve heard that feedback from them. We want as many athletes represented as possible, so we will try to improve this process next year to be sure everyone has enough time to submit nominees, particularly on the international side.”