EventingUSA

Dear Members of the Equestrian Community,

This past weekend at the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day, Laine Ashker suffered a serious fall during the cross-country stage of the competition. She is currently in critical condition at the University of Kentucky hospital in Lexington. Laine’s horse and another involved in a separate accident had to be euthanized.

These accidents come just a month after Darren Chiacchia, an Olympic rider, had a serious fall at an event in Tallahassee, Florida. They also come in the wake of a recent article in the New York Times about 15 rider fatalities in cross country that have occurred worldwide over the last two years.

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I told you that I would report back to the membership after our Strategic Planning meeting in Leesburg, which took place this past Friday and Saturday.  Before I do so, please allow me to describe the avalanche of responses I have received from concerned members since I posted my message on the USEA website early last week soliciting your input.  So far, approximately 500 members have emailed or called me.  Dozens more have contacted the various Area Chairs or the USEA staff.  Those who have contacted us have included a broad cross-section of our membership—grass-roots Eventers as well as some of the biggest names in the sport.  I have heard from adult amateur riders at every level, trainers and coaches at every level, young riders at every level, Olympic gold medalists, riders who are just taking up the sport and hoping to compete at beginning novice, members who have been involved in the sport for forty-plus years, Badminton champions, riders whose lifelong goal is to move up to preliminary, veterinarians, officials, organizers, course designers and builders, owners of four-star (and in some cases Olympic medalist) horses, spouses and parents of elite-level riders, and many, many concerned parents of aspiring young riders.  I have also received a number of emails from Eventers in Canada, New Zealand and England.  I have heard from many people who are considering leaving the sport, are currently on the sidelines considering whether they are comfortable re-entering the sport,  or who are wrestling with whether to allow their children to take up (or continue in) the sport.

Perhaps most significantly, I have heard from nearly 200 of you who have identified yourself as members of the “silent generation” of Eventing professionals, a group who have heretofore usually not spoken up about their concerns regarding the direction of the sport.  What is truly extraordinary is that dozens of well-known riders and trainers—some of whom have been competing at the four-star level and vying for U.S. Equestrian Team positions—consider themselves part of that “silent generation.”

Equally extraordinary is what you have to say.  These have not been one-line messages.  Instead, the vast majority of you have poured out your hopes, dreams, fears and frustrations in great detail, and have often confided in me your personal stories in Eventing to help put your insights and suggestions into better context.  I am deeply impressed by the thoughtfulness of your messages and the nearly universal recognition of the complexity of the issues our sport faces.  It is clear that you “get it,” and you are hoping that we (those of us in the governance of the sport) get it too.

I have returned dozens of your messages, but no one has yet invented a 30-hour day, so I must confess that my capacity to respond in a timely fashion to everyone who has called or written has suffered a major meltdown.  Even many of my close friends in the sport have not yet received a response.  I ask all of you to please forgive me for the delay in responding.  I am reading every message I get—and sharing your ideas with my colleagues—and will respond personally to each and every one of you who emails or calls.  That process will just take some time.  The USEA will also take steps to set up regular forums for communication with members and otherwise to keep the dialogue with the members going, and we will additionally be developing ways to utilize the talents of the scores of you who have volunteered to be part of the solution (and to get more involved with the Association generally in various capacities).  Again, please bear with us as we process all of this extremely valuable (and very heartening) input.

And finally, please do not read my disclaimer about being swamped by responses as a cry for mercy.  If you have something to say (or even if you already contacted me but now have something more to say), don’t hesitate to email or call me.  There was no artificial deadline created by the Strategic Planning meeting, and we still want (and need) to hear your voices.  Again, my email address is kbaumgardner@corrcronin.com, and my phone number is (206) 621-1480.

What message did you give us?  Well over 90 percent of those who responded said some variation of the following:

We must reverse the prevailing trends in cross-country course design at all levels—that is, let’s tone down the emphasis on technical difficulty, on packing courses with tight turns and complexes taken at show-jumping speed, and on sorting out the field.  Instead, let’s swing the pendulum back towards courses that emphasize the rhythm of the gallop and that are focused on being horse and rider-friendly .

Another message that came through loud and clear:

We must slow down optimal speeds where appropriate given the nature of the course, constraints imposed by the size of the venue, terrain, footing, etc.

Then there was this:

The direction of our sport should not be dictated in a top-down fashion by a few entrenched individuals; instead, we need accountability at all levels and need new voices to be heard in the governance of Eventing in this country.

And finally this:

Let’s make Eventing fun again.

Those were by far the four most prevalent messages.  Your emails also contained dozens of other creative ideas on topics including safety, how to open up governance of the sport, etc.   I did my best to synthesize and communicate your input to the participants in the Strategic Planning session (who included, among others, a majority of the USEA board of governors).

So what did we do in Leesburg?  To begin with, we scrapped the long-established agenda and, with the excellent on-the-fly help of our facilitator Bud Crouch, spent virtually all of the session on this one topic.  It was an intense and emotionally exhausting day-and-a-half.  We discussed, debated and argued with uncompromising frankness the issues faced by the sport.  We tried to confront head-on the truths that lie right under the surface of those issues.  One of those truths is that Eventing is a risk sport—nothing we do will ever change that fact.  Another truth is that anyone who gallops an Event horse out of a start box must exercise a good measure of personal responsibility.  Yet another is that anyone who tells you there is a quick and easy way to resolve the multiple challenges facing the sport is either a fool or a liar (or both).  The issues are complex, and so will be the solutions.  For that reason, we discussed a wide range of safety-related ideas (many suggested by members in their messages) including such diverse examples as instituting mandatory competitor meetings before cross-country, increasing minimum ages for riders to compete at preliminary and intermediate, increasing the availability of ICP-certified instructors, funding a study relating to the cause and prevention of pulmonary hemorrhages in sport horses, and finding ways to identify and penalize dangerous riding on a much more regular basis—there were many more, I couldn’t even begin to list them all.  We also agreed—and here acknowledge—that there are legitimate concerns about conflicts of interest that need to be addressed.

But in the end, convinced that the complexity of the issues facing the sport should not be an excuse for inaction, we determined that the most pressing immediate need was to deal with the cross-country course design and optimal time issues.  So we unanimously voted to take immediate action to reverse the trends in course design and to slow down speeds where appropriate.  We also unanimously voted on a set of six guiding principles that address our overall philosophy in responding to the four main areas of member concerns communicated to us.

We did not formulate specific cross-country course design or speed standards (although we discussed those topics at length, and came up with some ideas).  Instead, we decided that it was appropriate to give the USEA Eventing Standards Task Force—the group I appointed in December to address this very issue, and that has been chaired by Darren Chiacchia—a strong directive to develop proposed standards on an expedited basis so that they can be submitted for action by the USEF Eventing Technical Committee at the meeting that will take place on the Wednesday before the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event.  As I mentioned in my earlier message, Gina Miles has agreed to serve as acting chair of that task force during Darren’s convalescence.

The specific motion that was the end-product of our discussions, first passed on a unanimous vote of the Strategic Planning Group, then immediately ratified and adopted by a unanimous vote of the Board of  Governors (a quorum of the Board was present at the meeting), reads as follows:

The USEA Board of Governors, on March 22, 2008. hereby unanimously resolves to:

1) Adopt the six Guiding Principles as a policy statement of USEA:

    USEA Guiding Principles

(2) Direct and authorize the Eventing Standards Task Force to take immediate action to reverse the trends in course design and slow down speeds where appropriate, consistent with Item 3 in the Guiding Principles.

(3) Direct and authorize the Eventing Standards Task Force to present rule change proposals in accordance with Item 2 above, to be acted on by the USEF Eventing Technical Committee in its April 23, 2008 meeting.

(4)    Provide the Eventing Standards Task Force with communications received from USEA members to guide them in making these rule change proposals.

So here’s the plan:  The Eventing Standards Tasks Force is scheduled to meet (via telephone) this coming Thursday, March 27, to start the process of hammering out proposed rule changes.  As noted in paragraph 4 of the motion passed by the Board, we will provide the task force with the emails and other communications I and my colleagues have received from you (with the exception of those messages that you have asked me to hold confidential) to help guide them in this process.  Again, we hope and expect to have rule change proposals regarding cross country design and speed standards drafted, approved by the task force and submitted to the USEF Eventing Technical Committee (chaired by USEA Governor and Strategic Planning participant Malcolm Hook, who is also a member of the Eventing Standards Task Force) in advance of  the Rolex meeting in late April.  I am a member of the Eventing Technical Committee, as are several other USEA Governors. 

We will update you regularly in this space as this process unfolds. 

I am very pleased to report that USEF Safety Committee chair Andrew Ellis has contacted the USEA and informed us that he endorses this effort.

I should emphasize once again that we in the USEA leadership are not losing sight of the other issues identified by the membership, including the need for more two-way communication between the leadership and Eventers at all levels of the sport, the need for fostering frank discussion without the perception of intimidation, and the need for introducing “new blood” into the governance of the sport.  Nor are we planning on abandoning the many other safety-related ideas put forth by our membership.  To the contrary, we plan to address those ideas once this initial expedited push on cross-country course design and speeds has taken place.  This will be a continuing process.

And I want to mention one other thing that I believe is crucial to this process:  We must not become bogged down in finger-pointing or characterize this issue as “good guys” versus “bad guys.”  We are at a crossroads now in the direction of our sport, and all of us, and the sport itself, will be losers if we divert our focus from taking positive steps forward and instead become mired in personal attacks.  That is not to say we should avoid standing up and fighting for what we believe in, but to my mind one of the great strengths of our sport has always been the quality of the people involved—all of the people involved—so let’s pull together and move forward as a community.

Again, please don’t stay on the sidelines.  We solicit your input, and fully expect to be accessible and accountable to our membership. 

I am very heartened and gratified by the overwhelming response to my letter that was posted last night on this website.  Numerous Eventers from all areas of the country and all segments of the sport have emailed me with expressions of their support as well as with many thoughtful comments and ideas.   I ask you to continue to provide me with your thoughts.  I also want to assure everyone who has written (or will write) that my colleagues in the USEA leadership and I are listening and plan to move forward on these critical issues.  I also intend to respond personally to everyone who takes the time to contact me, but please allow me some time to review and assimilate your ideas.  Let’s definitely keep the dialogue going.

I will report back to the membership in this space following our strategic planning meeting this weekend in Leesburg.

Eventers everywhere are deeply saddened by the accidents that occurred this past weekend at the Red Hills Horse Trials in Tallahassee, Florida.  First and foremost, our thoughts, prayers, and heartfelt wishes for a speedy recovery go out to our dear friend and USEA board member Darren Chiacchia.  Darren is an extraordinary horseman who has worked tirelessly on behalf of the sport of Eventing.  We also send our condolences to Jonathan Holling and Missy Miller and those connected with Direct Merger and Leprechauns Rowdy Boy.  These beloved horses were the best of the best—they will be missed.  Furthermore, the USEA recognizes the excellent work of the Red Hills’ Organizing Committee under very trying circumstances.

The sad news from Red Hills comes at a time when the USEA is taking a hard look at the sport of Eventing.  During the December 2007 Convention in Colorado Springs, the USEA reaffirmed its commitment to horse and rider safety as the paramount consideration in the governance of our sport.  The centerpiece of the Convention, the all-day-Saturday G10 Summit, was devoted exclusively to a full and open discussion of the safety issue among all of the stakeholders in the sport—riders, trainers, coaches, breeders, owners, officials, organizers, parents.  A number of positive changes came out of our discussions in Colorado Springs, including the implementation of beefed-up qualification standards at preliminary level and higher that will go into effect this December 1.

Having said that, I remain deeply concerned with the direction the sport has taken over the past several years.  It would be unfair and counterproductive at this juncture to focus on any one incident, cross-country course, or horse trials.  We should never jump to conclusions regarding single incidents, let alone lose sight of the fact that there is, and will always be, an element of risk in any sport involving horses.  And I will never point fingers or be a party to personal attacks on any individual involved in the sport, no matter how much I might disagree with his or her views.  But the overall trends, particularly over the last three years, are unmistakable—and in my view totally unacceptable.  I know that my concern that the sport has gotten off track is shared by many of our members, amateurs and professionals alike.

We seem to be in an ever-spiraling loop in which the aspect of cross-country that attracted most of us to the sport in the first place, the joy and thrill of galloping rhythmically over jumps across country, has been replaced with questions of extreme technicality and a proliferation of combinations taken at show-jump speed.  It appears that the driver behind this emphasis on increased technical difficulty is the need to challenge and sort out the elite combinations competing at the highest levels of the sport. The net effect of this shift in emphasis, however, has not been confined to the upper levels.  Rather, because of the need for each level to serve as preparation for the next, the sport has been altered all the way to the novice and training levels.  This has left a large proportion of our core USEA membership—the 90-plus percent of Eventers who will never compete above preliminary—asking whether there is a place left for them in the sport. 

Our members want courses that provide fun and challenge, and that leave both horse and rider feeling elated and wanting more.  Unfortunately, this is all too frequently not the experience that is reported by many of our members.  Cross-country should be a positive, exhilarating and educational experience for an appropriately prepared horse and rider.  That is particularly true at the levels populated by adult amateurs and youngsters. 

And what about our horses?  Does the gallop-collect-gallop-collect nature of many of our courses, combined with the rigid adherence to established optimal speeds despite the twistiness of many modern courses, best serve the talents and abilities of our mounts?  We owe the highest duty of care and compassion to these wonderful animals—in my view, the bravest and most noble horses in the world.

What can we do?  The answer is plenty.  To begin with, we need the active participation of our membership.  When you are concerned with the direction of the sport you love, it is not good enough to sit on the fence and passively watch events unfold.  Get involved!  And I don’t mean just the “grass roots” USEA membership (which judging by the large number of emphatic emails I have received in the last few days is already energized).  We also need the active involvement of a broad spectrum of our Eventing professionals, the riders, trainers and officials out there who do not belong to the small coterie who have dominated the direction of the sport over the past twenty years.  I believe there is a “silent generation” of Eventing professionals, most in their thirties or early forties, who are concerned with the current condition of the sport.  In large part, these professionals have not actively participated in the governance of the sport or spoken up publicly, perhaps because they feel that their voices won’t be heard or, worse, because they feel intimidated by the “old guard” at the top.  Well, I have a message for that “silent generation”:  now is the time to speak up.  I challenge all Eventing professionals to take a stand on this critical issue and get involved.  It’s now or never.  I promise that your voices will be heard.  And I also have a message for those who would block constructive change in the sport:  Expect a fight.  Neither I nor the USEA is going to stand idly by while our sport continues down this path. 

Over the past several months, Darren Chiacchia has taken a leadership role in terms of looking at how we can modify our national level courses, particularly at preliminary and training, to better suit the majority of horses and riders competing at these levels.  Through his position as chairman of the Professional Horsemen’s Council, Darren worked with multiple USEA committees and spearheaded the development of a “white paper” on potential changes to cross-country courses that was presented to the Board of Governors in Colorado Springs.  Included among the concepts discussed in the white paper were fewer technical questions, more forgiving jump faces, fewer combinations, more realistic optimal speeds and the like.  I appointed Darren as the leader of a USEA task force charged with converting the ideas in the white paper into concrete rule-change proposals, to be submitted to the USEA Board of Governors and then forwarded on for action by the USEF Eventing Technical Committee (chaired by my fellow USEA Governor Malcolm Hook).  During Darren’s convalescence, I have asked Gina Miles, his close collaborator in developing the white paper, to move forward with the task force’s work on an expedited basis.  A number of other prominent figures in the sport, among them Kim Severson, have also volunteered to become actively involved in this effort.  I, too, will work closely with this task force.  I believe it is equally important that all segments of our membership forcefully express their views on the necessity of the types of changes being addressed by this task force.  Please pass your thoughts on to me—I will forward them to Gina, Kim and the other members of the task force.

On a separate track, the USEA will immediately investigate avenues to work with veterinarians and equine research professionals to find ways to reduce the stressors on our horses and explore the mechanisms of equine cardiovascular failure.  If it makes sense to do so, I will ask the USEA Board of Governors to commit funding to this effort.  We reaffirm the USEA’s commitment to ensuring the well-being of our equine partners as well as the safety of our riders.

As many of you are aware, the USEA Board will be conducting a strategic planning session in Leesburg, Virginia this coming Friday and Saturday.  This will be a topic for the meeting and I will solicit additional input on ways to move forward quickly and positively with these initiatives. 

Again, this is no time for fence-sitting.  If you believe it is time to stand up for your sport, please make your voice heard and volunteer to be part of the solution.  Please contact me at kbaumgardner@corrcronin.com or at (206) 621-1480.