I’m hoping that there just may be a silver lining in the national equestrian governing body turmoil that’s cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and consumed uncountable human resources in the past four years, a conflict whose latest skirmish we report on page 46. It’s forced us to ponder, for the first time, the things our national governing body does and doesn’t do for horses, horsemen and horse sports.
Our governance system grew up in the 20th century as sort of a mythical two-headed eel. The American Horse Shows Association was, until 1980, an association of horse shows, whose leaders had no interest in stepping into the gap left by the U.S. Army’s retreat from horses following World War II. So some foresighted individuals created the U.S. Equestrian Team, and they worked quite well together until personalities clashed in 1997.
Now we must put them together into one national governing body, so sayeth the U.S. Olympic Committee. That couldn’t happen at last winter’s Strategic Planning Initiative, and a month from now, it looks as if the USOC will tell us which is to be our new, all-inclusive NGB. One insider told me that we should probably bet both horses on the USOC decision.
So it seems like a good time for our readers to suggest to our leaders what we want from an NGB, something our website’s bulletin board denizens have been doing for the past month (www.chronofhorse.com). As I mentioned last week, I’ve followed a very thoughtful and wide-ranging thread there, and I invite our bulletin board members to continue posting and our readers to write Letters to the Editor with your opinions.
I hope we can all agree that our NGB has to handle all international competition functions since they’re the top of our sporting pyramid and that it must handle the necessary regulatory functions (rules writing and enforcement, officials’ education and licensing, date regulation, etc.). But what else should it do?
One of our bulletin board members posted seven areas she thinks an NGB should be involved in. They’re all areas in which our NGB has historically been, at best, only modestly involved. They are: 1) Support for B- and C-rated circuits, especially ones in trouble; 2) Support for clinics and educational opportunities; 3) Publicity for upper-level riders as spokesmen and images for the sport; 4) Equal respect for all disciplines, including pleasure/trail riding (equal time in the NGB’s publications; equal support, both moral and financial); 5) Assistance in local efforts to maintain open land, trails and equestrian venues; 6) development of trainer/instructor qualification levels and certification; 7) Incorporation/support of U.S. Pony Clubs and 4-H horse programs into the national structure.
The question with these very good suggestions is, how monolithic and expensive do we want our NGB to become? Other national organizations, like the U.S. Combined Training Association and the U.S. Dressage Federation, are already deeply involved in education and instructor certification. Perhaps the key word is support, which can come in so many ways.
The theme in these suggestions, and others on this thread, is true incorporation of the hundreds of thousands of people and horses who participate in equestrian sports at the grass roots. We’re talking about thousands of kids and adults in riding schools, the endangered species of B- and C-rated shows, the hundreds of schooling shows, starter horse trials and dressage schooling shows, and Pony Club and 4-H. The leaders of the new federation will need to find ways to nourish them (probably in conjunction with other organizations) without charging fees that overwhelm their attractiveness and accessibility. That will be a very tall order.
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