Photo via Flickr
First, let me give a big congratulations to Neville Bardos and his entire team of supporters for winning the International HOTY award at the USEF convention last night. For all of us Neville fans, this is just one more step forward on a campaign that we hope will end on the podium at London. Huzzah! I know the USEF feels the need to make national (non-WEG) disciplines happy, but making Neville share the HOTY award with a Friesian named Sjoerd is slightly absurd. That is of course unless Sjoerd survived a near death experience and then danced around a four-star a few months later. You might recognize a certain famous EN writer with a lovely accent narrating Neville’s epic presentation video [here]. Now let’s talk about falling off…
Between 2pm and 6pm ET this afternoon the USEF Board of Directors will vote on a change to eventing’s current one rider fall and you’re out rule. As you know, US eventing’s rules are governed by the USEF. At the USEA Convention in December, the USEF’s Eventing Technical Committee decided to postpone their vote on modifying the one fall and out until their January meeting at the USEF convention. During their meeting on Thursday, the Technical Committee narrowly voted to move the rule change forward but with a significant modification to the rule discussed at the USEA Convention. The rule moving forward to the USEF Board allows riders at any level to continue after one rider fall under certain circumstances rather than just riders at beginner novice, novice, and training level.
Let’s look at the original wording of the rule with the Technical Committee’s modification, as transcribed over the phone from Mr. Malcolm Hook:
“At the beginner novice, novice, and training levels, a rider who falls may continue, provided that he maintains control of his horse and can remount immediately. Should the horse escape, or the rider require medical evaluation he will be eliminated. If an air vest has deployed it must be deflated or removed before the rider may continue. No timeout will be employed in this eventuality.”
The Technical Committee struck out the first part and then narrowly voted it forward.
To make things more complicated, the USEF’s Safety Committee voted against this rule change. This morning I spoke with rule guru Malcolm Hook who probably knows more about rules than everyone at the USEF Convention combined plus Chuck Norris, and who chairs the Technical Committee and vice-chairs the Safety Committee. Mr. Hook explained that when one committee votes for a rule change proposal the USEF’s Legislative Committee can refer that rule (fixed in wording) to one or more other committees. In this case the Safety Committee got a chance to vote on the rule change and they voted it down. The rule will thus move forward to the Board with a vote up from the Technical Committee and a vote down from the Safety Committee. Mr. Hook explained to me that the USEF Board doesn’t have a chance to re-word the rule, they can only give it a straight up or down vote. The Board could of course also pass the buck by not putting it up for a vote through apocalyptic bureaucratic techniques such as dividing by zero.
I spoke with other Technical Committee members, who added that the decision to open the rule to all levels was based on the opinion that the preliminary level is still very much an educational level and that riders at the upper levels would have more experience evaluating whether or not they are fit to get back on and proceed. The consensus is that opening the rule up to all levels will not have a big impact on whether or not the USEF Board approves the rule change because the Board will focus on the principle of the rule rather than the nuances. Generally speaking, it seems that the riders are more in favor of the rule change than non-riding members.
Personally, I don’t like the odds of the rule change passing the USEF Board this afternoon. The Safety Committee’s down vote is a huge blow to reversing the one fall rule. Also, we need to remember the absurdity and frustration that this major rule in eventing is going to be determined by a board of nearly 50 people, of which less than 10% are major members of the eventing community. USEF President David O’Connor will likely give his opinion on the rule in this meeting and that opinion will have a huge impact, particularly on everyone who knows nothing about eventing.
[USEF Committee and Board Member Lists]
In an EN poll at the USEA Convention, 70% of EN respondents voted that they support reversing the current one fall elimination rule for training and below.
Let’s take a new vote on the revised wording:
Only one thing is certain–this is a tough and divisive issue for which there is no comprehensively satisfactory solution. Stay tuned…
