The AERC has done the same. Now the ADS is alienated as well. 
https://www.chronofhorse.com/article…deration-split
The USEF gave ADS the heave-ho in 2017, a huge surprise to ADS members, which led to talks to be able to “return to the fold”. Consessions were made, but I think the breach had a lot of the ADS membership asking what real benefits being a member club actually had? Seemed like it just made things cost more, meeting their rules. The USEF wanted to run everything, set the rules, get the fees, with ADS folks doing all the work! USEF was very unwilling to give on anything that mattered. COTH had articles, news releases , on this at the time. If you do not compete internationally, there really are not any benefits to notice by lower level folks! ADS is mostly folks who like to compete, have fun, along with doing a number of the newer activities offered by the ADS. Not many international competitors. The ADS has TRAINED the driving Judges, Officials, puts on the clinics to keep them qualified, pretty much without USEF help. ADS writes the competition rules for ADS run CDEs, Pleasure showing, tries to keep costs down by not following FEI rules at lower levels. Actually I understand the FEI has no rules for lower level competitions, which is why the ADS wrote those rules. Being micro-managed by the USEF for activities, paying highly for the privilege. kind of stuck in your throat.
I think the ADS will manage just fine without being “in the club”. I feel badly for the international competitors, but something will be done by the USEF so they can continue to compete. They tend to land on their feet, have connections to manage, from things that happened in the past. My connections have spoken about the inequalities in chosen competitors because the USEF folks CAN be influenced by big sponsors and donations. It is never fair or equal, but that is horse competition and money speaks loudly.
Perhaps the money saved by the ADS can be well spent on more local level “happenings” that benefit bigger numbers of members. Tracking distance driving, Trek Drives, are new, and I expect other fun driving things are being thought up to be introduced. Heck, the ADTs and CTs are very recent developments for driving, seem to be very popular. Any stuff to get more driving folks having fun is a great thing!
The AQHA is not a USEF member any more with the Reining competition. Guess the fame was not worth the money and headaches of dealing with the USEF. They certainly have plenty of competition within their breed and the National Reining Association. So the ADS can join the ranks of the non-member Associations, they are in good company.
The above article link does not cast the USEF in a good light, with their inuendos that ADS allows bad things to happen! What a nasty slur, well answered by the ADS President!! The thing about slinging mud is that you get it on yourself when you throw it. USEF is making themselves look nasty and petty.
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It sounds as if the circumstances are pretty much the same as with the AERC split. I’m glad to hear that ADS members at the local and national level will be unaffected. Drive on!
The NRHA is separate from AQHA, so AQHA wasn’t really involved in that issue. I think with the reiners I would look a bit deeper into their philosophy on medication and how it might conflict with USEF/WADA… that and really all they got out of it was WEG so it probably wasn’t worth it.
The AERC probably split for some of the reasons ADS and at least in part to the opposite (speculated) reasons as the NRHA and a whole lot more because of their well deserved disgust with the FEI’s failure to take any substantive action to fix the horrible behavior in their discipline.
But I’m not sure if driving will benefit from this, because even if it is good for the ADS in the short term. There is no getting around the fact that USEF must have a driving affiliate, and that affiliate must comply with the IOC/WADA guidelines. So no matter how you look at it, our sport will have a USEF affiliate, ADS and the CAA. The phrase “house divided” comes to mind…
I’m not sure if the driving community followed the “how we got here” story as close as the h/j people did back in the great AHSA/USET kerfluffle, but basically due to IOC requirements, the Olympic team component (USET) needed to be under the same umbrella as the national discipline management organization (AHSA) which happened to have a long history of being the governing org of a lot of NON olympic (or even WEG) disciplines. Both of those needed to comply with WADA guidelines, that is how we got the USEF. Then USEF was required all their member orgs to comply with all sorts of things that might make sense if you were headed to the olympics (and plenty of good ethical practices and governance as well). But it comes at a price…
Another layer (Safe Sport) was passed by Congress as an additional requirement for those organizations with oversight over Olympic disciplines so by the IOC rules/req of member orgs, that req. now applied to all of USEF’s disciplines. Again, I’m pretty sure this cost $$ to deploy (and worth every penny if just ONE predator is stopped).
So a lot of the changes the ADS objects to (reasonable or not) are not entirely in the control of the USEF
But if you are a very small member org and you are not in the Olympics and completely stand alone (unlike hunters/eq which cannot reasonably be teased away from jumpers) I can see how this set of circumstances tips to burdensome, not beneficial.
