Amateur Status

[BONSR22901]

Hello,

I’m a hunter/jumper re-rider who hasn’t shown in years and only did so at the local schooling/4-H level when I did (probably would still only do local schooling shows). When I was 18-19, I helped give a few lessons (which I received money for) to a few local kids wanting to learn the basics of pleasure riding, but stopped at 19 for college. I’m now in my late 20’s and haven’t received money for any other equestrian activity.

My question is would this affect my amateur status all these years later? I was not showing at the time and have never been a member of USEF. I read USEF’s rules and it says an amateur is someone who has not given lessons or anything like that after their 18th birthday though. How does this work?

Thanks

[Renn_aissance]

You are eligible to be reinstated as an amateur if you have not received remuneration for qualifying activities in this period of time. Since you have never before done a USEF show, I think you are well within the spirit of the rule if you just sign up as an amateur rather than sign up as a pro and go through the reinstatement process because of something you did in college.

[OnDeck]

Welcome to the confusing wormhole of the USEF amateur rule!

Sign up as an amateur.

[hoopoe]

OP you can contact the USEF and ask. They field questions about the rules all the time. Best get the correct information directly from them

[StormyDay]

Sign up as an ammy. IIRC you can reinstate your amateur status after 6 years anyways, so you would be past that time even if you had been a USEF member.

[IPEsq]

You can reclassify as an amateur after one year. Since you haven’t been a USEF member, just sign up as an amateur. You should be able to sign the amateur statement without making a false declaration IMO.

[Baybear]

You have never been a USEF member, therefore the “amateur” rule never applied to you as a nonmember, and you haven’t taught any lessons in what nearly 10 years? You also mention that you probably are only going to show locally so you don’t need to join USEF unless you want to. Maybe for now join as a noncompeting member so you can utilize some of their benefits if you want,.

[StormyDay]

Lol why did I think it was 6. Where did I get that random number from…

[joiedevie99]

@Renn_aissance

You are eligible to be reinstated as an amateur if you have not received remuneration for qualifying activities in this period of time. Since you have never before done a USEF show, I think you are well within the spirit of the rule if you just sign up as an amateur rather than sign up as a pro and go through the reinstatement process because of something you did in college.

This. Sign up as an amateur.

[Janet]

@hoopoe

OP you can contact the USEF and ask. They field questions about the rules all the time. Best get the correct information directly from them

I will reiterate that.
Email amateurinquiry@usef.org.

While it would seem “logical” that, if you have never been a USEF (AHSA, etc.) member, you could jus sign up as an Amateur, I remember a case (some years ago) when someone competing as an Amateur was penalized because they had some non-Amateur-acceptable-activities years before they ever joined USEF. They had joined as an Amateur, and had never applied for Amateur status re-instatement.

I suspect that , in that case, there was a lot of other non-Amateur activity that could not be proven, so they fell back to the part they COULD prove, even though it involved a very literal minded interpretation of the rules.

But if you email amateurinquiry, and get a response saying to join as an Amateur, then you have CYA.

If they say you have to go through the Amateur re-instatement process, go ahead and do it. It is much less onerous than it used to be, and they are trying to make it simpler.

[hoopoe]

oops

[Janet]

Huh? what does this have to do with the question asked, which was teaching beginners many years ago (no longer relevant)

[Scribbler]

ah it’s obviously an answer to another current thread about training barns!!!

[hoopoe]

I wondered what happened to the answer on that thread. My brain.