I think I read USEF will enforce whatever FEI hands down. FEI must still be investigating him. Otherwise they’d make a statement exonerating him, no?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a statement from the FEI exonerating anyone, so it would be a first!
I think FEI is going to kick the can down the road on this as long as possible (as @FitzE said) and try to punt it back to USEF once the rule change goes into effect. Then it’ll just be a game of hot potato, hoping people forget about what happened and let it fade from public view. 
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Yes, USEF is doing and is going to do sweet FA except ‘yeah, what they said’ to whatever the FEI eventually says. It’s complete dereliction of duty on their part: the organisation’s duty to protect horses and it’s duty to protect the sport.
They had the power to do something (their CoC) and simply refused to use it. Instead, they took proof positive of abuse outside a competition setting by a high-profile rider they heavily support and looked to their rule re: abuse at competitions to come up with a finding that, ‘oh, woe is we, we simply have no way to act here’ (looking only at your ‘at competition’ rule, no surprise you’re finding no reach outside competition 
), kicked it to the FEI, and are sitting back being useless AF while the FEI does/doesn’t do whatever they are doing/not doing.
Then they tout their new rule change to make it look like they care so much, but they proactively delayed the effective date of that rule change for several months. When questioned why, they claimed they need to staff up to handle all the abuse cases they will now have to look into. They could have allowed the rule change to take effect immediately (as it would have under their own rules if they had not instead set a very delayed effective date), logged in the cases that subsequently came in, and worked through them at the pace they could while staffing up. That was also an option, and the better option if you wanted to protect the most horses/stop the most abusers, but they chose not to take it.
I mean, it’s not like the FEI is moving swiftly by any stretch of the imagination. If this has been out there reported since May with no action, I’m sure the USEF could have done something in that time with their current staffing. It’s evasion, and weak evasion at that.
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That won’t work as it is irrelevant what happened before the effective date. That (in my view) is exactly why they delayed the effective date for so long.
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Your interpretation is that they’ll require proof that the abuse transpired after December 1st? That would effectively sanction abuse that took place prior.
If that is the case, there will be no need for whistleblowers to quietly approach governing bodies to report abuse that took place on, or before, November 30th. I’d expect their recourse to be full blast social media vigilante justice. Hopefully the areas being strengthened include robust protections for whistleblowers.
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That is absolutely my interpretation as most legal systems including the US abhor an ex post facto law and most organisations follow that same principle.
The rationale is that it is not fair to punish someone for something that was not against the law at the time it occurred. For example, I hate that my neighbour smokes cigars and makes the hallway stink. I would like it to be against the rules in our building. There is a fine schedule for violating rules. If I succeeded in getting a new bylaw prohibiting smoking, I could then report and ask that he be fined for continuing smoking after the new rule went into effect. But even I would find it unfair to fine him retroactively for something that was not restricted at the time.
This new USEF rule will most assuredly only apply to action one can prove happened on or after Dec. 1.
Or someone/some group can compell them apply their CoC to all past and current instances…
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If smoking cigars became illegal, the anti-cigar law would supersede whatever rules your building has about allowing or disallowing smoking. Lots of fines and fees are applied retroactively in the United States. Ask the IRS.
With horse abuse, the whistleblower currently reports it to the Humane Society or police, or sues the abuser civilly. Then USEF applies (or “can” apply) whatever the punishments or rulings were found to be. People had been bringing animal cruelty to the USEF as a professional courtesy to the abusive athlete. According to the email above, the USEF is preparing to directly investigate the abuse internally…after Dec.1st. So, until then, it’s preferable to pursue it criminally or just scream it from the rooftops. I’m just surprised that they’d want that. Even for a couple months.
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No. I’m talking solely about changing our internal building rules. They would not apply to the many years prior to the rule change that people have been smoking in this building. That would make no sense and people could not live normal lives never knowing what might be declared retroactively against the rules. It just makes no sense and is not practical to enforce.
This is such a good point. I don’t think they thought it through. I hope it results in everyone who has anything to report, reporting it via SM. That’s what the USEF and the FEI wrought at least in this case!
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She’s kind of extreme in her views with respect to professional riders.
I agree that there are serious issues and a noteworthy lack of accountability within the governing bodies of sport… but… not ALL pro riders are guilty of abusive conduct. That’s an overstatement.
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I shut it off after less than 5 minutes due to her pontificating about the evilness of ALL professional riders. Sure there are a lot of asshats in the business who shouldn’t be, but surely there are decent professionals out there.
ETA: There are easier ways to make a living than in the horse business.
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To me she comes across as being at least as concerned with how sensationalizing evilness might increase monetization of her account as with equine welfare.
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Oh her again. Tried to cash in on the suffering of Cyril Bertheau’s horses. She’s nothing but a pimp.
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Oh interesting.
Yeah… she just seems off to me.
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Yes she isn’t my fav but just sharing as relevant. At least over 20k more people know about this now.
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That’s fair
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Agreed. And she nicely demonstrates what USEF and FEI have wrought with their handling/lack of handling of this case and others: people are forced to go SM/court of public opinion b/c the governing bodies do nothing.
Once that’s the MO, people like this pick it up and run with it. People inside and outside the horse world then see it.
As bad as this particular person is, the governing bodies deserve this kind of coverage due to their complete and utter failure to address this stuff in an effective and timely manner. They made this bed; sadly even good horsepeople must now lie in it. The orgs are giving the sport and everyone in it a bad name.
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Yep! And where’s Andrew’s statement that’s coming!??
Quite the wait….
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FEI has the time and resources to design, produce and release a tool to measure noseband tightness in the name of horse welfare, but still nothing on how they plan to address the blatant and well-documented decade+ long campaign of abuse from Andrew McConnon, who is yet to be suspended. Brilliant.
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The gauge, which coincidentally is almost identical to the taper gauge launched by ISES in 2016…
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