I don’t read their SM – what do you mean “supportive statements”? Supportive of Moroney’s statements at the convention, or supportive of ED et. al.? ty for clarification 
What he’s doing poorly is communicating with clarity. Just what he says is one of three key improvements that are needed.
What’s clear is that he’s hiding the real reasons. Hiding. People aren’t idiots, they certainly see that and won’t be satisfied with stonewalling.
Maybe people wouldn’t be angry if they knew the specific reasons for releasing these 3 individuals? He’s dancing around the reasons. That will never, ever go over well.
If it were just one person released, people might be shocked, but a bit more willing to give a benefit of the doubt that something sketch was going on that they don’t really want to know. But three gone – what are all 3 failing at that means that eventing are better off chucking them overboard? What specifically needs to be overhauled? (Give spelled-out real-life examples, we don’t read minds.) ‘Everything’ is not an answer. It’s corporate BS.
That’s what eventing wants to know.
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Does this lend more credence to the idea that a major donor might have been behind this?
If that were true, it would be very embarrassing for the organization. If that got out it would make Moronoey look like a fool.
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My comments are more to agree with OverandOnward’s comments and aren’t directed specifically to the decision to oust ED:
The CEO has certainly been hands-on and invested in trying to restructure the entire sport of eventing, including the calendar. Not many people have seen yet what changes the “Ideal Calendar” will bring – it is going to alter everything, and for all levels going forward. The Riders don’t like it, and the organizers don’t like it, so it isn’t clear who it is “Ideal” for == one thing is clear, though. Mr. Moroney has been behind pushing it and at one point so far, specifically trying to prevent one event from filing a protest – a protest that was settled by USEF admitting they made a mistake, but oddly enough, not in public.
He is a master at saying things that mean nothing. And clearly doesn’t understand sports that aren’t H/J. In fact, in contacting “stakeholders” in the Dressage world, upset about the situation with WEC, he suggested they consider showing at Terra Nova instead. Which has no USDF shows on its calendar.
Um, what?
This mess is really weird.
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Is that a reference to Jersey fresh?
And what is this about the “ideal calendar”?
I was disappointed about what happened to Jersey Fresh. My initial reaction is that USEF or whoever is making the decisions seems to be following the very big money.
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They have been publicly supportive of ED, I believe their posts have been shared upthread.
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So we are waiting for another shoe to drop.
Ah, no. It was in reference to what USEF did to the Florida Horse Park – you might have seen that there was a press release about two weeks after the bulk of the “Ideal Calendar” awards were made that announced they were giving dates on the calendar to FHP for their Advanced in Week 16 and Week 40.
Those dates were originally denied and then awarded. The press release didn’t explain why USEF didn’t give the dates originally. I guess transparency only goes so far? Or doesn’t exist at all as far as I can tell.
The “Ideal Calendar” is what USEF is now calling the calendar that was awarded by bid for the FEI and upper levels for 2023-2027. Hugh Lochore and the Area II Chair, Melissa Stubenberg, both did a great job pointing out the issues with the calendar going forward. I believe a lot of riders at P and below haven’t paid much attention because it appears to affect only upper level events. That isn’t true, however, as the awards are made with all the other levels that the event will run as well.
To give an illustration – Rocking Horse usually has a Spring event on the weekend that falls around the first of April. On the new calendar system, this is known as “Week 13.” Well, going forward, Week 13 goes to Terra Nova. Under the old system, where organizers worked out dates among themselves, no one would have tried to allow a new event to come in that geographically close to an existing event. Under the new system, mileage rules no longer apply, and USEF made the decision to award that date to TN, and the answer to RH was “well, no one says you can’t run on the same date.”
Which is ludicrous. TN runs starter through 4* and is geographically closer to RH than any other event. Even though they are running BN-I and not the 4*, it would be financial suicide for them to try to run on the same date. So, RH, which someone relatively local can compete at for about $350, is gone from that weekend, and the only option is TN, which the same person has calculated will cost between $750-1000 for them to compete there that weekend, if they even WANTED to, but they don’t. They want to ride at RH. Which has held an event that weekend for something like 30 years.
Same situation as Hugh explained in the meeting. He has had an event at Chatt Hills on week 14 since 1991 (well, it was run by others, and at their other property, but still). He has been able to run on the same date as Tryon, and they have made it work. But now, Week 14 belongs to Stable View (which was, incidentally, not a date they wanted, but rather a date that USEF lobbied them to take). Stable View is two hours from Chatt Hills. Now, it will be totally financially not feasible for Chatt Hills to run those levels on that weekend, because SV isn’t running “just” a 4*, they are running all levels. And drawing from the same pool of riders.
Several events filed disputes about the way this system was handled. USEF has already ruled against them, with the response of “you have no proof that our rules weren’t followed.” But, also “no, we won’t give you any details, recordings of meetings, copies of emails or other information, because nah nah nah, we don’t have to and you can’t make us.”
The USEF dispute system has no framework for being able to get discovery, so even though it was requested, the requests were ignored.
This is relevant to the current discussion mostly as another example of the way USEF is not serving its members, or fulfilling its mission of preparing riders for international competition. I have yet to speak to a single ULR that is happy about the new calendar. And the CEO’s involvement seems rather heavy, for such a thing. The only real exhibit USEF attached to its response was an affidavit from him that said, among other platitudes, “well, this system does work and was followed, because we corrected our mistake as relates to the Florida Horse Park.”
Um, not until after a dispute was filed, and you actively involved yourself in trying to talk them into not filing a dispute.
And what happened to Jersey was heartbreaking. They didn’t get a “bid” awarded, and on the day that happened, sponsors walked out the door, and the organizers were left with no choice but to cancel.
One of my to-dos tomorrow is to sit down with 2022 and 2023 and see exactly what events are missing. Week 12 has not a single event on the calendar, five weeks before Kentucky. And I overheard an ULR say that all of the events that were on the plan for getting ready for Kentucky in a normal year are no longer available.
Why does giving riders less choice make sense? Were all the organizers happy with the way things were working? Probably not, but now? No one is happy.
And perhaps the biggest joke of all? Calling this farce a “bid process” where the idea was that events submitted a bid for the weekends and the best were chosen. Um, when you contact different events and beg them to take dates, even though you already have bids for those dates, but they aren’t the “right” ones, and then you deny other events with a spurious reason, and have to reverse that decision two weeks later? And when you deny the 4* to an event that has been running for 20+ years and has more community involvement and more spectators than any event other than Kentucky?
Something funky went on here, and I still think it needs to be brought into the open, but JA was involved in most of it, and she’s just been fired. And the CEO was involved too, but he gets to fire her without telling anyone why. It appears that USEF has strayed from its mission to function as the National Governing Body and provide methods for preparing riders for international competition. And that is the only reason USEF has any immunity from antitrust litigation.
You can tell this issue makes both the lawyer in me angry, and the USEF member in me angry.
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and where is the notion of major calendar changes coming from?
I won’t pretend to understand the new calendar system, but what was wrong with the way it was done up until now?
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What is the new system?
That is a good question – each area settled its own calendar, and those meetings could be contentious, but it still worked. Now? USEF has conducted this ridiculous bid process, which was a farce for them to hid behind while they just chose what events they wanted.
and HorseAlter – no one is sure. JA was behind a lot of the maneuvering that went on, but she’s been fired now, so that makes it even more confusing. Usually, in any type of investigation, “follow the money” is pretty good advice. But, even a couple of the big money players in this seem to be puzzled as to why they, too, were manipulated into some “Ideal Calendar” that was put together by a Strategic Calendar Task Force – which has now been disbanded, so when the other committees tried to say “This isn’t a good plan, we think it should be changed” they were told that the STCF was no more and they were stuck with the “Ideal Calendar” framework.
This whole thing stinks. And, it is been kept under wraps so people won’t ask questions. And, usually, I don’t think airing issues online is the way to a solution, but at this point, following the proper channels hasn’t worked either.
Something is rotten in Denmark. Or Lexington, as the case may be.
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See my long reply above.
Essentially a Strategic Calendar Task Force was created who designed an “Ideal Calendar” for 2023-2027. Events were invited to submit bids for dates on the calendar. Supposedly, the best bids would win the dates.
The one I worked on was 47 pages, and included a video, charts, and more information than you could get through. We didn’t get the 4* on the date that we have had for 20+ years. And were not given any explanation, other than that the “Ideal Calendar” didn’t have a 4* slotted for that date. And didn’t address the fact that the bid application said you could apply for a date not on the calendar, if you gave a written reason why.
Of course, only some events were told to ask for a “Presidential Modification” if they wanted to move the date on the “Ideal Calendar.” We were not such a “favored event” and had no communication from USEF up to, and including the date on which the bids were awarded. JA had to be reached by telephone to ask where our award letter was.
It is a mess, and if we’d “lost” out in a fair bid system, I’d understand it. But, this wasn’t a fair system. It was a farce conducted to hide the fact that USEF was just picking and choosing the calendar to suit someone at USEF. Now, who that is? I am not sure. And without any discovery responses, I may never know.
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I agree completely with everything you said. Coming from the corporate world, if just the facts were laid out in front of me with no rumours attached, I would be entirely convinced we were looking at fraud or major misconduct of some kind (SafeSport or otherwise). A hasty removal of a large swath of people who hold a successful and recent performance record with no replacement plan in place just screams “someone did a bad thing”.
Alas, I know better, and this is the horse world. Things don’t have to make sense here. And I’m virtually certain we’d have at least heard something by now if there was misconduct, because horse people aren’t exactly tightlipped about that sort of thing. So given that, I think 2 or 3 on your list are probably more likely. Sigh…
Dom got it exactly right in that statement you posted @enjoytheride.
This makes me want to put my head through a table:
Well, you aren’t going to find out if those results are sustainable if you change everything, now are you?! The man has clearly never trained a creature of any kind in his life. “I like the direction this is going, so let’s take the opportunity to change everything. The widespread unprecedented success is probably unrelated to the coaching program and just the result of the same riders we’ve always had doing the same things they’ve always done and coming up with different results”. Mmhm.
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Random hunter-jumper person jumping in here, as I recall Billy Moroney from way back when (though my memory is fuzzy).
About 30 years ago, he was a local Zone 3 hunter-jumper trainer - mostly juniors and ponies, as I recall. Then he got the gig training Paige Johnson. From that role, he ended up gradually transitioning over into governance, is how I recall it.
I was showing in the ponies/juniors at the same time he was training - I don’t remember too much bad about him at the time - just another zone 3 pony trainer.
Not posting this to either defend him or criticize him - just giving background from someone who remembers seeing him setting jumps for a kid way back when.
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As an owner of two HP horses, I have had some frank phone calls with my riders about my thoughts on this. And as a HP owner, I can tell you, I have not had ANYONE from USEF reach out before or after the ED/JA terminations. It’s very disappointing to me.
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That’s terrible.
I don’t own an HP horse, but I am heavily invested in other ways, likely with not the same visibility to USEF, but I know the people in my circle are also very upset about this.
What will it take to get rid of the CEO?
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I am sorry and disappointed to hear this. As an owner of HP horses, your input is important and valid to the future of the sport in the US.
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Not for nothing, some of these events - actually, all of them - are important economic events in their community. Hotel rooms, restaurant and fast food meals, and some shopping put money in the system. When an event has run for a decade or more, local non-horsey people have begun to count on it for some income.
When a large and complex system has many connecting effects throughout the system, giving the entire pot a big stir tends to do more harm than good.
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You are absolutely correct. The data that we have complied is that, for instance, Red Hills has a 5 million dollar impact on the community. If we lose the event because of a decision by USEF, it doesn’t just affect a small group of competitors and volunteers, but the community as a whole.
It’s a real shame.
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