Eventing Nation booted from covering Event in Unionville, PA

they wouldn’t even need to change the legal name (the business I worked with on this didn’t). Since this is an optical issue, they just needed to file a DBA.

Not according to USEF they wouldn’t.

Other people who have years of experience with doing this have weighed in along the way and the costs were not trivial and none of this is easily done.

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And add, that I believe they wanted it done for this year, not next year. Makes it even more impossible.

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Also, we do not know what was said or written between June and September. We only know what was shared. If Mr. Walker did receive ugly insulting emails from people within EN/USEA/USEF regarding the name and calling his family and their character into question he may have darn good reasons for putting an end to the discussion. He has no obligation to share with the world, nor does he have to invite it into his life.

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Thank you for your very thoughtful post.

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Yes. I’ve acknowledged that several times – my response is here:

I know. I’m one of them (actually, I think I’m the only one on this thread that has claimed first-hand knowledge, but I apologize to anyone I may have forgotten). Hence me laying out one potential option for a transition plan above.

Do you have a source for that? I have never heard of someone requiring the legal name of a corporation to be anything in particular (not even when someone has purchased the rights to the operating name of a business). In the vast majority of cases, the DBA is all that people know or can find to identify the business (unless they look up filings). In a case like this one where the name change is for optics, the public nomenclature is all that matters.

I’m not sure of your personal experience, or that of those reading the thread, so I’ll add a bit of my own for context. A DBA saves a huge amount of money and time. You don’t have to change legal paperwork, which includes banking/financing details and government records that touch nearly every aspect of the business.

That said, you still need to change the signage and the branding (which can be on everything from the sign at the door to the cups you sell concessions in to the uniforms your staff/volunteers wear), you need to inform people officially (press releases), and you need to transfer brand recognition (marketing efforts in industry publications, etc.). These things are not cheap, but they also don’t all apply to this situation (upper level event riders will still know about this event even if it is called Unionville and will still bring their horses). Is it free? No. Is it doable? Yes, and there are ways of being creative to bring down the costs some. If that’s what you want to do, which this owner did not.

Eventing Nation didn’t ask for donations to that fund, nor did they crowdfund it. Some donations were volunteered from private donors, which is how the scholarship increased, but it was never sought out. I agree that more funding would be required for a name change, but the diversity scholarship is not a sufficient test of what the market would bear in this instance.

It’s clear to me that they wanted something done for this year. That said, I don’t think they would have turned down the plan I outlined above if the event had said “You know, we are also concerned about the potential for misunderstanding. It’s too late to carry out a full rebrand for this year, but what if we worked together to use this year’s event to raise awareness and funding for a change in time for next year’s event?” Again, I get that the owner went a different way, but that is just one of the many ways this could have gone.

I understand all of that. It’s not the action I would personally have taken, but every camel’s back has a straw. It is his land, and he is allowed to draw the line anywhere he pleases.

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You say it wouldn’t have been costly, but Atl_rider and at least one other who have decades of experience in the matter stated otherwise.

Eventing Nation said that they were told $1000 was insufficient. Donors volunteered. That’s nice but why didn’t EN continue to put the work into getting still more money and what are they doing today to have scholarship money to offer next year?

We don’t know what EN wanted this year but apparently, it was too much.

“I don’t think they would have turned down the plan I outlined above if…”

Do you know them personally? I don’t know any of them, so I won’t speculate if that would have been acceptable to them. We do know they (EN) weren’t happy with the pace of change via USEA and USEF, so why would they be any happier with your proposal? Whatever was happening behind the scenes didn’t suit EN and they pushed the issue.

Or maybe they insisted that they have a place at the table and whatever USEA and USEF were doing wasn’t to their liking.

EN reached out to USEA and USEF in June to express our concerns about the Plantation Field name. But change is often a slow moving train, especially with organizations where there are multiple channels of bureaucracy to move through. As the event drew nearer it became clear that a name change would not materialize.

[B]

On Aug. 19,
[/B]
Eventing Nation editor Leslie Wylie took the topic to Denis Glaccum, organizer and owner of Plantation Field Equestrian Events.

As they proceeded, Wylie and EN owner John Thier knew the loss of the event might be the outcome. In an email shared with the Chronicle, dated Aug. 28, Olympic rider and PFEE board member Boyd Martin wrote, “The worst case outcome for us in the Eventing world is that if the landowner gets so offended with this issue that he decides to kick the event off his land and we lose the venue for the sport we love and need.” Thier responded, “There are many worse outcomes for Eventing in the US than losing the PFI venue, such as the sport not standing up for what is right.”

So easy to dismiss the destruction or loss of something you didn’t build.

Amy Ruth Borun
After all the letters you wrote Lesley and this article you actually say you were just trying to start a discussion?!! That was not part of your letters to the USEA to the USEF or to Denis. You were very clear you wanted something and it wasn’t a discussion

(redacted) Please publish the letters. I think that’s a fair response to this situation as EN are clearly trying to paint themselves as the good guys here.

Amy Ruth Borun
(redacted) can’t not allowed sadly

So sad.

https://www.chronofhorse.com/article…antation-field

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Boyd, a board member, explicitly warned Thier of the risk. Thier blew it off as worth the risk.

A fawning editorial does not make up for Leslie’s (and Jenny Autrey’s) rush to require a quick solution to their Cause of the Moment. It was too little too late. Better to plant the seed of the idea with Boyd and other more open-minded and deeply invested board members and people of influence. Let it take a minute and see if it sprouts over the winter and don’t worry for one second about who gets the credit in the end.

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Found elsewhere on the interwebz

“Walker could have assisted the board in filling out the DBA form for the name change, worked with sponsors and designers to get a couple of jumps re-done, and promoted the name change as a tribute to the abolitionist history of the area.” - Jess Clawson

…What? No, it’d be thousands of dollars to rebrand everything, change logos, change signage, change ads, change jumps, etc, etc. It’s NOT “get a couple jumps redone.” Everyone keeps saying “just change the name, it’s no big deal!” Well, it is a big deal financially, it’s NOT just that simple, and it might have been possible had EN approcated this as a conversation instead of an activist campaign. The owner wasn’t even brought into the conversation until after they talked to the USEA and USEF. That’s not how you start a converstation. Instead of listing all the things the owner or PFEE could have done differently, it’d be refreshing for someone to actually admit what EN could have done differently.

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Amy Ruth Borun

(redacted) I am one of the ‘they’ you keep referring to as part of the organizing committee. You were not in any of our meetings nor have you seen the very ugly unprofessional letters Lesley- the editor wrote. You do not know any of the conversations which occurred. Karen Rubin is correct. I wish you would try to get information from all sources

Amy Ruth Borun
(redacted) thank you. Unfortunately this article is written as if it’s journalism but it’s actually simply an editorial. A lot of important information was left out. Sadly people are taking it as if it is all factually accurate and it is not

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Boyd, a board member, explicitly warned Thier of the risk. Thier blew it off as worth the risk.

A fawning editorial does not make up for Leslie’s (and Jenny Autrey’s) rush to require a quick solution to their Cause of the Moment. It was too little too late. Better to plant the seed of the idea with Boyd and other more open-minded and deeply invested board members and people of influence. Let it take a minute and see if it sprouts over the winter and don’t worry for one second about who gets the credit in the end.

And given this thread, where the landowner is being consistently painted by people as a white supremacist at best and a gasp! republican at worst, why on earth would he want to let these same people who hate him vehemently and personally on his property ever again?

And as always, why would people who abhor this man want to frequent this event on his property, regardless of the name?

guys, come on.

The cognitive dissonance is real here.

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Please show me where I said that. In fact, I have consistently said the opposite. I have worked on these transitions professionally. I have managed the finances. The one I am thinking of did not run in the tens of thousands (your estimate), but hundreds. I’m simply not willing to break confidentiality to give a stranger on the internet any more details than that, and I apologize for the limits that places on our conversation today.

What I did say is that there are ways for this particular event to reduce some of those costs. As an example, I said that they could have crowdfunded the rest or asked Eventing Nation to crowdfund the rest if it mattered so much to EN. I’m not sure if anyone else asked them to bear the costs personally, but I certainly would never ask or expect that of them. Unfortunately, the event was unwilling to consider the change, so we will never know if the community could have come up with a way to fund it or not.

Fair enough. I don’t know them personally. Perhaps I should have said “I would like to think they would not have turned down the plan I outlined above”. Either way, we will never know.

I have never said it’s not a big deal. It’s a pretty big deal, but more specifically it is a royal pain in the rear. I am of the personal opinion that it is worth it in this case, but not everyone shares my opinion (nor do they need to).

I must say, this frustrates me. They have said that the board cannot legally release their email correspondence with EN (although apparently they can allude to it), but the one email that we do have (from Cuyler Walker to Rob Burk, copying Denis and Mary Coldren) was clearly released by Denis or someone with access to Denis’ Plantation Field email account (the email address of the account is listed above the bold black line). So either the board cannot legally do this, at which point they’ve already done something wrong by releasing the email that is out there, or the board can legally do this, but is choosing not to for……some reason. Either way, it doesn’t seem like they are playing by the rules as they have stated them.

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I’m simply not willing to break confidentiality to give a stranger on the internet any more details than that, and I apologize for the limits that places on our conversation today

I take offense at your insinuation that I had or would inquire.

They have said that the board cannot legally release their email correspondence with EN (although apparently they can allude to it), but the one email that we do have (from Cuyler Walker to Rob Burk, copying Denis and Mary Coldren) was clearly released by Denis or someone with access to Denis’ Plantation Field email account (the email address of the account is listed above the bold black line).

Or they were given permission to release that email but no others.

You keep pushing that it would have been a pain but …

Cuyler Walker had had enough pain and hassles so the “but” doesn’t matter. “But” and “just” negate whatever was said or written before.

“It’s expensive but…:”
“It’s a hassle but…”

He had had enough. I suspect after 20 years of people demanding more and more from him this was too much. He is an attorney himself so I suspect he was on a nodding acquaintance with what a name change would entail.

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You don’t have enough evidence to make that claim. Perhaps the issue is that the emails cannot be released without the consent of the person who wrote the email. Perhaps Denis had permission from Mr. Walker. Perhaps board members do not have permission from Leslie Wylie (which seems likely, given what board members have said about how bad LW comes across in those emails). No conflict with the rules there at all - all parties are following them.

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I’ve got the pot scalded and waiting!! :slight_smile:

I think people may be confusing rebranding a consumer product and renaming a once-a-year event. Many annual events undergo name changes due to sponsor changes. But there is very little in common between re-naming a consumer product and an event. The latter has fewer issues involved.

Re-name/re-brand/change trade dress of Pringles, and you risk confusing your loyal buyers who then (i) may not find your product on the shelf and (ii) may choose another of the 27 similar products on the shelf by mistake thinking it is the new Pringles. Sales and market share plummet. You also have to mount a big campaign to educate your consumer base (i.e., the entire buying public - every person in every market in which you place product) about your new look and name. Super expensive, lots of moving parts, hit to the bottom line guaranteed until you can re-establish your new brand. Same with repeated services like, say, an exterminator.

Re-naming an annual event is different. There aren’t 27 other high-level 3-day events in the Unionville area the second weekend in September. Your relatively small consumer base (people who event at that level AND in that area, and people who like to go watch events) won’t go to the event shelf and mistakenly pick some other Unionville event that weekend. You also don’t rely on them seeing your labeling/trade dress/etc. in order to attract them to your “product” among a group of similar products. You are the only product in town at that time and so your “consumers” quickly understands “same race/same place/new name.”

In fact, a single name change of an annual event is vastly simpler than the serial name changes that go with events like bike races or venues like stadia which are renamed not infrequently and, yet, everyone is able to turn up at the right place to watch baseball.

For a local example, the long-running international cycle race held in Philadelphia went from Core States, to First Union, to Wachovia, and on and on and, guess what? Greg Lamond never turned up at any other international bike race in Philly held on that same weekend each year.

Re-naming products and re-naming venues/events are really different undertakings and conflating the two isn’t useful. I’m a lawyer, like Walker, so I hope I get credit for at least having a nodding acquaintance with this topic. [Which itself isn’t great reasoning. No reason a family law practitioner, for example, should know about the work/expense involved in re-branding anymore than anyone else with an interest in that topic.]

While there is work and expense involved, it is not the same as for product/brand changes. Not understanding those differences isn’t helpful to the discussion.

Oh, and @Marigold has years of experience so let’s please not discount her valuable contribution to the discussion. She has vastly more than a nodding acquaintance with the issues involved. Why her expertise is not given the same weight as others who weighed in on the subject is baffling. If it’s simply b/c she is not supporting the majority view here, that’s not a good reason.

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I am sorry that you are offended. I meant no insinuation (I try to avoid doing that on internet chat forums since it’s beyond my ability to get right most of the time). You had not inquired and I didn’t think you would, but you didn’t seem to be believing the details I was offering from my own experience and I wanted to explain why I could not go further to help support them.

I understand all of that. I have never said that he must feel differently than he does. I believe I would feel differently if I were in his shoes, but I am not in his shoes (which is why none of you are out here eventing on my imaginary 300 acres).

I’m not sure you and I are managing to communicate in ways the other understands. I’m happy to answer questions about my position if you have them, but I’m not sure I’m helping the discussion by continuing to address the same crossed wires between us.

I don’t. I did speak more authoritatively about the situation than I can fully support with fact, and perhaps that was wrong. I made assumptions based on first-hand experience with approximately 40-50 different boards across a multitude of industries and types of business, and I extrapolated based on the fact that I’ve never seen rules of the nature you describe (that allow the release of parts of the discussion based on author but not others, or allow the release of one email by an author, but not others). But you are right that I can’t technically back that up for this particular board, and for that I apologize.

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It’s also possible that the board has no rule at all but that Leslie Wylie made some kind of threat of legal action if they released her emails. We don’t know. My point is simply that - we don’t know, and for that reason, I objected to the part of your previous post that I read as critical of the board for releasing one email but not the others.

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I think we might need something stronger than tea.

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@Marigold - I have read all your posts. I think they are well thought out. Perhaps this will add further points to ponder.

Near as I can distill your position…as I understand it… is that if someone had approached you with a request to change the name of your property, with the justification that it might offend others, you would have agreed to a name change.

That is your position. It is yours to have as one individual. But it is not a universal POV for landowners…most people have emotional attachments to their land. Another landowner might react differently to demands being made about what to do on their land.

As I can summarize what went down…

  • A landowner allows people to use his land for 20+ years;
  • After 2 decades of use, someone(s) object to the name of his land and/or to the name of the event being conducted on the property;
  • These "someone(s) approach the landowner and event organizer with a request and/or suggestion to change the name....with the caveat/warning/threat....
  • That, oh, by the way.....if you don't consent to making the change to the name, we will smear you in the NYT, etc
And speaking as a landowner, if someone(s) had approached me with threats to go to "mainstream media" if I did not do their bidding, my response would be to say, "Sayonara."

Below is the excerpt from the COTH article relating the demands being made by EN:
[INDENT]

As they proceeded, Wylie and EN owner John Thier knew the loss of the event might be the outcome. In an email shared with the Chronicle, dated Aug. 28, Olympic rider and PFEE board member Boyd Martin wrote, “The worst case outcome for us in the Eventing world is that if the landowner gets so offended with this issue that he decides to kick the event off his land and we lose the venue for the sport we love and need.” Thier responded, “There are many worse outcomes for Eventing in the US than losing the PFI venue, such as the sport not standing up for what is right.”

PFEE board members also said EN invoked the threat of mainstream media coverage if the event did not change its name.

[/INDENT]

https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/name-controversy-ends-plantation-field-events

@MorganSercu I have read your analysis which seems to rest on the expense to change names and also on the “annoyance factor” for the landower. My bets are with the “annoyance factor.” The landowner had enough…and I can’t fault him.

The question is how this effort started by EN will have repercussions and/or continue its ripple effects in the rest of the equestrian world and what will happen to access to other private sites.

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I see your Google law degree has proven itself useful.

If by “cultural purity test,” you mean “don’t be an a-hole and post racist content,” then yes, he’s failed it.

Again, what you’re saying is that it’s perfectly OK for someone to post hate speech on his Facebook profile and not be held accountable for it. He doesn’t get a free pass because it’s his “First Amendment Right” to post racist content that originated from QAnon or 4Chan, he doesn’t get a free pass he’s been in the sport forever, he doesn’t get a free pass because he’s taken a small event to the FEI level, and he certainly doesn’t get a free pass for being a white guy who’s gotten away with this crap for years. If this were anyone higher up in USEA or USEF, do you think they’d tolerate this BS? Eff no.

It seem like in your mind, the only opinions that matter are those who have the power to remove “access to private lands.” As long as they don’t say the quiet part out loud, it’s all free and clear on your conscience.

You keep regurgitating the narrative that EN was threatening the landowner to “smear” Mr. Walker’s name and out him to the media, when in fact we have ZERO hard proof that this is what happened. But this is what fits your story: this wealthy white guy was being put under the microscope for a hot second and it made him feel uncomfortable, so he took away land from some horse people. Try telling the millions of black folk (who deal with vastly more discomfort on a daily basis) that because one guy “felt” he was being called racist and threw a temper tantrum, you re going to keep going with this idea that he’s the one who was wronged so no more white guys go through the same thing and we can all keep our land for eventing. Sound about right?

You’ve proven yourself time and time again on this thread that you have zero interest in expanding your little culturally protected, white privilege bubble to include hard thoughts about racial oppression and discrimination, so I’m going just hit this “ignore” button on you. Ta ta!

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