Why would anyone maintain their membership if it has always been that horrible to you?
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The same reason they maintain it now. If you’re going to do any substantial showing, beyond schooling shows, you have to have it. They have everyone over a barrel and they know it
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RE USEF
This could probably be its own topic but how is it that horse abuse and sneaking into the Thermal VIP and getting obnoxious when caught each receive a one-month suspension and fines that aren’t all that different ($2500 vs $1500)? Really USEF?!?
Spring issue of USEF Magazine. Couldn’t find a suspensions page online. Maybe the magazine is online? Here’s a link: https://issuu.com/equestrian/docs/spring_2025_draft It’s pages 80-81 of the physical magazine, but the online page count is one or two higher.
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Also throw in that people can buy reviews, get fake reviews, etc. I would take a single digit number of reviews on something self-published with a huge grain of salt.
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This month’s For the Record includes Max Amaya, Eleanor Kunsman, and David Bustillos. Lovely.
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I only read the pages you linked and dear lord, the conduct of what I assume are professionals and top tier competitors is so disheartening.
Beyond the drugging violations and the assholery behavior, the outright abuse is alarming. Inflicting pain on your horse’s coronet and pastern with your own spurs? Driving a harness horse recklessly and then tying it in its stall as “punishment” for its behavior? Long lining a horse with twisted wire over its poll, and its head so restricted in a “contraption” that when it reared it fell over, and the workout continued?
And look at the repercussions: A financial slap on the wrist and a stern talkin’ to. That’ll teach them. 
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Reason number 1 gazillion why I’ve stopped even remotely aspiring to show recognized.
Do these people even like horses at all?
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Same here. There are so many other ponds to swim in.
I ask myself, and my barn friends and my trainer, the same question whenever these sordid stories come up. Did these people ever have a love for horses? If so, what happened to it? How did they lose their way? I suppose that ultimately it doesn’t matter. They am who they am now. Ugh.
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