This is theoretical, but what would happen if a new group of hunter judges came in, judges from another planet, who wanted a hunter that was a throwback to the old days? The type of horse where a tiny bit of exuberance was not penalized?
Would that help solve the problem or just create new ones?
Am I missing something? The quoted suspension is from 2017. Today is Jan 5 2018.
Some people truly believe they are innocent in their own minds. I have met people like this and have always felt it is a mental illness.
While I understand that due process is required when enforcing rules I do not understand why USEF is incapable of making effective rules in the first place and then properly enforcing them.
This person is benefiting from USEFās failure and the horses lose, again.
Now, the two month suspension for doping a horse with cocaine, which doesnāt take effect until 2019, shines even more glaringly as a beacon of USEFs disregard for the horses that they have a duty to protect. There Kelly Farmer will be, welcomed by USEF until the cocaine doping suspension takes effect. 
There are rules that do stand up to legal challenges. The FEI at least would suspend immediately anyone with a cocaine positive horse and then listen to the excuses. The FEI is hardly the ideal but USEF better get their act together and take some lessons from someone because they are making a mockery of their āhorse welfareā mission.
USEF just has to care enough to do it and to stop making excuses.
It makes me sick to see our national federation on par with the excuse making horse abusers of UAE endurance fame. I am ashamed and embarrassed because I see no difference between them.
These poor lovely horses, they try so hard for their people.
How many of us would be willing to have no tolerance rules? If your horse tested positive, NO legal recourse? Absolutely none whatsoever. If someone messes up, they mess up. Take it and go on. Itās called real-world accountability. What a concept.
Thatās what Iām calling for to stop this drug issue. Horse, Trainer, Owner, and Rider suspended. KF and LG are animal abusers, plain and simple. Those who look away are just as guilty.
Is there a way to create a new USEF type Association where the rules do stick and the horses are the #1 priority?
Solar Flare, you are right!! That was last year!!
Narcissists are like thisā¦
I also think it could be considered Affluenza Disorder. Wish horses could hire attorneys.
Probably most of the currently competing horses would be too quiet and have to be given something to amp them up. :eek:
I donāt oppose changing judging standards a bit but I donāt think it will solve the problems. Whatever you do, people who want to cheat are going to. You have to disincentivize cheating by making the penalties outweigh the benefits.
Americans have been drugging horses as long as there have been horse sports. US race horse trainers were infamous in England for their drug cocktails back in 1910 or so. Back in the 1960s in the South East there was an injection called ābuttermilkā that was used quite a bit in h/j competition. Pros back then were known to starve horses and deprive them of water to make them easier for junior riders.
IMO, itās only āgentlemenā who compete for competitionās sake; anyone who makes a living off horse sport is likely to be competing to win. And when your living depends on winning, there is a huge incentive to do virtually anything that will make winning easier.
Back when pros were barred from the Olympics, perhaps there was less incentive to breach āthe code of a gentlemanāāunless a government was looking to prove its superiority with wins in sport.
āI donāt oppose changing judging standards a bit but I donāt think it will solve the problems. Whatever you do, people who want to cheat are going to. You have to disincentivize cheating by making the penalties outweigh the benefits.ā
I agree. Another issue, which I donāt see changing, is the cost of the horses themselves. When you send a kid into the ring on a $250k hunter, you donāt want to have to explain to the parents why the kid didnāt win. Or why the horse is sore and canāt show hunter spectacular week. Same goes for your ammy showing her GP horse in the adult jumpers.
Even if you allow for exuberance (and at this level some exuberance is perfectly acceptable), a horse that comes out of the corner and peeks at the bushes, the photographer, or the class of feral kindergartners hanging off the rails on a Horse Park field trip is much harder to find a distance on than the one the comes out of the corner and focuses on the jumps.
I would oppose that. And thatās not real world at all, unless you live in North Korea or similar.
No testing is perfect. It canāt be. And it is entirely possible for evidence to be mishandled and tampered with.
Not allowing people to defend themselves is terrifying to me - both from a fairness perspective and from the view that allowing people to highlight problems with the ways that the tests are conducted creates an incentive for the tests to be conducted properly.
āNo recourseā would also be ripe for abuse. Anyone remember when Sapphire was disqualified from the World Cup for āhypersensitivityā? I would be concerned about āpositive test resultsā that were politically/competitively motivated.
This will always be about the almighty dollar. I am one of the zero tolerance types. I donāt want to hear excuses/justificationsā¦your horse tests positive, youāre out for x amount of months and fined heavilyā¦and I donāt care who you are or how may gold medals you have. Winning, for some, in this business, is at any and all costs. You take proper care of the athletes under your purview, you monitor every single detail, you accept the responsibility and accountability when you sign that entry form. When will the equine industry learn to play by the rules???
Darkwave, I do agree that no testing program is perfect. However, where I work we are drug tested. If we test positive, we can have the second sample tested by a totally different lab. If that is positive WE HAVE NO RECOURSE - there are NO valid excuses. That is part of the job and we know it. Real-world accountability. In the 33 years I have worked there, there has never been a false positive, nor have we had a sample mis-handled. They test literally thousands of people each year. The labs are continuously monitored and audited. The program itself is also continuously monitored and audited. So, you can see where I am coming from on the whole drug test thing.
They are also not testing you for the plethora of crazy drugs and metabolites that they are testing competition horses for. Are they testing you for GABA, anti-inflamatories, the stuff that came up in Paige Johnsonās skin cream that was used on the horse. Yours is pretty cut and dried I would think. Just the typical opioids, cocaine, the usual recreational drugs. A broad screen like they use at USEF presents many more opportunities for things to show up. We also dont have teams of people around us braiding us, feeding us, nor do we eat out of common feed tubs, etc. There is a much greater possibility of contamination in the show horseās world than in our day to day lives. And I bet they have a true protocol for collecting and the handling of samples, which our governing body does not really seem to have much control over.
The Federations are testing humans for literally hundreds of performance enhancing drugs at the international level in all sports, including equestrian. Take a diuretic? You need to get approval first. Need an asthma inhaler? That has to be approved. You should take look at the list of the Drugs that WADA and USADA test humans for.
https://www.wada-ama.org/en/content/what-is-prohibited
And then there is the FEI list of horse drugs, which USEF usually mirrors. The FEI banned GABA after the USEF did.
http://inside.fei.org/fei/cleansport/ad-h/prohibited-list
Horses probably get tested for much fewer drugs than humans.
Work testing doesnāt cover nearly the number of drugs that humans are tested for in sport. Your employer doesnāt care if you work on steriods; in sport you canāt play if you do.
Maybe people that have three or more Positive drug tests should have a jury among their peers, USEF members chosen at random, to decide fine amount and suspension time. Something has got to change, this is ridiculous.
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