Edit: Sorry my tone came off the wrong way. I was genuinely curious. I said lol because it just seemed sketchy to me…
I would imagine whatever state you choose you need to stick with it.
How do you know they are doing this deliberately as opposed to actually moving or using the address of the training barn?
How do you know that “a lot of riders” are doing this? I doubt it’s a lot. Wouldn’t they need to also compete in the region they signed up for? That’s not always easy.
Is this something that you personally can vouch for or is this just barn gossip about someone’s acquaintance? I appreciate that saying “a lot of riders” is a useful way to make the question vague and not identify say Suzy McSnooty who can’t really ride her high dollar WB but has started claiming her Grandparents’ Montana resort home as her address because that’s a less competitive region. We don’t need the details because that’s TMI and will rebound on you once Suzy finds the post and blasts you as a hater on Tiktok or whatever.
If you are curious about the USEF rules they are all online. I’m in Canada so don’t know them intimately.
If there is bending of the rules, keep this in mind. If you qualify for finals in anything by choosing less competitive qualifying events, that’s one thing. But then you are going to get to the Finals and be up against the folks that rose to the top in tough competition and they will wipe the floor with you.
Looking a Olympic results is instructive. There is only one dressage world standing list (multiple jumpers) so I’ll use that as an example. The first 50 slots are all Northern European riders and maybe a few Brits. If you wanted to see a battle between the top riders in the world you would go watch a CD4* in Germany in an Olympic qualifying year.
But the Olympics are the best in each country not the best in the world. The top Canadian dressage riders are about 100 or 150 in the world rankings. The Americans are a bit higher.
In the Pan Am games Canada and the US clean up against Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina, etc. But in the Olympics, Canadian and American (and Mexican and Bolivian and Japanese) dressage riders stand no chance really against the Northern European power houses.
The individual riders get to the Olympics at great expense and effort by qualifying in less competitive countries but are guaranteed to not win at the Olympics.
Though Canada has had a strong show jumping team for years Including Gold. Just not dressage.
So you can feel a pleasant amount of schadenfreude when Suzy McSnooty fails to “ribbon” at finals.
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I am so confused by the Lol at the end.
I guess I should take that is the OP is not really asking this question as a way to gain knowledge but they are asking this question to make a dig about something.
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I don’t know the answer to that, but I don’t really get who would care.
I live in New York. That means I would need 50 points to qualify for regionals. If I lived in West Virginia, I would only need 13 points. If I’m just struggling to qualify in NY, realistically I’m not getting out of the regional qualifier let alone going to Maclay finals to be competitive.
If I lived in NY, didn’t have a ton of $$ to chase those 50 points, really just wanted to go to Maclay finals once and have that experience of going, and it wasn’t breaking any rules - why wouldn’t I just try to get the 15 points needed for another state, try to qualify out of that state, and then go have fun?
There are 17 riders who this year alone filed “out of region” declarations for Region 2 (where you need 50 points, the most out of the country), meaning there are 17 riders who could probably qualify in another state easily but are specifically going for one of the hardest regionals in the country. So I’m not convinced “a lot of riders” are changing their home state to ones that need less points…
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Assuming we’re talking ASPCA maclay here: They changed the rules a couple of years ago- you don’t need to “change your state”. You can declare any regionals you want to show in, provided you have either the points from “your zone” or the zone in which the regionals are held, whichever is higher. “A lot” of riders WERE changing their home state, but it’s not as nefarious as you make it sound. Usually just didn’t fit in with trainers show schedule, and then you’d end up having to ship trainer across the country for one kid in her home zone, which got expensive (for the parents) and tiring (for the trainer.)
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But also, some of the BNTs spread their kids around to different regions for qualifiers so as to get more of their kids into finals. This is a well-known tactic.
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Except for North Run, which does just zone 1 and that’s it.
Aside from some barns choosing to spread their riders around the zones, some aging-out juniors select the regional closest to where they are starting college, especially if it’s a ways from their home barn.
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