Thank you for this. I had no idea. This was changed last year? That changes how I think about this (I do both eventing and dressage).
I’m ok with the 4–>6 MERs. I think most people are probably doing that anyway. (Though, that might be my Area 2 bias).
4 years is not very long to be away from the top levels of the sport, so I can see how that might inconvenience some people taking time off from the highest levels.
I really disagree with the dressage as a safety rule. I believe all the safety studies showed minimal correlation between dressage and jump scores. To subk’s point, it discourages people from producing/buying/enjoying a certain stalwart type of event horse that has benefited many careers.
Including mine–I’m an AA who buys off the track and just wants to be safe and enjoy prelim, don’t care how I finish up against the pros. I just retired one of these, who to my delight, despite his lousy dressage and start box antics had a step-down schoolmaster gig, did 3 BN/N LFs and was able to introduce someone else to the joys of finishing safely, if not competitively. If I could ever afford it, I would love an UL schoolmaster who was safe and not competitive.
That said, this kind of horse has been on the wane in the short format days, and I understand wanting the national MER to match the FEI MER, just for simplicity. If it were up to me, I would need to see statistical evidence before supporting a dressage limit for safety.
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Because pairs don’t always move up the levels in such a linear fashion—‘mastering’ all 3 phases. A pure kick ass xc horse shouldn’t be held back, imo, from moving up the levels if it’s safe in the dangerous phase. But I’m thinking of talented xc horses and riders who have the skill and know-how to put down a good dressage test on other horses—just not on that horse.
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So the 4 years has to do with if you do not have your MERs yet, they need to be done within a four year window. Then you have them and only need one MER at level below if you haven’t had one in the last 12 months. All of us already MER qualified are not needing to requalify fully every four years. I still say the 45 dressage score requirement is about optics and keeping up with the FEI, not safety IMHOP.
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Wait, maybe I misread it then.
All Minimum Eligibility Requirements (MER), except Classic Three-day Events, must be obtained within a 4-year period. One MER must be obtained within 12 weeks of the event for which it is needed when moving from one level to the next.
I read that as “you need 6 MERs within the last 4 years. If you are moving up a level, one of those must be within the 12 weeks preceding the event”
Are you thinking that the MERs last longer?
- ESTABLISHMENT OF QUALIFICATION. When a Horse and/or Athlete obtains a Minimum Eligibility
Requirement (MER) at a level, they are “established” (i.e., qualified to compete) at that level. This
establishment does not expire; however, a Horse and/or Athlete who are established at a level but who have
not competed for over 12-months must achieve an MER at the next lowest height level to renew their
establishment at a level.
So the rulebook leads me to believe that MER at a level is established it doesn’t expire. The “new” MER has to be attained in 4 year period. Or these two parts of the rulebook are at odds. The problem is that these two parts are in different areas of the rulebook
There are going to be outliers on both ends of the argument. Of the thousands of XC runs every year, there will be those that are reliably safe XC but with “bottom of the pack” dressage (for any number of reasons).
Contrarily, there will be those that are well within the minimum MER standard and are terrifying to watch at the solid fences.
Reed (who is crazy smart about the science of the sport) has already pointed out that there have been no studies correlating safe jumping with high performance dressage. I think the anecdotal evidence is worth considering though. As we say: once is random, twice is coincidence, three times is a trend.
While I stand by my statement that an ordinary horse on an ordinary day should be able to score under 45, I would be curious to see a data analysis of all scores above 45 for, say, the 2021 and 2022 seasons (can’t really use 2020 because of all the Covid cancellations, and anything 2018 and before still had the dressage coefficient at FEI).
Being competitive should not be a consideration to move up if you meet the criteria for the next level. I don’t know where that argument even fits in. Plenty of people compete for the enjoyment and personal satisfaction.
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Of interest;
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Oh I didn’t see that ALL MERS must be in the last four years, I wonder if 2020/COVID specifically will affect ammy’s who were right on the line. I ran quite a few intermediates up to 2019, maybe 2 in 2020, then had a young horse until I bought my most recent one.
Theoretically, say I ran my last 4 intermediates w/ my previous horse in 2019. Then I buy new horse who I take 3 prelims this year before moving him up. Could I actually run an Intermediate in say November of 2023 and not Jan/February of 2024?
I don’t think this will affect me. I have some prelims/intermediates in 2020, and will run more than three prelims with this horse. Now that I have a calendar, maybe 4 minimum if all went perfectly. (So glad I squeeked in that event, in case I slip that move-up to the beginning of '24)
But, overall I’m ok with this rule even if I have to add an event to my own schedule if it prevents other riders from moving up too fast.
I added earlier, I do wish, because it looks like this will affect a few outliers who by all other means are prepared, safe, etc. that there was an additional panel, where if you really felt you were ready and could prove (ex. schooling shows, experience outside the 4-years) you could submit a petition to compete that a USEA member could check off or deny.
Ex. like someone mentioned, they’ve d run up to Advanced 5 years ago, new young horse is stung by a bee and scores a 46 on one test of their 6 trainings and have evidence of very very good tests at schooling shows and because of mileage there’s no nearby events , if this rider could submit a petition to a panel, that would be nice.
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Ah, interesting, thanks. That’s confusing.
On the surface they do appear to conflict. It would help if the relationship between those two sections was clarified.
I was chatting about the MER changes with my trainer during my lesson last night and we discussed the concept of a great XC mount that is awful in the dressage, and her comment was “If you have a horse that can run upper-level XC but can’t consistently score 45 or below in dressage, you don’t have an event horse. You have a foxhunter.”
I thought that was an interesting comment, especially with the change in how a 5 is now defined to mean “marginal” instead of “sufficient.”
Unrelated to what I wrote above, this is how I’m reading the combination of the two sections of the rulebook. To become “established” at a level, you have to achieve all of your MER runs within a four-year period. Once you’re established, you don’t have to redo the MERs except for one competition at the next-lowest level if you haven’t competed at the level in 12 months.
Plus if you look at this other section (unless I’m reading it wrong), you’re dropped down to max four additional MERs if you get a new, totally green to the level horse as long as you already have your MER for whatever level you’re moving the horse up to: “The Horse must have obtained an MER at four Horse Trials at the Training Level or higher: One of the four MERs must be as a combination. Athletes with more than 10 MERs at the Preliminary Level or higher are exempt from one MER in combination.”
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Well, if the new young horse got stung by a bee in the dressage ring, Jim Wofford would say something like “I’d rather be lucky than good” The rider is MER at Advanced just need to do one MER at Intermediate to reinstate them at Advanced so the combination does not need a MER at Training. The horse need only have done 4 trainings so no panel submission needed.
So that’s what I thought originally too, but now it looks like there’s confusion (I’m leaning towards the meaning) that the MER’s phase out after 4 years. So if this Mystery Rider had not completed an event in 4 years, all her prior MER’s would go away. So rather than 1, she’d need all of them.
I don’t disagree with you, if we voted, I’d vote yes for these new rules. I’m just curious about this 4-year portion.
Has anyone written USEF/USEA to ask for clarification? I’m a pretty long away from Preliminary at the moment, so nothing other than academic interest but seems like they should be able to quickly clear up any confusion.
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I’m just not in the camp of belief that dressage can’t be improved to below a 45 at this very simple level of dressage.
I’m saying this as someone who had abysmal
scores for years. Like beyond embarrassing. If I can learn dressage on my horrible dressage horse, anyone can. I’m serious about that.
The thing is, our level of dressage is so low that there just isn’t any excuse I will buy that it can not be improved. Riders just don’t want to spend the time on it. They would rather be out showing every weekend then spending $150 for a 45 minute lesson with a dressage guru every month. It’s obvious a lot of eventers hate dressage, but it’s part of our sport.
I also don’t think upgrading is a necessity. Everyone wants to be able to upgrade without putting in the work for the other disciplines.
While I agree you want an amazing jumper to make the leap to Prelim, why are people SO desperate to upgrade that they are willing to throw out all the other things you should be good at to just jump at that level? So you have a terrible showjumper and dressage horse but at least you can make it around XC! That’s not the point…
That’s when I question whether it’s about being an eventer and horseman at heart or just wanting those “green letters” or “blue letters” so you can feel accomplished or be able to brag about it to your friends.
So what you can’t upgrade? Work and train more. Go hunting or Showjumping to jump bigger jumps.
In my world it’s about quality Vs level you show and how often you show. I wish more Eventing coaches supported that mindset.
My opinion only which everyone is free to disagree with.
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Thank you I was looking for this, the scale has been updated. 5 is no longer sufficient.
It was several years ago it changed.
When? I pulled the mark ups above from a USEA 2021 publication so it can’t have been more than a year ago. We’re only 2 months into 2023 so it had to happen in the last show season (2022).
This is from FEI, not USEF, but in 2021: https://www.fei.org/stories/lifestyle/teach-me/dressage-scoring-basics
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Not sure maybe it changed in the pure dressage world first? It’s been that way for a bit there I’m pretty sure. I could be mistaken as COVID has kind of made the last three years a blur lol. I read and listen a lot of dressage stuff so hard to
pinpoint when I heard it first.
https://www.usdf.org/about/about-dressage/competition/tests.asp
