Well I will recapitulate for you.
The AHSA was basically a hunter jumper association. The Planning committee in looking into the future felt that the hunter jumper discipline was too much of the AHSA and came up with a plan.
Their plan was to create an association for the hunter jumper people. They created and supported the NHJC as the hunter jumper wing of the AHSA. This would give them the opportunity to appear broader and look further into a cross section of the sport.
I think the plan was well intentioned. I have long felt that we were all too isolated in our disciplines and that there was much that we all shared as horsemen regardless of the seat, or the breed of horse or the particular form of the competition.
The problem is that the idea of the NHJC was not well thought out because they did not anticipate the ways it could be corrupted.
The Zones for example were supposed to be trans-discipline but no one ever participated in them except the hunter jumper people.
When NHJC was established it was not based on a need for us to want to belong voluntarily.
Democratic procedures were not invested in the NHJC. It became simply the organization of the zones committees by the AHSA.
While everyone who checks off hunter/jumper as their main discipline is compelled to be a member of the NHJC, the NHJC is not compelled to deal with our interests.
The UNITED STATES HUNTER and JUMPER ORAGANIZATION is a simple first stage attempt to give a voice to those of us mandated to belong to NHJC so that we can modify this Council and perhaps modify it so that it will represent us so well that we will be happy to be members of the NHJC.
There doesn’t seem to be any other way to get them to listen to the 98% of us who do not dedicate our lives and life styles to the pursuit of the AA Show circuit. It seems at this time that the incestuous relationships of those in control and their personal need for the benefits that come from the AA Shows has affected all of their recommendations.
I personally do not care about the personality difficulties of all involved. It doesn’t matter to me, and I will not choose between a Struzzeri or a Balch, or even the Olympic Team.
I hope that together we can find a system and an organized way to proceed that will make all those personal conflicts irrelevant.
Step one for those of us who have deeply considered the problem is to revise the By-Laws of the NHJC so that they are accountable to us as members, and that we as members should consider it our duty to vote on the issues based on what is good for the sport and not what is good for us!
The United States Hunter Jumper Association is simply a name and a base around which we may rally and exchange ideas.
I do believe that if the NHJC refuses to modify their procedures, if they insist that all we are entitled to is that one vote every three years and the Zone Committees are not required to better reflect the varied perspectives of the members then there is no hope that the NHJC can be THE representative of our discipline. They need to understand their responsibility to be accountable to the very members who give them any importance at all.
Then I would not be opposed to a petition to the AHSA which can over-ride their decisions to enforce these changes.
I hope that this explains what has developed over the past year here on the COTH BB. Many of us have discussed various problems, agreed on solutions which were sent to the AHSA in the form of Proposed Rule Changes.
It became clear after all these months that the By-Laws of the NHJC were the most direct way to achieve change.
OUR hope is that with an independent website and it’s own mailbox we could accomplish the changes that are desperately and obviously needed. This is not the work of any one person but a group of people. A minority for sure, but one that cares enough to work for the change instead of either capitulating or just sitting around and complaining.
Actually, Larry Langer was the trigger, because in every discussion he called our bluff. He said, and he was right, if you don’t like it then do something about it!
