You are all correct. And I can briefly address the comments made by Rick and Jon as well. RHHT did bid for a date not on the “Ideal Calendar.” However, the “Ideal Calendar” was created very specifically not to have a 4* on the date where RHHT has been running one for 20 years. The committee that set the calendar up was made of people that know our event. They know the difficulty we have in coordinating with the City and the County’s schedules, and they knew, because it was made clear to them, that our course designer was not available for Week 11. We might could have made Week 13 work, which is the week they gave TN, but there was at least one year in the five upcoming where the City has a HUGE Spring festival in conflict. They were willing to work with us if necessary, but we weren’t sure that moving the date would work.
If you haven’t been to RHHT, especially on a tough weather year, you have NO IDEA how much work the City of Tallahassee’s crew does for us. We cannot make any choices that would put them in a tight situation with the rest of the calendar year.
In addition, Mike E-S had limited availability during the Spring, and he has done a marvelous job for RHHT and created a really good course for the riders prepping for KY. In addition, he is not licensed to design just Advanced courses, so it would have required a course designer change for us to take what USEF gave and run just the Advanced.
Again, USEF was TOLD all of this in our bid application. The materials also said that if an event wanted to run something that did not appear on the calendar, we could make a case for and explain why a deviation was needed. We did that. USEF was not interested.
That calendar was devised by a group that intended to shut RHHT out of running a 4* from the very beginning. To address comments made by Rick, he did suggest we add the modified and keep going, but also had the gall to suggest that we do so and just "trust’ that the fundraising would show up and that the entries would come. Here is the Real Talk where that is concerned – when you are Stable View, Terra Nova, or the Horse Park, Chatt Hills, Poplar, Rocking Horse – you have schooling shows, and many shows throughout the years to pay your bills. RHHT runs ONE time a year. There is no billonaire backing the event to pick up the pieces if we run at a loss. What USEF was asking RHHT to do was to run a different event, potentially with a $40k modified course added - which we don’t have room for unless you get ride of A altogether – with no guarantee we would get entries, or that we would be able to attract the same level of sponsorship money if it is not a qualifying event. I mean, what it comes down to in the end, is who is comfortable putting their name on a line of credit to run something that may pay for itself or it may not? Right now, we have a measurable event, that runs in a certain way, and we can estimate what sort of entries we will have etc. But the last three years, we’ve had to beg riders to get entries in. They all say “but it is expensive and what if I don’t go?!” I get that. I do, but on the other hand, the contract for temporary stabling has to be signed three months out. And if we cancel after closing date, because we don’t have enough entries?
We are still on the hook for $72,000 of stabling. It is a very different thing than a Stable View or Chatt Hills, who has stabling in place whether they get entries or not. It was a big risk, and the Board voted not to take it.
For them to suggest RHHT should have known better and it is the event’s fault is just justifying the actions taken by USEF that were intended to favor some event facilities and diminish others from the very beginning of the process.
Oh, and here is something else to consider when you are looking at the budget USEF spends on the ULR/Olympic Contingent – if any of those sports drop out of the Olympics, USEF loses its monopoly over that sport. That sport can then set up its own governing body and sanction events and have more than one sanctioning body if it wants to (vis a vis Hunter shows. The NSBA couldn’t sanction Jumper shows for Olympic level riders, but they could set up a Hunter circuit, because it is not an Olympic sport and not bound by the monopoly that USEF has) USEF NEEDS the protection of the Ted Stevens Act Monopoly for sports that participate in the Olympics and represent the USA internationally. Otherwise, it would be difficult to raise the membership monies necessary to pay the salaries of the management.
And anyone that wants to know more, I hope to have a step by step post about what happened here done, but in the meantime, reach out to me if you want to be overwhelmed with the details.
Edited to add, now having watched the comments on the Jon and Rick show: Rick vastly overstates his involvement with the event. If he was EVER involved with putting it on, it was to ride in the annual pre-event clinic and to do a publicity appearance or two in the early days. He has NEVER been involved in the actual thousands of hours that go into putting this event on. And his personal opinions aside of the hardworking people that have put this event on for years, to suggest that RHHT did a disservice to the local community in Tallahassee by not building a modified course is ludicrous and insulting. When he was specifically asked where the funds would come from to change the course and to take a chance on running anyway, he responded “you don’t need the fundraising money.”
Really? If anyone has ideas of how you can stage an enormous event without funds, I’d love to hear it! Anyone that is hiding the ability to magic all of this into existence is really doing everyone a disservice!
We are all entitled to our opinions, but to state that the event is selfish is an astonishing opinion.
Jon is the Chair of the Eventing Sport Committee currently with USEF and I respect that he has to be careful with his comments, and that he praised USEF. I also deeply appreciate his kind words for the event itself and am thankful for the number of times he’s been available over the years for advice and suggestions to make things better.
I would also like to say that I do not think it is the volunteers on the committees that caused this problem in the first place and that the original idea to reorganize the calendar was organizer driven and came from a good place in the beginning. The process went off the rails, however, and USEF could have taken the opportunity to fix it, and they chose to let the event with the second largest public spectator crowds in the country close its doors instead. They were given several opportunities to correct this, as they had to with another event on the calendar. The process was flawed, and I think the committees were used to set up someone else’s agenda. As a former USEF employee stated above up thread, the committees are just used to rubber stamp what someone at USEF wants to happen anyway.