Oh gotcha.
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This is what is driving me bonkers.
I’ve always been pro-SafeSport. The promotional materials & training were enough for me to agree it is a necessary and beneficial step in the correct direction. I assumed there would be kinks to be worked out, but the overall premise seemed sound. I had a front row seat for a lot of the atrocities committed behind the scenes in show barns, so I am not naive as to why we need this.
When I started seeing the anathema towards it online, especially from people more entrenched in the industry than myself, I questioned my stance. So I dug into the policies and procedures. Most of the arguments from opponents were debunked after two minutes of reading.
Threads like this one brought attention to people’s criticisms based on firsthand experiences. I listened to their experiences, I understand why they were upset about having gone through it, but almost everyone’s experiences ended with them being able to resume business as usual in a timely manner. At the heart of most of the criticisms were hurt feelings, embarrassment, anger, shame… not long term damages as they are trying to make it appear. “We had a hectic weekend.” “A client moved barns.” “We lost money.” Yeah… it sucks. I feel for them. But that stuff happens in life, with or without SafeSport. The point is, they got off the list, and usually quickly.
Others who remained on the banned list are people with histories, or people whose transgressions can be googled.
My biggest criticism of SafeSport at the moment is that the horse world has dismissed it as a “witch hunt,” therefore bans are not being respected. Like the dude in VA with the busy lesson barn, big name sponsors, and a schooling show series. Or the guy in New England with the IEA team running out of his barn. Or banned trainers being recommended for horseback riding in an Oklahoma tourism brochure. How do we stop that kind of stuff?
Some people are claiming more transparency will help people respect the SafeSport process, but I disagree. I think SafeSport finally has it right by offering a private outlet for dealing with these sensitive situations. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the law fails to stop sexual predators more often than not. SafeSport certainly doesn’t stop predators, but it prevents our sports organizations from supporting them.
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This is way off topic and brought up in the last “I don’t understand Safe Sport” thread but I feel it would be good to post it here. I received an email back from Teresa Roper the Safe Sport coordinator for the USEF.
People on the other thread were concerned about being the only adult at the barn with a minor there. So I asked what is the policy for fellow boarders and clients when they find themselves at the barn alone with a minor. Below is her response:
My apologizes for the delayed response.
The MAAP policies would not imply in your scenario. The only time consent would be warranted is if training in the same barn and you were an adult in a position of power (i.e. the minor’s trainer, coach).
Thanks,
Teresa
I understand people needing clarification on Safe Sports policies. What I do not get is the refusal to email either Safe sport or the coordinator for the USEF. Instead they come here or go on Facebook for answers that never seem to get answered to their satisfaction.
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No it was a public post by Cintas. I will not join the aforementioned group because I have noted the posts that the moderators of that group had made about SS.
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Weren’t those situations going on before the existence of Safe Sport? If people have figured out a way to make a living with horses while skirting the whole USEF membership issue, I don’t think you can blame Safe Sport for that problem.
I am a bit surprised that the IEA has not set up any kind of reciprocal banned list with USEF. Maybe they want to keep the two organizations completely separate. But still.
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Good point. I wasn’t necessarily saying SafeSport should be expected to stop those situations. I think it’s up to the horse world to police our own. If the industry on the whole thought of SafeSport positively instead of likening it to a joke, maybe consumers and other organizations would take bans seriously and move business elsewhere.
But to your point, we’ve never been good at policing our own. People who have been banned by USEF in the past or who have been arrested for criminal activity still manage to maintain followings of loyal patrons.
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I’m pretty sure if someone sent info to whomever is responsible for the tourism brochure, the banned trainer would be removed quickly.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sport…ct/2379832002/
Yes, they addressed it in this situation. Sort of.
I can, even though I’m not part of the group as someone invited me.
Here is the text of Randy Cate’s post.
Hi all and thank you for accepting me in the group.
My case predates the Center for SS. It is the only USEF/SafeSport case that was handled by USEF. A huge amount of evidence was presented against me. Enough evidence to convict me in criminal case which then begs the question, why wasn’t I? It was investigated by local law enforcement and not pursued. What USEF doesn’t tell you or they’ve suppressed is the original accuser had also accused others of misconduct before. The electronic evidence which they relied so heavily on was never independently verified or examined, only examined by a firm that worked for the original accuser. Local law-enforcement received the electronic evidence and did not pursue the case any further. We were not allowed to cross examine the original accuser as to motive and the original accuser was not the alleged victim. The alleged victim who was 18 at the time of the hearing now going on 23 not only did not support the USEF’s claim but also testified on my behalf. There are according to USAToday 900 safe sport cases that predate the center. The new punitive rules of the SS have been retroactively applied to all these cases without the benefit of independent arbitration or standards of evidence that most of the arbitrators use in the post center for SafeSport cases. Both myself and the alleged victim in my case separately requested independent arbitration and review by the center and were denied.
I’ve been fighting USEF and SafeSport since the fall of 2014.
I know a lot about these guys and this is not about protecting young people. If it were, they would’ve protected the alleged victim in my case from an abusive mother who had been found unfit for custody by the state in which she lived.
The good news is I think the darkest days are behind us. Good people are getting involved. Light is starting to crack through, it’s just a matter of time and commitment.
When someone gets that email they’ve been banned its sudden and crushing. You literally can’t breath. In a second your life has changed. It hasn’t ended but it sure feels like it at the time. If they’re in the equestrian industry they’re going to lose a lot but USEF and SS can’t take their talent or their love of the horse. They just have to hold on, history tells us this always ends. In the meantime if they need someone to talk to who’s been through it feel free to tell them reach out or I can reach out to them. I’m happy to do what I can.
@FiSk123 Thank you for your calm, educated posts debunking a lot of the misinformation being tossed around. It’s really helpful to hear about the real Safe Sport process. I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to participate in this conversation.
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Are they still partnering with him? I did a quick review of the OK site and couldn’t find anything, but it was brief.
To be fair though, OK Tourism isn’t affiliated with USEF so that kind of contradicts the whole “can still operate outside of USEF” idea. Not that I think anyone who has been found to be engaging in inappropriate contact with a minor should be allowed near minors.
They weren’t really “partnering” with him. They featured his barn in tourism promotional materials, acting on a third party suggestion. They were like “oops, we didn’t know” when it was brought to their attention. The Discover Oklahoma clip is still featured on their social media. They were referring the matter to their lawyers.
I couldn’t find it throught the link, got an error, but could by searching back through their videos.
Also interesting…the Cross Creek website has NO mention of RC, nor does that video. How are parents/tourists even supposed to know to make a judgement call for themselves?
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Sorry about the link, it works on my end, but must be because I found it under my own account.
And I don’t know how parents and tourists can help themselves in this case. From everything I understand, he still owns the farm and trains at the farm. I don’t know if he still gives lessons to minor students at the farm.
It certainly is a banner week for private facebook groups…
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Thanks for sharing that.
I expect that there will be people who accept this statement just as it is written, and that there will be other people who will look at it critically, noting what can and cannot be verified, and what does or does not match whatever facts are known. And they will come to different conclusions about its credibility.
SafeSport is fulfilling a necessary role that has been previously neglected, and I think that as a new process it is inevitable that it is creating dividing lines in USEF sport.
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Were the replies all supportive or were any telling him he’s the perfect example of why we need Safe Sport? Is anyone standing up for the survivors or is it all more of the same?
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Especially as time goes on and the novelty of SafeSport and its actions wears off, I expect that many people won’t pay much attention to the lists, unless they happen to hit the news. The people most active in this sport don’t seem to spend that much time on the computer, as most of their waking hours are spent either in the saddle or on their feet near a horse. So it will be easy to skate around the ban just through people not knowing, in the right time and place.
And, of course, some people either won’t agree with SS actions, or won’t care, and bottom line, will be reluctant to break their association with banned persons who are good for them personally.
There will always be people who don’t care about their past as long as they themselves benefit from the association. As has been pointed out in this thread, in the big picture there is nothing we can do about the fact that banned people can continue to participate and be active in the sport in other ways. As has been demonstrated repeatedly in horse sport in almost every discipline. Even with banned people whose egregious violations seem to beyond the pale of every standard of moral and decent behavior toward humans and/or horses.
One of COTH’s longest and most explosive threads was several years ago about an incident of horse abuse by a trainer that resulted in the death of the horse. I’m not even going to say the name as I don’t want to light a match that could reignite that explosion, even after all this time. The incident resulted in a legal investigation and a lawsuit that was settled out of court. And a commitment by certain people in her area to do all they could to steer her away from involvement in horses and away from continuing her training career.
I mention it because just over a year ago I saw that very trainer at a major equestrian event in her discipline (same discipline that knew her well then and now), guiding a young equestrian and also schooling a green horse, in the trainer’s professional capacity as a trainer, instructor and mentor. Several people expressed high regard for her skills and were glad to have her participating in their equestrian sport.
As people point out all the time, there is no licensing or anything else stopping anyone from advertising and collecting money for their services in some branch of equestrian sport. That is unlikely ever to change. SafeSport and the USEF can only do what they can do.
That’s pretty much what we can do. And try to be sure other people are informed.
But we can’t control what other people decide to do about their own associations.
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Thank you for your response. I think it is very helpful in moving the discussion forward. I am going to respond to your message in parts since otherwise it is too long and takes too much time right now.
I, of course, do see that protecting the identity of victims is a real issue, especially if they are minors. But there are other consideration as well such as the impact on the credibility of SafeSport when no findings of fact are given to support the conclusions. It is actually worse than no findings of fact, because the specific parts of the code that have been violated are not identified. What I would consider a more usual procedure would be to identify specifically which parts of the code are violated and then give the findings of fact that led to the conclusion that the section(s) were indeed violated. I have said this before.
So a beginning would be to just specify which parts were violated (without the supporting findings of fact).
Also, some general information about age and time of the offense needs to be provided (for the reasons I have said before), especially for retrospective cases.
I am beginning to wonder, in this age of social media, if it s even possible to keep secret the names of the accusers and victims. As this whole thing developed after RG’s suicide, I was very surprised to see names of accusers/victims coming out almost immediately. If it is impossible to keep things secret, then that objective can’t be met and this reduces the reason to use it as a justification for not being more specific about what the findings were. “The genie may be out of the bottle” with respect to this kind of confidentiality.
Thanks for the info about the inspiration coming from the USADA. Very helpful. If you do find more information when you have a chance, I would appreciate your sharing it.
I have no inside information about the RG case. I only know what is available publicly and you and I seem to agree pretty much about the information that is public. I have read many of the Facebook posts in support of RG. Many are hard to read. I have found no statements from victims.
When I became aware of the accusation that RG may have committed statutory rape in CA 30 years ago, my reaction was (and is) that this could have happened. I would probably have had the same reaction for anyone that was accused. I would have had the same reaction even if the accused was a woman.
I will say that your comment more or less requires me to believe that RG was one of the biggest threats out there among USEF “covered persons.” Frankly, that is very hard for me to believe.
Anything is, of course, possible, but the more implausible the statement, the more important the basis for making the statement. My point is, the more surprising the SafeSport conclusions, the more important the justification presented.
(Note: I am not demanding that you justify that RG was one of the biggest threats, nor am I attacking you, just making a point about the connection between plausibility and needed justification.)
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