And this is also important for the drug rules, including what is permitted, withdrawal and reporting rules.
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Exactly.
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Well, you are very lucky. We donât even have a CDI in my part of Canada, they ran one once for the Olympic selection year.
Everyone is competing either EC or nonrated.
I would agree that any sedative would be counterproductive in dressage, and that horses are less likely to suffer acute injuries if they donât jump. However, I see a number of horses getting chronic stress injuries including career ending suspensory failure even at first level (not sure if that might be undiagnosed DSLD at times) and I see horses that are NQR behind until they are ridden âpulled together.â And I see a lot of biomechanically unsound training but thatâs another story. Also dressage riders do skew to adults and often more hands-on.
But being able to be coached by one of the small number of riders who are active at CDI level is not possible in many parts of North America.
Ah I mispoke. We do indeed have a CDI Youth and Junior qualifier in my region next week. But the nearest regular CDI are a 5 day drive on the other side of the country.
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Safesport itself is almost completely funded by the US Olympic Committee. And a bit of grant money.
They get about $1 mm annually in âfees for servicesâ which could be anything but when you think of all the sports covered, its not likely that much, if any is coming from USEF.
As far as USEF implementation, I suspect thatâs also a small $ amount. When we take our annual training test, its done on Safesport site, and results are electronically sent back to USEF. They run some program that link that to your usef # and done. Complaints/Allegations etc may that come to USEF re sexual misconduct are sent on to Safesport to investigate. If it doesnât qualify for that, USEF evaluates under its existing ârules violationâ process.
If you read the USEF financials, its somewhat surprising where money goes. Example - out of $27 mm budget only about 10% goes to drug testing - thatâs not a ton of $ when you look across all the disciplines, the # of shows, etc. Its an interesting read if you are into that kind of thing (part of my career was securities analyst so I enjoy an occasion romp through audited financial statements, lol)
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Going down a rabbit hole about the FEI rankings. I see there is world rankings with under 500 people ranked, mostly in Europe. I am not sure how the points accrue. Do you get your score from each ride, or do you get points according to whether you win or place, with nothing otherwise? Then there are other rankings lists for youth and different regions, and for CDI 1* and CDI 2* etc.
The website is unwieldy and unsearchable and doesnât explain much, so someone could be doing some level of CDI but not be on the world rankings. Thereâs no easy way to cross reference the listings, they are too tedious to scroll though and figure it out. Iâm just curious, I have no exposure to anyone that knows that level, so happy to be informed by those that do.
https://www.fei.org/dressage/rankings?ranking=D_WR&year=2022&month=6
I actually saw this happen at a local show onceâa horse in a flat class was visibly lame at the trot and at the end of the class the judge called the rider over and spoke quietly with them. The horse did not compete anymore, and the horse did not pin in that class either. So the right thing happens sometimes, even at a local level.
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Guac, chips and margaritas 
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Best I can do. How do they not have nachos?
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P. 2 shows the process. Basically each time someone rides a test, they get points based on test score. So if you are Charlotte and get an 82 on GP test, you get 320 points. And because you are Charlotte and can do it again in the GPS and the Freestyle, you end a weekend w/ almost 1000 pts. There is some tinkering, I think it has to be CDI3* or higher for dressage, bonus points if its the World Cup, etc. Max of 8 scores per year
https://inside.fei.org/system/files/FEI_Dressage_World_Ranking_List_Rules_2021.pdf
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Thank you, that totally answered my question about points! So everyone who rides gets points, so there are really only those 400 something riders in contention.
And since thatâs all GP level, there will be other rankings for the short tour and more people there not counted in the World Rankings.
So there are about 645 people on the 2022 FEI CDI one star rankings. There might be overlap with GP riders bringing along new horses.
Anyhow, if these rankings capture everyone riding CDI around the world, and most of them are in Europe :), itâs rather a small pool.
I am sure there are single hunter jumper shows at large venues that have more entries there than the entire number of people on the FEI World Rankings.
Okay, I found another FEI World ranking dressage list and this one has about 850 places on it which is more what I expected from.my Googling during the Olympic year.
https://data.fei.org/Ranking/Search.aspx?rankingCode=D_WR
But still, I bet there are single hunter jumper shows with that many entrants.
Just making the comparison clear, that one h/j show could have as many competitors as the entire pool of people in dressage world rankings, who are never all going to.descend on one show at once
The logistics are totally different.
There was one horse in particular at junior hunter finials , named Searchlight that was so lame, head bobbing lame. When it trotted into the ring I just couldnât believe the stewart or the judges let that horse jump a full course. I did notice that it scored a zero, so they mustâve eliminated it for being lame. But that poor thing had to jump entire course like that. What kind of trainer sends a horse in like that? I looked it up, It was some trainer named Julie Pickering from Kansas. I was so disgusted. Those type of things are inexcusable, there needs to be some sort of punishment. If I were the trainer, I would of immediately told my student to come back out and called the vet.
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I am glad you take your horse home for turnout during the show. That is awesome. I donât assume a horse is sedated just because it is mellow or falling asleep at the in gate.
I am not relying on teenage girls and here-say. I was in the same barn as the teenage girl and saw her horse getting injected every couple of months. This did not make him sound, but he still did junior jumpers and jumped his heart out. This girl was appeared to be the most callous and cold I have known. She literally called her horse Alpo and appeared to have zero connection to him. She had a couple of other horses as well and behaved indifferently to all of them. I donât know what she thought in her mind. I only witnessed her words, her actions and the behavior of the trainer and the vet ( a bad vet to inject that frequently as far as I am concerned)
The other stuff is not here-say. I have knowledge of everything, but I am not at dumb enough to call out people by name.
I will say it again, I have seen first hand abuse in dressage barns too. I have seen plenty of people ride lame horses that I would not. I know, not here-say, a couple of needle happy dressage trainers whose program are too intense and not horse friendly. I have seen with my own two eyes these barns inject 5 and 6 year old horses that they have already started to break down by riding them poorly and drilling the crap out of them. Riding a 5 year old in a double bridle and trying to make it do 3rd level when it is still weak and gangly is abuse. Very few horses are ready for the young horse classes, but some trainers train like all their young horses can handle that. That also upsets me a lot.
However, in dressage barns the only real drugs I see on a regular basis are previcoxx and ulcerguard. People use Adequan and Legend and do joint injections. I donât see Robaxin, Dex, perfect prep, magnesium drips or whatever else. I only know one dressage person who gave her gelding Depo and she learned that from the HJ people.
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Thank you. I appreciate that info.
Yes I would pay more, and yes, I welcome rule changes for my discipline too. Also, I think there can be âtrained lameness specialistsâ instead of vets or maybe overseen by 1 vet for the whole show or something. Yes, I would not challenge the ruling. Listen, currently the pendulum is so far in the one direction where very broken horses are not only often not eliminated, they sometimes win. I would pay to have that shift in the right direction. I am also of the camp that education is power. Letâs set it up so all participants and their parents are supported in not being clueless.
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Why not? If itâs so important to you. Why not say something ??? Have you talked to a steward? Called out a trainer ? Why not video these horrific instances and put them on Facebook. Make a page. Coming here and posting vague instances is like pissing in the wind.
Yes there are SOME people who do bad things. Should they be caught ? Hopefully sooner rather than later. But your blanket assertions about entire disciplines is 
. I can only keep myself accountable. I know how I show and keep my horses. If you know personally of trainers and riders and horses so egregiously drugged lame cheating ⊠call them out. Leave the rest of us the heck alone. Itâs really tiring hearing how great the good old days were. They really werenât. Thereâs just more awareness now. The get off my lawn shaking of fists at the sky is really not effective .
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The training to become the âlameness specialistâ of which you speak is called veterinary school. Vets spend years obtaining doctoral degrees. Many of them spend untold amounts of additional time to specialize in diagnosing and treating lameness. Entire careers are spent fine-tuning an eye to pick up subtle abnormalities and amassing the experience and knowledge to determine what could be causing them. A layperson âlameness specialistâ evaluating horsesâ soundness to compete, even under the supervision of a vet, would open a Pandoraâs Box of legitimacy issues.
Can we focus on more feasible ways to protect horses (as many others have suggested)? Limits on number of classes per day/weekend/what have you. More stringent drug testing. Perhaps a greater presence of stewards or officials in the barns to prevent some of the egregious drug abuse you claim to have witnessed. Can we overhaul the judging of the hunters especially to stop rewarding slow, unresponsive, potentially sedated horses? Can we revisit the qualifications systems for finals and indoors so riders arenât incentivized to chase points to the detriment of their horses?
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People have said this to you, so I doubt you will take my comments any differently, but here goesâŠ
I am personally not surprised that you havenât gotten any replies from USEF based on 1) your tone, 2) your anecdotes, 3) your writing style, and 4) your grammar.
You come in hot with guns blazing, attack an entire industry, anecdotally quote literal children, make gross generalizations, and admit that your first-hand knowledge is peripheral at best.
The problems you address deserve to be discussed, but if you think you are doing horses competing in the low-level H/J rings (or any horses for that matter) any favors with your tactics, youâre incredibly deluded.
I will also say that while I wish that judges didnât reward lethargic, chonky warmbloods to the degree that they do, I donât believe that there is an epidemic of lame or drugged horses in the sport. I think there are both, but not in the numbers you allege.
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Devilâs advocate would say, maybe horses that canât stay sound without bute shots shouldnât be showing, esp jumping. I think racehorses need a 7 day window between bute and running in a lot of places and even so, sustained use of NSAIDS is implicated in breakdown rates.
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All of those things sound good. Honestly, they are well thought out. However, I beg to differ with you on the lameness specialists. These people do not need a vet degree. They are not doing any diagnostics. They are just determining on the date of competition whether or not a horse has a gait abnormality that is apparent, and even without any diagnosis, it would be prudent not to compete the horse on this day. Listen, I am not talking about the older stiff horse with a little arthritis that warms out of it or the horse that is just not articulating every joint perfectly. I am talking about the horses that many people can tell arenât right and in the current system slip right through and do several over fence classes and do not get eliminated. I will argue this until I am blue in the face, there are a lot of horses in this category at a lot of USEF shows. Many of them are in the low jumper and hunter rings, but some of them are in the higher and more prestigious classes. I have not been to any show where I havenât seen these horses ( even dressage shows). They are not unicorns in my imagination.
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Thatâs a bit of a conclusion to jump to, assuming these horses wouldnât be sound without bute. I would counter that by likening it to taking a couple advil after a hard work out. Also in my experience a gram of bute generally does not mask an unsoundness.
I brought it up because of the broad brush that needles are being painted with. There are plenty of things that can and are injected at shows that arenât dex, depo, or sedative.
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