I have followed the complications and inconsistencies of the Amateur Rule (GR1306) for many years. I watched the webinar, and have just sent a response to the Amateur Task Force. I figured I would post it here too.
Starting with the most broad perspective, I question the need for separating “Amateurs” from “non-Amateurs” in the first place.
When I first joined USEF (back in the early 1960s), the Amateurs (at least in the Hunter/Jumper disciplines) fell into two categories-
- College students who had “aged out” of the juniors, but whose “horse habit” was still being supported by their parents
- Married women who did not work outside the home, and whose “horse habit” was supported by their husbands.
We still have the first category, but the second category has almost disappeared. Apart from the college students, most of the Amateurs (in all disciplines) have full time jobs outside the horse industry, and many struggle to afford the ever increasing cost of competing.
Furthermore, for many Amateurs, the focus has changed from separating the “payers” from the “paid” to separating the “good enough to make a living at it” to “not good enough to make a living at it” (not withstanding the first line of GR1306 which says it is not related to “skills or accomplishments”). This “good enough” context was reflected in the comments of the panelists who talked about whether or not certain activities “made you a better rider”. If Amateur status is not about “skills and accomplishments”, then it shouldn’t matter if something “makes you a better rider”.
Rather than modifying the Amateur rules, it would make more sense to ger rid of them entirely, and for each discipline to create performance categories that ARE overtly based on “skills and accomplishments”.
For instance, Eventing already has “Horse” and “Rider” subdivisions, based on the highest level the horse/rider has completed in the last 5 years.
The same approach (for “Rider”) could be applied to Dressage, which is also based on “Levels”.
A similar approach (perhaps based on the highest height the rider has competed at in the last 5 years) could be applied to Hunters and Jumpers.
It is not immediately clear to me how to apply this concept to the Western disciplines, and to the breed disciplines, but I am sure each of them could figure out their own structure. If nothing else, the definitions of “Maiden”, “Novice”, “Limit” which already exist in the General Rules could be expanded and/or customized for each discipline.
Then we would no longer have to worry about the GR1306 “peg” needing to fit a whole bunch of very different “holes”.
The Olympics (which introduced the whole concept of restricting competition to “Amateurs”) got rid of the Amateur distinction decades ago.
As a competitor, I really don’t care if I am competing against the “payers” or the “paid”. When I was working full time, there was a definite advantage to competing in (Jumper) classes held on the weekend instead of midweek. That, to me, was the only advantage of being an “Amateur”. But if the Jumper classes were divided based on experience/accomplishments, presumably the “lower” experience classes would still be on the weekend.
Instead of trying to hold together the obsolete “Amateur” definition with band aids, it would make more sense to get rid of it entirely, and replace it with discipline specific class distinctions that ARE based on “skills and accomplishments”.
