Not much difference in their answers.
I’m disturbed that DiAnn doesn’t see owning a barn full of horses as a conflict of interest.
But we the people don’t get to vote anyway, so it doesn’t really matter!
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I preferred DiAnn’s answers, and if I had a vote, I’d vote for her.
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I think she hits the nail on the head when she suggests that they need to do a better job of telling their members what benefits they bring.
All the talk of committees and task forces just reminds me of organizational structures that don’t get much done and certainly not quickly. Have you seen the graphic for a rule change that Mary circulated a year or so ago? It’s like that funny meme about blanketing your horse. Arrows went every which way. Sounds like a nightmare.
I feel like USEF, USHJA, and the rules could all use a fresh from scratch view. Like dismantling and rebuilding. It will never happen. Perhaps too many committees required to get that done.
Britt was the course designer at a show I attended recently. I said something out loud about the handy being the first day and not the second as it had been the prior week. I was just caught by surprise, had nerves since it was WCHR week in a big ring. No big deal. He responded to me (I wasn’t talking to him) with some sort of snarky comment about have you never seen horse shows make changes. Something I suppose relevant but sarcastic and off putting. That turned me off. I chuckled when I realized he’s candidate for Pres of USHJA. I don’t know DiAnn. She seems to be coming from more of a user/trainer (albeit for teams) side rather than a committee member/chair.
When it really comes down to it, I think the issues I mostly have are solved at the USEF level. Amateur Rules; Drug Rules/Enforcement; Points. Which then circles me back to what is the point of the USHJA. We did ok without it back in the AHSA days. Still had zone finals then.
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I am a huge fan of DiAnn’s. But we don’t get a vote so…
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For those of us not doing h/j anymore we appreciate USEF not having to deal day in and day out with the 800lb gorilla that plays by different rules from almost everyone else!
And in theory, having the governing body be the USHJA and not USEF should allow USEF to deal with the FEI and USOC while USHJA deals with national level and grass roots/local outreach. It’s a shocking amount of work to manage overseas competition so it’s nice that they can be separate. The fact that USHJA could be better at their day job is regrettable, but USEF isn’t set up to be better at it due to their core purpose.
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Curious for a newbie to USEF/USHJA - what is the friction with USEF/USHJA that Britt was alluding to, besides the obvious overlap of similar missions and oversight?
She’s very well known in SoCal.
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Britt McCormick has been elected by the board.
They went with the company guy.
How disappointing.
https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/britt-mccormick-elected-as-ushja-president/
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Yes, H/J did OK. But every other discipline complained that USEF (then AHSA) was “just a hunter/jumper organization” and didn’t pay attention to the other disciplines.
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With all due respect, the point of spinning off USHJA was to allow USEF (then AHSA) to do a better job dealing with the OTHER disciplines.
As far as I know, USEF doesn’t “manage overseas competition.”
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The due respect portion of your comment pretty much restated what I said/meant, so fully noted that you respect that. Thank you. I took can say Alan balch ahsa wars! 
And as one of those “other” FEI disciplines, I have no complaints. (yes I know this equally applies to non fei disciplines)
What I meant by “overseas competition” is that large portion of USEF employees who are responsible for the logistics of getting team fei competitor horses/equipment over there. It wasn’t something I fully understood until I learned only 1 person does it for driving whereas there’s a full department for show jumping. Which is kind of fun, considering more driving team horses go to Europe than jumpers. (Before someone loses their mind, this is for team competitions, if you just go to Europe to compete, that’s your problem).
So yes, thanks for agreeing with me!
Got it.
I think the “managing international teams” part was due to the absorption of most of the USET (all but the fundraising role) into the USEF (about 2003), and was independent of the “spinoff” of USHJA (about 2004), though they happened about the same time.
I think the merger with USET was because the Olympic organization required “only one national federation for each country, for each discipline”, which had to manage both sending teams to the Olympics, AND national competition.
(I misinterpreted “manage overseas competition” as “manage overseas competitions”.)
Yes, but as I recall, the ushja spin-off was also part of the USOC requirements as well, not just because they wanted to spin it off to its own governing body… although as many years as it has been I’m not sure about that. It’s not an FEI requirement but I thought it was usoc related. Lol or not.
I have only attended one AHSA (or USEF) meeting, and that was in the mid-late 90’s when it was less than a mile from where I worked in Tyson Corners.
The main topic of discussion of the membership fee structure. Instead of everyone paying the same membership fee it was going to split into a (smaller) membership fee, and then a “discipline fee”, that varied by discipline. If you were going to compete in multiple disciplines you would have to pay multiple discipline fees.
The main motivation for this was that the other breeds and disciplines (especially the breeds) complained that everyone was paying the same membership fee but that AHSA was spending more time on money on H/J than anything else. Also for the other breeds and disciplines (except for Western) there was another breed/discipline organization that did much of that work that AHSA did for H/J. On top of that, the riders in the other breeds/disciplines had to join their own national organization as well as AHSA. But H/J (and Western) ONLY needed to join AHSA.
I think that the introduction of the discipline fees, combined by the resentment of the other breeds/disciplines that AHSA was spending more time and money on H/J then anything else, sowed the seeds for the creation of USHJA.
I don’t remember exactly when the discipline fees went away, but I think it was roughly the same time that USHJA was created.
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Yes, that did clear the cobwebs of time!
