USEA Convention

Eventers flock to the French Quarter for the USEA Convention by Joanne MorseUSEA Convention is the work/social function of the year where eventers from all over the country flock together to discuss plans for the future of the sport and honor those who have achieved greatness in the past year. It is always interesting getting to see so many horse people in the same place not wearing breeches and boots or helmets and laughing when you don’t recognize someone in “normal” clothes. I can say that I was extra excited to attend convention this year as it was being held in New Orleans, Louisiana. When I think of a city oozing with culture New Orleans is always the first city that comes to mind. I was even more excited when I arrived in Louisiana Thursday evening and learned that our hotel was literally right across the street from the French Quarter and two blocks down from the famous Bourbon Street! All I can say is that walking to dinner Friday night was the most entertaining walk that I had ever taken in my life!

Like all conventions before, the schedule began at 8am with a full day packed with different meetings discussing a broad range of topics. The hardest part for me was deciding which meetings to attend. It never fails that there will two that you have your heart set on going to that are at the exact same time. I was lucky to get to attend again this year with Rebecca Bowman, our new VP of Eventing, so we split up and tackled as many meetings as we could. Its refreshing hearing thoughts and ideas from different people from all over the country.

The one think that everyone had in common was their desire to make the sport better and watch it grow and thrive in years to come. Whether you are an Owner, Competitor, Organizer, Course Designer, Course Builder, Official, or just a lover of the sport there is something for everyone. I could write pages on what all I learned at convention but as I am limited to 600 words I will give the cliff notes version. I will go ahead and mention that any member can log in to the USEA website and watch the meetings that way. Most of the meetings that I attended were being recorded for people that were unable to attend. A big topic that was covered first thing Friday morning was the need for officials in this sport. Technical Delegates (TD’s) are in high demand right now as there are not enough right now to cover all the events. It was refreshing to listen to officials talk about the process they went through to get to where they are and still have so much enthusiasm and obvious joy in what they do. There is process with extensive training to become any type of official or judge which can be found on the USEF website. As expected, safety aspects were a big topic in many different meetings. The Future of Cross Country which was run by a panel of some of the top course designers in the country and world covered extensively the plan for the future of cross country and what course designers and builders can do to make the courses better. I found this meeting

to be quite interesting as I listened to designers like Captain Mark Philips discuss why certain jumps are set the way they are and what all is taken in to account when designing a course. I learned also the following morning during the Safety Committee Open Forum that growing use of the Frangible Pin as cut the rotational fall number in half. While everyone agreed that there was more work to be done it was encouraging to hear that we are heading in the right direction. This was then followed by the meeting on New Safety Technology where we got a preview of the new MIPS study from Sweden that is going to be a game changer for helmets. Science was never my strong point and I do not want to do this exciting innovation a disservice by fudging up the particulars. I will say though that it is worth taking a look in to if you are in the market for a new helmet as there will be models available as early as next Spring. My final meeting of the weekend covered rule changes that would be adopted by the USEA. There were several minor changes to the wording of several rules mostly just trying to make the rules easier to understand and clearer when interpreting. The best advice that I can give it to take your time when reviewing the rules changes before the competition year starts. Make sure that you check that the rule change is with USEA and not FEI as there were a couple rules that one adopted but not the other. There were also some proposed rule changes with USEF that pertained to USHJA but not USEA or FEI. In other words, the rules are still complicated so take your time when reading.