David O’Connor embraces horse emotions at USEF meeting, while ACPS expands bigoted Connemara inspections

In one room at USEF’s 2024 annual meeting, USEF Chief of Sport David O’Connor discussed weighty topics such as whether there should be horse sport at all and if horses enjoyed taking part in such activity.

In another room, Connemara officials expanded their bigoted inspections to a bigger pool of Connemaras (halfbreds).

The differences couldn’t be more stark.

USEF and the FEI, the international governing body of equestrian sports, are deeply concerned about public perception of horse welfare in a changing world where cell phones are everywhere and one bad social media post can be catastrophic.

The American Connemara Pony Society couldn’t care less about public perception.

The ACPS is perfectly happy to fail Connemaras that aren’t Connemara enough at its inspections, essentially dooming a Connemara to be thrown away.

I have been shunned for 20 years for daring to point out how unethical it is for the ACPS to create a two-class system of desirable and undesirable Connemaras based on the subjective opinion of three breeders serving as inspectors who have a huge conflict of interest in inspecting competitors’ Connemaras.

And now the top two horse organizations in the world are asking all horsemen to consider the ethics of everything related to horses.

The ACPS definition for a “real” Connemara was written by inspectors to match their own herds, disregarding the actual breed standard in place since 1923 and its cannon bone standard of a circumference of 7 to 8 inches.

I would ask USEF and the FEI to add both inspections and breed standards to their list of practices under review and to ban both.

What would be evident to any thinking person in the general public is that every Connemara, no matter its shape, is an equal,  legitimate and welcome Connemara on this planet.

But public perception is the last thing that’s going to sway ACPS officials such as inspector Kathy Sparks, who said at a 2020 meeting: “The Inspection Committee and inspectors have perhaps the most important role in the society, one of seeing that we maintain and preserve our breed standard.”

O’Connor’s forward-thinking presentation

In O’Connor’s session, he gave a passionate presentation on how public perception cannot be dismissed.

O’Connor also serves on the FEI board of directors and is part of the FEI’s social license commission to address societal concerns related to the use of horses.

The FEI is defining the horse world’s social license to operate as an understanding between equestrians and the public that the public accepts equestrian sport and the way it is practiced, while equestrians respect the relevant sensitivities of the public.

The FEI is openly discussing whether there should be horse sport at all before the public starts the conversation first.

At the center of the discussion is the appreciation that horses are sentient creatures, which means they feel emotion, differently than humans, but they definitely feel emotion, O’Connor said.

The scope of horse welfare under FEI scrutiny includes the care, safety, and training of the horse, the horse’s life during the 23 hours when it is not training, and how it is treated in its retirement.

Talking about the hard topics

O’Connor emphasized in his session the importance of transparency in discussing hard topics.

The president of the ACPS took time after the USEF meeting to champion the expanded inspections in the ACPS magazine, but the minutes of the meeting have yet to be published, at least that I can find, HALF A YEAR after the meeting. Those minutes include how many members showed up to the meeting, the number of members left in the ACPS, and the number of foals born in the past year. Those are hard topics these days since the numbers are never good.

How many ACPS members attended O’Connor’s session? We’ll never know, because the ACPS didn’t cover anything from the USEF meeting, either.

O’Connor also asked affiliates to run with the idea of taking part, saying, “It has to come from you. We don’t want it to come from somewhere else or, even in some ways, we don’t want it to come from the government — in this aspect, the USEF.”

O’Connor noted that public perception can lead to quick change, with change being forced on horsemen.

He gave the example of how the sport of pentathlon dropped the involvement of horses after a German rider was captured on video punching a horse at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Pentathlon with horses had been part of the Olympics since 1912. One German rider with a temper changed the sport.

FEI survey of general public and equestrians

O’Connor showed data, warts and all, from a very large survey that the FEI commissioned of people in the general public and equestrians, evaluating their opinions of horses in sport.

The FEI’s survey involved 28,000 respondents from the equestrian community in 116 countries and 14,000 respondents from the general public in 14 countries. It was conducted by survey experts, not FEI officials.

In going through survey results, O’Connor said the most interesting result for him was that 67 percent of the public didn’t believe horses enjoyed sport most of the time, and this was also the viewpoint of 50 percent of the equestrian respondents.

Think about that. Fifty percent of people whose life revolves around making horses do something believe those horses don’t want to do it. Beyond appearing unethical, that’s a little nuts.

I have ridden and worked with both types of Connemaras: those that absolutely love to canter and jump and perform before a crowd at horse shows and events, and those that don’t.

I think inspections and their focus on encouraging the more coarse type of Connemara are leading to the proliferation of the disinterested horses, since my training of Connemaras for most of my 52 years of horse ownership has found the refined Connemaras have more spirit and scope than the coarser Connemaras. It defies logic to force ACPS members to produce Connemaras more coarse and more at risk of being disinterested.

The FEI has posted its survey results of the public and equestrians online, available to all.

Additional FEI documents on the horse world’s social license to operate are here.

A few other highlights of the USEF session that struck me included O’Connor asking affiliates:

— To show that they are willing to listen, willing to hear, and willing to then take that and balance it into the world so that it’s a better place, not just for horsemen, but for horses.

— To get to a place where horsemen are not always in a defensive mode, but in a celebratory mode.

The ACPS has been on its heels for 20 years trying to defend its indefensible inspections. The inspections are accomplishing nothing for the society. They are only allowing the inspectors to promote their own stallions as premium. There is no celebratory mode at meetings. The meeting minutes show a depleted organization with few volunteers doing way too much and trying to create enthusiasm for its main focus of inspections. In the end, the ACPS embraces bigotry, while shunning inclusion for all. Wouldn’t it prefer an inclusive, celebratory environment?

HISA and the crop rule

Lisa Lazarus, CEO of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), spoke at O’Connor’s session about changes already made in the Thoroughbred racing world in the last two years, including changes to the crop rule (use of the whip).

She said horsemen don’t think much of hitting a horse, though she emphasized that HISA prefers good horse management and good riding to lead to little use of a whip and use only for safety.

At the other end of the spectrum, the public “hates” horse whipping, she said, perceiving it as horse abuse.

Lazarus said the crop rule now requires jockeys to carry crops as soft as styrofoam and limits strikes to two at a time up to six, with a maximum of nine before the owner starts to forfeit prize money.

The rule applies to 51 US tracks covered by HISA.

Lazarus said many in the industry reacted to the loss of prize money as if HISA was taking their first born. “It was really very, very emotional,” she said.

“By essentially sanctioning the owner, we got another important stakeholder involved in trying to make change,” Lazarus said, after HISA learned that owners had been telling jockeys not to worry about violating the crop rule because the fees at the time were not prohibitive.

Now, Lazarus said, two years later, no one talks about it. It’s settled policy, and there are hardly any violations.

“It shows that sometimes you’ve got to be a bit brave, as long as you feel certain about your commitment and the change that you’re making, because change is hard, especially for industries that have been around forever,” Lazarus said.

In 2023, I screen-grabbed a social media post by a Connemara rider bragging about “wacking” [sic] her horse at least three times on a cross country course because he “hated” (her word) at least one thing he was asked to do. It was an odd post because she also praised the horse. Honestly, I couldn’t figure out the point of the whole thing. The whacking part seemed so tone-deaf to me that I saved it, thinking one day it would be a good example of what not to do. And here we are.

Public perception matters. It is time to care.