Salaries, Power, and the Future of U.S. Equestrian – with Piper Klemm

So I typically kick the episodes off by having the guest tell us who they are and what it is they do. OK, perfect. I’m Piper Klein and I’m publisher of the Plot Horse magazine. I saw that you actually got your doctorate in chemistry. Yep.

So what kind of one, what prompted you into the chemistry field? And then what did the transition from Chem to publishing look like? Yeah, I’m come from a family of academics and a family of educators and academia was very natural to me. I think like most people who go into the sciences, I had a hot minute where I thought I might be pre Med, my shadow, a doctor at a hospital for one semester of college. And I was like, Nope, this is gross.

I really loved how things worked. And I went to Trinity College in Connecticut, and I think I could have gone physics or chemistry, but Trinity has a good physics department, but it has just a truly exceptional chemistry department. And I’ve always gravitated being around the best people I can be around. And I just, I found working with the people, the science to be incredible. I always thought that I wanted to go into business or be an educator of some sort.

So I went to grad school. I did the pathway. We all have our own family thing. And I also thought I was going in that direction, but I also couldn’t get my family respect and they knew that I could do it. Also, there’s really no negative to going to grad school in the sciences.

Maybe now in current times as funding changes will change, but you get paid to go to grad school and your work to death, but there’s no debt, there’s no student loans. When you’re in the hard sciences, you’re doing research. And so there’s no financial penalty and I encourage more people to do it. I think I meet with a lot of people who don’t understand how that system works. A lot of my peers, a lot of my friends stayed in science.

A lot of my friends are professors. A lot of my friends left completely and went into consulting. And the skills you gain and the work you do doesn’t go away. It was a transitional time. I think that looking around, I’ve always wanted to be educated about this industry.

I loved everything. I had a million questions at pre Internet and no one it was not a culture of that. It was not a culture of learning. It was a culture of do what I say. I’m not sure how much that is because people didn’t know and we’re covering that up or they that like any weakness or soundness as insecurity and a lot of parts of this culture have changed really fast and I’m so grateful and so happy to be part of this.

So it’s hard to remember. Nobody was talking about body image. I remember doing some of our first couple articles on body image and people just like exploded and I got literal hate mail with no return addresses. It’s hard to think about now because the world’s changed so much so quickly. Social media.

I loved social media. I loved connecting with people. I loved how much it was opening up our sport. I saw this opportunity of how we could learn and be educated. I had grown up wanting to learn and not knowing as much as I wanted, so it was a completely random fluke thing.

I had met a couple people online and in person, and I went to after I finished my PHDI went to Thermal in California just to watch and spectate and be around horses. I hadn’t been around horses for my whole PhD, and so I wanted to just have a breather and have a relaxation. I didn’t know anyone because I’ve been out of it for so long. I never really lived on the West Coast, so it was like, silly thing, but I sat there to relax and reset. Obviously I got bored really fast because I didn’t know anyone.

I didn’t totally know what I was doing. I was like watching every day. I was having a great time, but I was a little like lonely and sussed. Someone posted on Facebook that their reporter didn’t show up and could anyone cover the Grand Prix on Saturday night? And I’d never done anything like that, but I was like, I’ll see why not.

I think I got paid, like, $50. It was a light bulb moment to me. Yeah. I walked up to these Grand Prix riders. And I’ve always been, like, shy, like I had to make myself.

But I walked up to these Grand Prix riders and all these questions I had, like, my whole life. I suddenly was like, oh, my gosh, we can ask them. They will answer them. And this is something about an idea. We were about Facebook.

I was like, it’s a very economic use of their time. Like they can answer one question, one interview, and all these people on Facebook can see their education from one thing. Little that we know that they would 15 years later twist their whole lives trying to make Facebook content to compete with each other. But that aside, and I really saw this and I went out there and I thought it was just going to be like a hobby at first with my science. And I was like, we can help people, we can educate them.

We can bring the knowledge of all these great people too, everyone who wants it. And I went around and there were a whole bunch of companies back then and, and every governing bodies and magazines, everything. And I was like, I have this great idea, like I’ll start. I didn’t even think about money. Like I was just thinking about how it could change our industry.

And I was like, I’ll just start this face. OK trio and tell you how we can do it. Let me start Instagram and show you how you connect those people. And they were just, I could not have been more dismissed. A little girl, you don’t know how media works.

You don’t know how social media is just a fad. You don’t get it. You don’t understand marketing. And I was like, I’m pretty sure I do. And just the more I got into it, the more I had fun with it.

But I also realized that I had to own my own thing because I couldn’t listen to old people tell me I didn’t know what I was doing when I was like, in the field. See, I was seeing it. And then I was being told like, Oh no, that’s not true by people who weren’t out there seeing. No, it’s not. Oh, I remember being in school and at that time I had a very competitive junior career in both eventing and show jumping.

And I remember, like, telling a teacher like, I’m going to go to the Olympics. And that teacher was like, let’s be realistic. And I’m like, I’d be at six Olympians last weekend. This is my life. Even people inside of the industry don’t.

It’s one of those things of almost being too close to the fire. You can’t even see what’s happening around you. You were almost in this, the last spot of having this passion, but also having taken a step back and then reapproaching. And yeah, I feel like so many people are almost scared to take that step back and then come back in that they never get those fresh eyes. Yeah, we’re jumping around a little bit.

So I ended up with a magazine. But I also, I say what you just said about the magazine all the time, is that like I, I think so many people who are classically trained. So I didn’t know what I was doing and I learned all on the fly. I think so many people that were classically trained in magazines because it was such a generational shift in such a transitional moment, they were like held back so much by their preconceived notions of what magazines are and what magazines should be. And I came into this with a lot of gumption, but like no traditional training.

I think in that we in that weird moment, like having no traditional training was the best thing for me because I had no bad habits and I know, oh, we should make money off this. I just felt my way around and was like, oh, this is working. This isn’t working. But I had I didn’t get stuck on things that like this used to work or my mentors that always I had no mentors. I just.

Yeah, I know. That’s so funny because I feel like just equestrian sport in itself is so rooted in tradition that it’s that same thing when you were like, I’m being dismissed or whatever. It’s so many people are just, and I don’t know what the psychology behind it is, but so many people are nervous or afraid to go outside of tradition. And more and more people now questioning, oh, why do I have to ride with a nose band or why do I have to do this? Whatever this thing is, and a lot of it comes back to, that’s just how it’s always been done.

I think you’re in such an interesting position because not only are you like a rider and competitor, so you’re involved in showing and competing, but you’re also a professional within the industry and looking into the industry. So you can see things on such a different scale than I think riders and trainers can’t see, but also you can see the things that riders and trainers can’t see that maybe other media outlets can’t see. So what is it like to see things from both the inside and the outside? I think what really makes us unique is that I hit the ground and I go to more shows. I go to big shows, I go to small shows, I go to schooling shows, I go to big AA shows.

I go to Devon and I’ll be at like Backyard 7, repeat fence the next weekend. I go to all the shows. I talk to everyone. I try to listen to everyone. Everyone knows and people feel really comfortable with me.

I think that’s that trust and that’s respect. And every once in a while people say something ranted, but they’ll be like yourself, the record. And I’m like, yes, I like to talk about trends. I don’t like to talk about people. And I think like you get trends from going and experiencing and then making notes and seeing what is different between all these shows.

And I think that’s a lot of what’s missing with the people who are running our governing body. That’s a lot of what’s missing with a lot of these rational approaches. They’re not going to enough shows and they’re not going to enough different shows. Even if you go to a lot of shows and you just talk to the same people and you talk to your friends, like, you know, I’m getting it. And I’ve been to over 1000 horse shows for the plot Horse.

Yeah. When people ask me how many horse shows I go to in the last year, I usually like lie because that’s like sounds. So I’m like, this literally sounds unbelievable. I think that going to all these different things and seeing where people are and what they’re using different things for. You want to show jumpers using schooling shows for?

Is it only where they’re taking a riders? Are they bringing young horses there? Why are they not bringing young horses? Where’s the affordability gap? How do we make stuff happen?

And so just always having my eyes open and you it back to our preconceived notions. You never know, like the last few weeks have taken me, it’s like over 28 since like over first things have taken me on all these twitsy, turvy, curvy roads and I like, I had no idea we’re coming this month. But I just try to listen to people and when things started to stand out to me that oh, we see a lot of this or a lot of that. I think it’s so easy when you do coverage when you are just like chasing down the winner and like you’re at the top things and chasing down the winner. You get into this mindset and you have to be so focused and to be so on it to the horse people.

It’s gotten way better. People understand now that they need to be interviewed, but especially in the early days, FBI, like a lot of things weren’t FBIFI is like structure rules that like you have to get interviewed to get your prize money and people behave pretty pretty. FBI you do like chasing the dad. They would want to talk to you. And we like used to allow people to be shy at some level.

And we don’t really do that anymore, for better or worse. But you would have to, if you were going to interview the top three in the class, they’d all be scattering. You’d all be like literally chasing them down. And even like Kentucky last year, there was like a rain delay or something. And I said to one of the grooms, I was like, OK, like when he gets back, I’m going to interview him.

And she’s only if you want. And I’m like, tell please help me hang him back for one second because he needs to get interviewed. And then you get into this mindset and you’re just running and chasing and getting your hand transcribing everything. Now at least you can plug it in to have a transcription done. You need to edit it a time.

And then you’re trying to be the first one to get the press release out and everyone else is madly typing around you. You lose compassion so fast for your like 4th place. What a loser place, What a loser. You’re like just running down the window and you don’t like, you’re like, oh God, don’t they even want to win the target as like someone who does the sport or in any capacity, you’re groom or rider, trainer, breeder, body worker and you get involved in the emotion and you know that horse. And if it’s not, you know, the rider and you know what goes into it, you body clipped it last weekend and you see it out there like looking amazing.

All of a sudden, like 6th place rings different. You know, it’s that 6th place ribbon. And I think that compassion is so easy to lose and so easy for media to lose. And I think that’s what we lose on Instagram and on these reels and all this stuff is like, we’re so used to that highlight reel of, OK, it’s got the cooler, it’s got the champion ribbon going around. But you miss all the magic that happens in the barn.

And I think we never miss that. Or if I stray a little bit far from that, Ruben, that’s Ruben. He brings us back there. Yeah, there’s so much because even just as a rider and competitor, like when you are in a season of maybe developing horses, so you’re not showing as much going on social media, you’re pretty much only seeing the person with the blue ribbon or the podium finishers. And then you go, oh, that person came in 6th place.

And then you go out there and you like, maybe don’t even make it in the ribbons and you go, oh, yeah, OK, Remembered my respect for just how hard it is for all the stars to align and all the training to be there. And because when you go to a competition, it’s never necessarily your best foot forward because you have the pressure, you have the nerves, you have all of the things. And so when you go in there, you fall back to where you are actually in the training. And that’s the beauty of competition in a way, is that it does give you the sense of where you’re at and where you can go. And I think sometimes with social media, it can be so easy to lose sight of the, as cliche as it is, the joy really is in the process, in the training and the day-to-day stuff.

And being able to go out and compete is such a not necessarily a luxury, but it is easy to lose that with social media and all of that. And one of the interesting things is you posted a Facebook post at the beginning of the month about how you had been contacted by Yousaf to go and chat. And the amount of friends that I had sharing your post. I didn’t even realize everything that was going on with you, Seth, because I haven’t really been competing and all of that. And when you go, you start to look at all the things you go, Oh my God.

Like, there is so much happening that maybe as a writer who isn’t always out competing or whatever, you’re missing the mark. And So what was your impression? All of the sharing and the likes and everything that you got, just saying that you got invited to. Chat completely overwhelming. It’s been interesting because I think this group that’s leading us has been increasingly out of touch, but they’ve been out of touch since day one.

They gave themselves those salaries 10 years ago. This has been going on for a long time. When I had an article called Trust Fall that I put out in the beginning of the month about how we’ve lost faith and lost trust in our governing body. And I do want to say before I get into the salaries and stuff, I want someone who is so good to be our CEO that we want to pay them $1,000,000 a year. I want ACEO that cost us $1,000,000 a year.

That is so good and so inspiring and so great at fundraising. Like we have the most wealthy people on the planet in our sport and we don’t have a team that’s good at fundraising. We have no grassroots programs. Don’t tell me that you can’t sit with those people and make a vision with them. For all of the little you’s and the little me’s out there, this is what I’ve always wanted.

Let’s make a plan so that little me doesn’t get sucked in the system or not knowing where to go or quit riding to go to school because they don’t see what we’re doing or where we’re going and but yeah, these people have been half mast at those salaries for a long time This is nothing new I’ve been reporting on it I guess that’s. So it’s like most things, you train these horses for all these years and then all of a sudden you get rewarded with ribbons on the ring and you’re like, yeah, doing the same thing database that I’ve been doing for eight years and yeah, I’ve been speaking up. The first time I really spoke up about this team was in 2017. It was more sporadic in the beginning because balancing the day-to-day, staying home and working is what’s good for business. This has always been an extracurricular with my free time.

I’m going to horseshoes. I just really noticed the tone over this course of this year, just as things personally impacted more people that were at the top of the sport, suddenly there was support for change. I think a lot of people, again, are very traditional, were very conservative on change. And while this group is doing a lot of things that were like annoying and maybe not good for long term, the people in power, the status quo were like, oh, it’s not really impacting me, so I’m just going to keep going. And this year things seem to happen all year, little things.

And it was like impacting this person and impacting that person. And all of a sudden they were like, not comfortable where once you start digging, you’re like, yes, it’s really, I thought it was not good. But you start digging and you’re like, oh, it’s really not good. And I think the one thing I’m proud of is that so many people said to me, have said to me all year that I’ve given them the confidence to speak up. I’ve given them a confidence to use their voice.

I’ve inspired them to say what they’ve been feeling. And if I do one thing in this sport, it’s sad. I want people to say their truths. I want them to speak at I want especially women to feel empowered to, to talk. That’s a literally our mission statement.

Put yourself out there and it’s not been the people I expect. So I I found out about that meeting like over a week ahead. And so I had a week and I didn’t know what the meeting was about. Like all of us. I just hadn’t and thought about what is this about?

What’s going to happen? It’s going to be there for a week straight. I drove myself crazy. I was at Harrisburg and I had New England finals. I talked to a lot of the people at the show and I’m like, what do you think?

How do we handle this? And if this person there have because you got to be prepared for all scenarios. I’m not a confrontational person and that stares at me. I’ve learn to be confrontational with my writing. But walking in there and I’m always person.

If I wanted to be a lawyer, I would have. And I’ll speak to this too. The original version of the post. I went to Saudi Arabia last year to cover the World Cup. And the original version of the post I said I made a comment.

I literally am more scared getting out of my car to walk into that building. Then I was going to Saudi Arabia and I got some Flack though that’s not. And it was interesting to me because like objectively, I’m not saying that like Lexington, KY is objectively more scary than Saudi Arabia. But what I’m saying is for me personally and how I felt, I went to Saudi Arabia aligned with the power structure. The power structure wanted me there, approved my visa to go cover horses jumping 6.

I was going there to say who last jumps up and who not jumps out, and I went there. And said, who left six up and who knocked up sat it was very like, as much as it was like, oh, this is different and apprehensive and I’m going to be careful and I’m not going to be stupid and I’m going to do this at the other thing. I went shopping and bought all like loose hood and clothes, not taking any risks. But I also went there aligned with the status quo. And this was different.

This was me literally walking in not knowing what was going to happen and meeting with the person who’s firing. I’m calling for was very much not aligned with the power structure and that these are vindictive people like they are known to be vindictive and who knows what’s going to happen as I start to grasp for straws and realize that they’re losing it. So I literally posted that and didn’t I had toast and got out of my car and walked in And then as I was walking out of the meeting, Tom Amero was like, oh, thanks for keeping this like that. We had this meeting between US or something and I was like, what site? Because they didn’t tell me that before they told me like I see you’re a meeting.

You’re so bizarre. Like I like literally was like, OK, that I like got into my car. I left my phone in my car. I like I walked in with nothing. I left the keys on the wheel in the car.

I like I had nothing in my pockets. I was like my way is trust. My way is forge relationships and I’m they said they weren’t recording me. I don’t know what I believe, but I couldn’t I could only go in and do it my way and which everyone told me it was like every single person I talked to told me it was ill advised. But as we were talking about before, like my gut feeling was like, I have to go in and do this.

And that’s to me, this is what right is. And it doesn’t matter if it’s scary and it doesn’t matter if they screw me for it. I have to do what’s right. And I literally got out to my car and unlocked my car and got in and, and then I like opened my phone and I already have 5 hundredths and I was like, so it’s like interesting. Like I didn’t feel the support until the adrenaline was wearing off.

In a lot of ways, I love our community. We truly are full of such great people. We all love horses. We all have this thing in common. We’re all so unique.

Everyone has different needs. It’s such a reflection of society. And there are many things that we all like and don’t like about society. But I think that giving people the opportunity, and I’ve seen it since and I’ve seen it before, the more I’ve been speaking out, the more other people have been comfortable speaking out. People have texted me and called me and said I’m speaking up on this because I feel comfortable.

And I think that’s how we make change. And we have to everyday talk about how to make our horses lives better. Our governing body. They don’t do it, None of them do it. None of them are in the barn.

None of them are thinking about it. None of them are trying to make their horses lives better. And that has to be on us like every day. And it is. It’s a how we all live our lives.

It’s how we all think about things. It’s how we all want to do things. The policies created are not leading to experiences for horses that are better. And we have to hold them accountable and keep asking questions and keep going. And this is what they say to people.

If someone says, oh, they’re scared of you or whatever, I’m like a girl in my basement putting out a publication. Like there’s nothing magical. Like it’s a lot of hard work and I love it. But I want people to feel empowered that they can create something and they can do something and they can have a voice because I have way more of a voice than I could have ever imagined that I could. And I think so many people look at how hard things are, this or that or the other thing and wear themselves out in the beginning.

And, and I had no idea any of this would take me this, this not. I wasn’t like sitting around dreaming. I like the work. I like the day today. I really enjoy myself.

I have a lot of fun with it. But yeah, everyone should feel empowered that they can build anything they want in this industry and make something happen and change things. This past summer at a dressage show, recognized dressage show, and this was these last couple of years, I really dove into the dressage world. I’d always event it. I’d always show jumped how to hunter every now and then, but that’s not my speed.

So this was really the first couple of years that I dove into the dressage world and every show I went to it was just more and more appalling. And at one of the last shows that I went to, I was standing at the entrance of this covered arena, which is where the show the warm up was. And I’m standing directly next to a steward and there is some girl like whipping and spurring her horse in the dressage warm up. And someone behind me looked to be able to was like, are you seeing this? And I was like, Yep.

But I’m like looking at the steward, like are you seeing this? Because if I was coaching that person, I would have walked up and then like, get off. That’s unacceptable. It literally was just like they were working on transitions and like I don’t know if the horse wasn’t being prompted off or whatever but that was the first time I was like Oh my God. Like the official is walking around checking everyone’s bits but yet we’re literally watching what I’d classify as abuse.

And no one is saying she didn’t jot down the rider’s number. She did. And the more and more shows I went to as a non competitor, the more I was just like, I don’t know what they’re doing this for. I don’t know what the point of this sanctioning body is for. Because I know if I was at a schooling show, no one would hesitate to say, hey, lady, drop it.

But when you’re in this environment of everyone is working towards something, maybe it’s a metal, maybe it’s a result, whatever. Everyone’s zoned in on their own thing. And so I just remember being like, oh God, that’s tough to watch. And I, I’m not vocal necessarily in terms of being like, this is what I saw today, but I stashed it away. I took note of who the rider was and I was like, I’m just going to watch.

And then if I see something like this happening again, I can know that this isn’t just like a one off, someone was having a bad day sort of thing, which even if you are, it’s pretty unacceptable. And the more again this year, it just felt like more and more people were willing to say, hey, the things that I’m seeing aren’t adding up to the things that are being said. Like you say, you’re for the horse, but then yet this is happening. I live in Aiken and we just had this whole debacle with Shannon Eckel. And that was really the first time that I think people were like, hey, this girl is still allowed to go and compete.

And finally people were starting to be like, yo, what are we doing this for? It’s clearly not for the horses. And I think that’s why so many people resonated with you going speaking out about, hey, this is what all of these people are making in order to protect this, this idea of we go out and compete and it’s not in spite of the horse, right? It’s supposed to be with the horse. And if we can help the horses enjoy it, then like that should be top of mind.

More and more people are saying, I just don’t feel this happening. I do want to because I’m sure there are going to be people that are listening that maybe haven’t seen your article or the salaries and the financial breakdown of what is happening with Yousef. So if you wouldn’t mind just sharing a little bit more on that so that way they can be caught up to speed on that side of things. Yeah, absolutely. The top administration at USCS makes a ton of money compared to the industry.

And it’s important to know in our industry that these are real salary jobs. So on top of this, they have health insurance, they have expense accounts to travel. It’s a lifestyle that most of us do not live at all, even if we have like good jobs or good clients, like we’re most of us are pretty out on our like real jobs and pay for own health insurance. And it’s confirmed that Bill Maroney makes well over $400,000 a year, probably over 430,000. Three sources who will not say it on the record have told me that it’s over 700,000 with the bonuses.

And then he says that what he makes is comparable to regular national governing body of a non profit and yes and no. And this is where I wanted to bring up my million dollar thing before He’s bad value. I’m not even saying that the CEO of USDF shouldn’t make that money, but he’s bad value. We don’t get much for that money. They don’t provide BIOS of anyone on the board.

We don’t get resumes. We don’t even know if he went to college or not. He has no vision. You look at the three-year strategic plan and it literally says to take better care of horses. But then you look at what they’re doing, none of it makes any sense.

Many interviews over the years, they’ve told me that their goals are like to increase like fandom online and I’m like no, we need people in person, that courses are an in person activity. Like what I just as you said, the more you dig into it, it just doesn’t make any sense. Vicki Lowell, their marketing person makes over $400,000 a year. I think it’s like $410,000 a year. And and then that’s not comparable to anything I look.

I’m on LinkedIn all the time. Like I think Linkedin’s interesting and similar sized organization, you’re looking at 180 to 1 maybe a year. And again, if our sport were being marketed well and she was making $400,000, we’d all be like, well, thanks, Gold Star, if hers is probably double market, right? And so there’s just no justification for that. She also is a president of the Washington International Horse Show, which gets a lot of special treatment from USDF.

So it’s like hard not to see that as a conflict of interest. Tom Amira, who’s the president of the board of directors, put his son’s boss onto the board of directors with him. His son TJ works for Max Amaya and since Tom was on the board, he put Max Amaya on the board and then Max also has a drug violation that was in the back of the book this year. I think they’re catching the wrong people with drug violations and painting the wrong people red. They won’t give the amount over it.

None of this makes any sense. It’s not good horse. We’re not being a champions of the horse if we’re setting people down for an extra nanogram of her backs in that. Doesn’t like for a national horse, but that’s probably like a 25 year old. Like short syrup.

Yes, trying. And I have different perspective on a lot of this stuff too. I used to think it was nice to just retire them and having my own animals as a page and watching them not want to be retired has been really interesting. My 1 pony. She’s now finally happily retired, but she’s on her third attempt at retirement.

She came back to work 2 times. We fully retired her and she was so unhappy and came back to work and was completely happy. And then finally she said I’m done. And we were like, we’re here. It took her like a year and a half to settle into retirement, even when it was her idea to be retired.

She has a great retirement farm where she still has a family that loves her and two little boys that play with her. I think that’s the only reason she’s accepted. I think all of these preconceived notions that we have, they’re such individual decisions. How do you make better plans for horses? And the first horse you rescue should be your own.

Like, whatever horses you own, figure out how to commit to them for the rest of their lives. At least start with your own. So we have these people who are making a lot of money, who have really questionable conflicts of interest and who don’t seem to be compassionate or care about horses. And then they come up with these, you know, campaigns that are cost millions of dollars to put together and execute that What are they doing? What, when you’re still not dragging the lunging ring?

Why? What are we doing? And but a lot of this is going to come from asking a lot of questions, having a lot of professionals out there, hearing from all kinds of people. And it’s hard to make a rule for every horse because horse shows are every horse or walk through International Derby, horses walk through National Grand Prix is like making a rule for every horse is super hard. Making policies that help every horse is.

It’s a huge task. We need really smart people. I’m not sure that we have that. We need really dedicated people, not sure that we had that. And then we need people who are fresh coming back full circle to the beginning of our conversation.

All of these people have been in these positions for 10 years. These are not positions you last 10 years in. These are positions where you go in with political capital. You use it all up. You make as many changes as you can and you make space for the next person.

I think they’re way more dangerous because of the amount of time that they’ve been there as opposed to what they’re actually doing. Yeah, it’s almost so. I’m originally from New Hampshire and I moved to Aiken, SC a few years ago and it is a huge culture shock moving from the northeast to the southeast. Half of our roads aren’t paved. The education system sucks.

And I remember my fiance was like, I have no problem paying taxes, but it would be nice to know that what I’m going, what I’m paying a lot of money for is actually making a difference. And I think a lot of people share that same sentiment within the industry of, hey, yeah, we don’t necessarily care that we have to pay whatever it is we have to pay, but it shouldn’t conflict or be conflicting with the things that are being promised and the things that are actually happening. And I think so many people, this is one of the things that I wanted to chat about, is coming from the inventing world. If you haven’t made it to five star by the time you’re 25, the industry just does not care about you. When the average person going five stars in their 40s, there’s a big disconnect from 25 to 45.

Even if you’re competing 34, they really don’t care about you. And that has been a sentiment for a really long time. And it’s so expensive to compete and it’s so expensive to maintain horses, especially affecting A rugged sport, right? Like you’re, we’re all doing our best, but your horse slips in mud and all of a sudden that’s the end of it. And it’s the same, I think, with the show jumping, is that the no one supports the grassroots, the people that are actually funding the sport and the people that are making their living in the sport.

And yeah, if you’re competing in the Grand prixs, you can compete for money and all of that stuff. But if you’re competing meter 20 and less as a professional, it’s a really tricky spot to be in. And I think that amongst professionals is the sentiment of how can these people be making all of this money when some of us struggle to like even pay for healthcare? Like equestrian sport is put in the same healthcare risk as coal mining. So it’s expensive to even have healthcare coverage.

As a professional, you have professionals and again, it’s such a luxury to just even be able to do the sport, but most of the money professionals make go back into the horses that they’re trying to fund to to do the sport. Because that’s really why we all do this is we love horses, but also we have this love of competition and so many people feel unseen and unheard and undervalued. And then you put out this salary sheet of people that aren’t in the barns mucking stalls and aren’t dragging the paddocks after a rainstorm and they’re not fixing fence boards and paying all the money to fix fence boards and. They’re sitting in air, finishing. Yes, it can be really disheartening to just be in it and then see, Oh, my God, these people that maybe don’t even have anything to do with horses other than the fact that they’re mandating the way we do horses, make all this money and we’re, like, struggling in multiple facets of this world.

Yeah. And I think we have a problem on the Hunter X side about judges. We have really good people and really good judges, but getting them to actually judge, a lot of them sit there and rationally say I make more money training this week or I make more money selling horses this week. And they’re like, why would I judge when I make choice as much money doing literally anything else? And because it’s your civic duty to the industry to use your expert usage on.

But that’s a really hard argument to make when our leadership, the leadership, it has to be their civic duty first. They have to lead by example. And if making the sport better is all of our responsibility, which I believe it is, then they need to start that tone. But it’s impossible to ask people to do things for free when you know someone is making so much money. It’s just that simple.

You think about how all these horse shows went. Like I would volunteer for local horse shows all day long. The mom and pop shops to small people, the people just trying to improve their community. You’ll see me out there all year doing every job at the horse show. I’m happy to help and I’m happy to work.

I do everything from volunteering to judge. So like selling T-shirts, I don’t care, you need help, I’m here, put me to work. But then you look at the big box horse shows and the conglomerates, I’m not going to go like volunteer at WAC. They make a lot of money and it just feels icky to me. Not that they’re asking for volunteers or anything.

Like a lot of our culture has been changed because of how much money people are making doing certain things. And I appreciate there’s so many layers of this because I so appreciate the investment of Black into the community. And it’s been amazing. And we have all of these great things and they’re exposing so many more people to horse for by putting it around all of these other things and having these conventions. And now we have so many more horse people of different silos together in the same place.

There’s so many layers of this that are fascinating, but you can’t sit there and make that kind of money and then ask other people to contribute their civic duty, ask other people to be responsible for the sport or take a hit financially. And then it excludes all these top the people we truly respect. They’re spending this week dealing horses are spending this week and selling. They’re spending this week with their billionaire clients. And yes, they can make more money doing that.

I’m not arguing that point at all. I’m arguing the point that it’s all of our moral and civic responsibility to spend our time improving the sport, but it’s a really hard case to make when, by and large, judges could be treated better. And it’s like literally thankless that USCS exhibitors can sue judges or threaten them. And where is USCS? They keep saying that they have insurance for that and we’ll take care of them, but that’s not having insurance for something doesn’t be.

That’s like saying don’t worry if you break your leg, you have health insurance. That’s great. It’s better than not having health insurance, but also not breaking your leg is still the ideal. And that seems to be met every time I have a conversation with anyone there about that point seems to be missed. Whether you’ll end up OK or not going through something like that.

It’s horrible. To be threatened by ability to is horrible. They’re not protecting you from all of that. They might be alleviating things that are wrong, but again, they don’t talk to the judges, they don’t ask, they don’t want candid opinions on how stuff works or what people are afraid of. And then those people are way more scared of backlash because they’re desperate for money.

You start to get on a few of these spirals and then it goes downhill. I always love the Hemingway quote. Slowly, even quickly. It was about someone losing their money in the says of Kilimanjaro. Like they lost their money slowly, then quickly.

And that’s so many of these systems, this current administration got away with it for the first four years versus 6 years versus 8 years and all of these things that were deteriorating slowly then quickly, it feels like it fell quickly now on everything. And it’s almost that snowball effect of it maybe starts as this small thing or this unnoticeable thing. And the more things happen, it just becomes this bigger thing. So if you had the opportunity to enact one or two things of change within the sport, within Yousef, whatever it is, what would that look like to you? Factually, last statement, I think everyone needs to do more good.

Everyone needs to volunteer more. I would love to create a few policies that get kids out in the barn and get everyone a more structured system for volunteering. I do believe people want to help. I believe people want to be part of our sport and I don’t think there are a lot of pathways. I think there are a lot of adults who want to be a little bit involved nationally, people who want to be around horses more.

A lot of the horse rescues have great initiatives and they figured out great ways to get people to help, whether it’s a badge system or a color system of there’s one rescue I went to that like all the green volunteers can do yard work only and then all the blue volunteers are allowed to lead a horse. And then all the blue horses that are tagged blue or they can put halters on the horses that have blue halters. Figuring out ways of how do you use people where they are and not scare people and not scare horses. I think so many people want to groom. I just look at everyone going to the gym every morning.

I live in Hartford. I live downtown in the city and see if we’re going to spin and stuff every morning and I’m like, but you could be like Curry. I just I always. Look at this and I’m like, how have we convinced all these people to go to the gym when literally they could be out there currying and smelling like a horse and be so much happier? So that’s one of my side things.

So it is insane to me watching everyone go to the gym and then go to the barn where all the barn works been done for them. I would love a thing where any kid got free membership to whatever governing body if they showed that they did 100 hours of volunteer work at a rescue every year. That’s two hours a week and have an option that if people want to who have a no cost membership, they can have that piece of pride that they spent that time at the barn. I understand all the structures of our shows and how expensive the animals are. And you can’t just let an 8 year old, a 10 year old, a 12 year old loose with your animal that you bought for them that cost more than my house.

Like that’s not going to happen. But how do we make an orthogonal system where we have kids learning horsemanship and learning value and how can we have people learn practical skills? I think fundamentally as a mentality, we bring people in as customers. We teach them how to be customers and then we shame them for not having enough money to be good customers. Let’s bring people in as workers and if they want to become customers and they have the money later, they want to whatever.

But let’s bring people in and teach them how to groom and teach them how to braid and teach them how to body flip and teach them how to be around horses. And then they have skills if they need it, and if they want to pay someone else to do those things, they can take. But that appreciation for what actually goes into every piece of this, I think it is so essential. And I just think we need any policy we can make to get people out in the barn more, any policy we can make to get people off their phones more. And I think things solve how they should when people actually make it out when they’re out there getting dirty and getting sweaty themselves.

We’re going to have better and better policies. I just think the way the horse show, the pace of the horse show right now is unsustainable. And I’ve been saying that for a long time. And these people that we know and love and respect seem to just keep pulling it out and they just seem to keep showing up and keep doing it. But it just, we need to do better by our people.

We need to do better by our horses. So I would say my one change would be like anything that gets people out of the barn. I said that too. I brought that up in the town hall. Like I said, I think that Bill Maroney should go horse show.

I think a lot of empathy comes from being in the barn and not on full care, not BS horse showing. You should have muddy dirty horse in the field and be like don’t get it to the horse show. That’s such a great point. I’ve never thought of there being a way for kids or even anyone to be able to work off a membership through helping other organizations. But I do remember when I was a kid, and I did, I grew up to Pony Club.

And it used to be that if you did Pony Club, you would get maybe it was only $15.00, but it was some dollar amount off of your membership because you’re out there in this organization which was eventing adjacent. But now you can specialize and you can do just show jumping and you can do just dressage and you can do just eventing. And they’ve separated Pony Club because of the young rider programs. But it’s along that same idea of you have kids that are learning the horsemanship side of things and you get rewarded a little bit for the idea that you’re putting work into the horse management side versus just the riding side. And I think there’s so many.

Again, all these things are so complicated, but we’ve gotten so into collegiate riding. If kids weren’t going to go to college and this makes them go to college, I’m all for it. We need all the education we can get. With that said, I do think it’s gotten people more obsessed about riding and having a goal. Whereas when I was young and I rode, there was no, I wanted to war show and do stuff that there was no like end goal of riding in college.

Like no one cared if I groomed all day. And I see this, this culture change of I got to ride, I got to ride. I got to get good enough at riding to ride in college because there’s no best groom at college awards who rode the best. And and I also think it’s like we’re just driving such achievement culture. And what did you do yesterday?

I think even just normalizing being like, I just puttered around the barn and when I’m around horse people and they can do anything they want in the whole world, they putter around, I follow them around, they putter around their barn, then they’re like doing something and their hands are busy and they’re watching their horses and stuff. The horse people are so happy when there’s no agenda and no timeline and they can just putter around and fuss over this and fuss over that and see something and do something about it and see something not clipped or not tripped and pull the horse out. Have no agenda, no timeline and just get to walk around and fix things and tidy things and hear their horses chewing. When chores are done and you get to kind of putter, that’s when all horse people just seem at peace to me. We’re robbing our kids at that.

When do kids putter around the barn? It’s all parents shouting, let’s go, let’s, you know, do this, let’s do that. If your barn lets you, please drop your children off at the barn. If that is socially acceptable at your barn, please drop your children off at the barn. Do not micromanage their barn time.

Let it be their time. Let them figure it out. Let them do their ups and downs or try or I’ll try or let that be completely on them. Yeah, the barn rat culture has definitely gone away in a sense. When I was a kid, my mom had a horse and I had a horse, but she would drop me off after school and I had to get those stalls done and groom the horses.

If I was lucky enough, I’d have time to ride both of them and that sort of thing. It’s really sometimes I think the parents can be just as kids I think are competitive, but not in the same way parents are competitive and parents, sometimes I think the kids are just happy enough to be with their pony and be with their horse. And sometimes I think it is the parents that put the competitive pressure on them. And it all comes back to this idea of so many of us have found our voice and found who we are just in the alone time we have with our horses. And just when your horses laying down in the stall and going in and like laying down with them.

And so many people now would be like, Oh my God, that’s so dangerous. And it’s but just he’ll be there and breathe with them and get shavings all in your socks. Horses aren’t. They’re not just there to be machines for us. They’re there because we want to have this connection with them and we want to do things with them.

And I think, yeah, allowing kids especially to just be and be themselves with their horses, I think it’s such a good sentiment. And pony club die over me saying this. I was a pony club too. But the thing that I was just like in the last couple of years I’ve discovered trail riding by myself and I don’t go like that far out or anything. And I have my phone with me.

But I found it to be like the most peaceful and empowering and like horse centric like thing I’ve probably ever done. To go out there with a horse by yourself. I never as a kid, I always thought about it for safety reasons. Obviously you always go with the buddy and stuff, but I never, I never thought about it of how much more with the horse you are when you’re by yourself and how much you know the horse is reacting to the other horses when you’re with someone else. And this has been like an adult discovery for me and just getting to trail ride my horse.

And I have all good, wonderful horses that I know really well. But like getting to trail ride my horses by myself has just been one of the most empowering things that I’ve done and to center that was my horsemanship. It’s made a lot of success in the show bring possible because I don’t practice. So I get on and it is what it is and I’ve really good horses who are, they don’t really practice either. So we’re all in it together and we have all made this agreement that they have, they keep fit and stuff at home, but we we all just do our best and taking a joke goes both ways.

And they’re kept very comfortable and have very little expectations if everybody tries when we go, when we do go out there. This has been such a great conversation. I think we covered so many different facets of kind of what goes into just competing and being able to compete and what’s going on in the world of recognized bodies and competitions. How do people follow along with what you do? Flathorse.com has everything.

We have a weekly podcast, The Flat Cast. We’ve never been late or missed a Friday and 450 Fridays and so you can always find us there. We do live events, podcast live and go on tour around the country. So if you want to join us in person on the plat horse website, my e-mail, my phone number, get in touch anytime. And if you want to subscribe to the print magazine and think about bigger things and sit around and read without being interrupted by social media, we love that too.

So you can subscribe to the print magazine there. Any stories you think we’re missing? Let us know. And we love to hear from everyone. And if you see me at a horse show, walk right up and say hi and introduce yourself.

Don’t be shy and get out there and say what and say what needs to be said. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me. This was great.