Lexington, KY – Yesterday at the 2005 Annual Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, the Board of Directors of the United States Equestrian Federation overwhelmingly approved all of the rule changes relating to the recommendations of the Competition Date Task Force. The Task Force has been working for 10 months on a major overhaul of the current “mileage rule” which dictates how competition dates are awarded to horse show organizers.

As the Task Force examined the process it became apparent that several other important issues were involved in the awarding of dates, and were critical to the improvement of equestrian competition in the United States. These involved the licensing of competition; establishment and evaluation of competition standards; the timely collection and use of competition data; and the rating of competitions and expansion of USEF support to non-recognized competitions.

“The Annual Meeting was a spectacular success,” said USEF President David O’Connor. “Everything we wanted to get accomplished we did accomplish, including the Competition Date Task Force recommendations which will have a major effect on the positive relationship between the Federation and the running of shows. This was a major shift in thinking and the whole meeting was fantastic in getting us all together.”

John Long, Chief Executive Officer of the USEF was very pleased with the Board of Directors action, “This was a far reaching decision by the Board and sets in motion a new procedure for creating the competition calendar. It’s incredibly encouraging for this landmark initiative to happen within the first year of our Federation. On all issues, from the Task Force rule changes to upgrading our safety standards at competitions, there was a cooperative spirit from many committees which I believe is indicative of the cohesiveness of our organization.”

The rule changes made at the Annual Meeting will be posted on the USEF website, www.usef.org, by the end of the week.

For more information, please contact Maria Partlow, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications on (859) 225-6941 or via e-mail at [email protected]. USEF press releases are available on our website – www.usef.org.