It’s Time for Equestrians to Get Clearer Rules About Rules

Horse-canada.com - Full Article

Cuckson Report | May 21, 2019

No one reads a rule book from cover to cover until they fall foul of it; sometimes, not even then. By competing, you agree to abide by a sport’s rules but in reality, sitting down to immerse yourself in hundreds of pages of convoluted bumph is not appealing, especially when English is not even our native language. You rely on equestrian judges and officials to know them.

What’s more, FEI General Regulations and Veterinary Regulations always supersede the rules of your particular discipline, so ideally you should tackle those mighty tomes as well. If you go eventing, it’s even more onerous, for FEI Jumping Rules and Dressage Rules also apply in those phases.

FEI Eventing has “guidelines” about rule interpretation, but that memo also says that where said guidelines are inconsistent or contradictory the original rules should prevail! No wonder the eventers keep asking the FEI to re-do the lot from scratch...

Read more here:
https://horse-canada.com/cuckson-report/time-equestrians-get-clearer-rules-rules/