USEF Approves Equine Welfare-Related Rule Changes

New rules regarding prohibited practices and reporting cases of equine collapse were approved.
Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

At the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) Board of Directors mid-year meeting on July 22, some significant rule and bylaw changes were brought to the table, the federation announced July 29. Some of the significant rule changes involved horse welfare, specifically prohibited practices and the new mandatory reporting of equine collapse rule.

Two important proposed extraordinary rule changes were introduced in March of 2013 by the USEF Veterinary Committee. Following extensive feedback from USEF Technical Committees, Working Groups, and from attendees at USEF Town Hall Meetings held in Florida in March and via interactive webcast in June, the USEF Board of Directors has approved the following two changes.

The first change introduces a new category of rules (GR 414 Prohibited Practices) to the USEF Rule Book which will take effect Dec. 1, 2013. The entire rule can be viewed online, but important points in this change include:

  • No horses or ponies can be injected within twelve hours prior to competing;
  • There are only three exceptions to this rule: therapeutic fluids, antibiotics, and dexamethasone for the treatment of hives (specific dosing guidelines are provided for the exceptions concerning fluids and dexamethasone); and
  • All excepted substances must be administered by a veterinarian and cannot be administered to a horse or pony within six hours prior to competing.

The second rule change becomes effective on Aug. 1, 2013, and concerns the actions taken should a horse or pony collapse at a USEF-licensed competition. This rule change proposal has been commonly referred to as the "collapse rule" and is the first to be presented in the formation of an over-arching catastrophic incident protocol. The intent of this rule is to keep the USEF informed of any collapses; empower the USEF to investigate the circumstances surrounding such an incident; and hold the trainer, or the owner if the trainer is unavailable, accountable for refusal to cooperate

Create a free account with TheHorse.com to view this content.

TheHorse.com is home to thousands of free articles about horse health care. In order to access some of our exclusive free content, you must be signed into TheHorse.com.

Start your free account today!

Already have an account?
and continue reading.

Share

Written by:

Related Articles

Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with

FREE weekly newsletters from TheHorse.com

Sponsored Content

Weekly Poll

sponsored by:

Where do you primarily feed your horse?
276 votes · 276 answers

Readers’ Most Popular

Sign In

Don’t have an account? Register for a FREE account here.

Need to update your account?

You need to be logged in to fill out this form

Create a free account with TheHorse.com!