Tom O’Mara is the President of the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF), and Vicki Lowell is the Chief Marketing and Content Officer of USEF. Together, they sat down with The Plaid Horse to share thoughts, reflections, and exciting information on the highly anticipated conclusion to the jumping branch of the premier US Equestrian Open Series–an equestrian competition format and broadcast like the world has never seen. Here’s what you need to know about the Jumping Final:
This interview has been edited and condensed
TPH: Where can fans and athletes go to access more information about the US Equestrian Open Series, and where can they watch the US Equestrian Open Final, taking place on March 29th, at 7:30 pm ET?
Vicki Lowell: A Digital Fan Guide is available on the US Equestrian Open microsite for the US Equestrian Open Jumping Final and the two qualifiers leading up to it. The microsite itself is a one-stop shop for everything you want to know about the US Equestrian Open. You can access quick guides to dressage, eventing, and jumping leaderboards, weekly-posted articles, and podcasts. And, of course, we have dedicated social media channels that provide fans with access to follow and get the highlights.
Tom O’Mara: The Digital Fan Guides are phenomenal, and the Final will be on the USEF Network and ESPN3 live, with a two-hour highlight show on ESPN2 Monday, April 7th at 10:00 pm ET. ESPN is about as big a sports channel as you can get, so we’re very excited.
TPH: The vision of USEF is to “Bring the Joy of Horse Sports to as Many People as Possible,” how is the US Equestrian Open Series achieving that?
Tom O’Mara: Non-equestrians love horses, but the sport is just not packaged and brought to them in a way that they’re familiar with.
When I became USEF’s President, we hatched a strategic plan and reviewed what we had been doing. Had we done everything? What hadn’t we done? What were we doing well? And decided we wanted to focus on the second part of the vision statement: “To as many people as possible.”
But, of course, you can’t just turn on a switch and develop a product that non-equestrians can understand, you can’t change tradition, so you have to make sure that it stays within what the equestrian world is used to.
We finally pulled it together in the three equestrian Olympic disciplines to have a US Equestrian Open, just like the US Open in tennis, and the US Open in golf. We now have the ability, through digital media, to be able to reach more people at a lower cost with a high quality product and tell the stories of the horses and the riders.
TPH: The Rolex Series is a major event for show jumpers. What’s the significance of partnering with them for the US Equestrian Open Final?
Tom O’Mara: When planning the US Equestrian Open, we didn’t want to add new events to the already existing busy calendar. We wanted to pick the best parts of the calendar and, like the old McDonald’s phrase, super-size them by making them a part of this series. At the end of the year, just like in other sports, the top people on the leaderboard or in the standings will be invited to the finals. We believe one of the highest levels of jumping sport in the US and in the world happens this week, in Wellington, and that’s the Rolex.
Vicki Lowell: To reinforce what Tom is saying, the Rolex events are so special–they’re all in iconic venues and beautifully presented in their cities and in their countries, and to be a part of that is incredible. Rolex does everything at the highest level. They are in tennis through the US Open, they are in golf; and again, being able to partner with them and being a part of that series is just a wonderful thing to elevate what we’re trying to do with equestrian sport here in the United States.
TPH: Vicki, from a creative marketing and brand strategy point of view, why should equestrians be excited about the US Equestrian Open and where will it lead our sport?
Vicki Lowell: It’s been really exciting to have this opportunity to create what I think is a great product and brand. I always say, as a marketer, you need to have great products; we have a great product in horse showing in the United States, but we needed a product that could really appeal to a broader audience, like other sports.
We get such good publicity every four years around the Olympics, and so our challenge was creating a product that people could follow every year, here in the United States. We asked ourselves, “How could we create something across all these great competitions and create an exciting brand that people could relate to as a major sports championship?”
I always say that you can market anything, but to be able to market a product and a brand that has a real story is the real joy. So it’s been really fun to do this. I can feel the excitement and the momentum building, and to be able to have a great partner like Rolex embrace the work we’ve done enthusiastically has been just fantastic. And really, I just love the trophy!
TPH: You’ve both been vocal about Social License to Operate, or SLO, in regards to equestrian sport. What role does the US Equestrian Open have in upholding the industry’s standards and promoting the positive aspects of the sport?
Vicki Lowell: We’re leaning into the storytelling because we know how much these riders and their teams put into the care and well-being of the horses, and I think that’s just as much a part of the story as the sport itself; which is something that people don’t always get to see. There’s just not a lot of awareness of how much these horses are loved and cared for.
In his Open Road episode, Kent Farrington talked quite a bit about how important it is for the horses to be physically and mentally at their best in order to perform and give the effort that is needed really for the partnership to achieve success in the sport. Social license is very important to us, and it helps to get that side of the story out into the world surrounding an event like this.
We’ve been shooting a lot of the Open Road episodes at the farms or in the barns. You can see where the horses are turned out. You can see how large their stalls are. You can see that they’re around other horses and in a natural environment, and you learn about the rhythm of what it takes to develop a horse to this level and then also to sustain them at this level. And that’s all part of the story.
Tom O’Mara: Often, when you talk to equestrians about social license, they don’t understand it. We need to do a better job showing those on the outside looking in what this sport is all about. What’s a better way to do that than to show these beautiful horses at this top level of competition being cared for in such a great way? And that makes more people who are non-equestrians more comfortable with our sport because they finally get to see a behind-the-scenes.
One picture or one event is not enough for non-equestrians to actually understand what’s really happening. To me, the best defense is a great offense. So let’s bring the story to them.
TPH: Tom, as a horse show husband and parent, how is the US Equestrian Open Series exciting for parents of equestrians or future equestrians?
Tom O’Mara: You expose your children to different sports when they’re young, and try to give them opportunities to see what they like and enjoy doing. I remember that my one concern about equestrian sport was that it lacked a team aspect. Well, I was dead wrong. I’ve since realized that this is a team sport. There’s a horse and a rider, and that’s the team. I realized that the horse wasn’t an inanimate object. They don’t just go when you hit the gas pedal.
That misunderstanding is common because equestrian sport and its terminology is not yet mainstream. Now, we have the US Open, which is something non-equestrian parents are familiar with–they understand tennis, they understand golf, they understand other sports–and we can create entertainment that they don’t have to sit ringside waiting hours for. We’re going to bring a two-hour post-produced version with highlights and excitement. They won’t even know the downtime and the ring drags and all that kind of stuff. They’re going to see something that’s packaged the way they’re used to seeing sports.
I think that helps more parents feel good about going down the avenue of their child pursuing equestrian sport.
