By PIPER KLEMM
When you get under the hood of our governing body, it’s pretty gnarly. It’s easy to get caught up in all their mistakes and inability to follow their own rules, as well as to become enraged by the nonsensical substance that says one thing and often does something else. However, even more important than demanding that our membership come with accountability from the governing body is to demand accountability from ourselves, our peers, our on-the-ground leaders, our followers, and everyone else whose presence we may touch in a horse show year.
Every one of us needs to spend every single day elevating our standards. We need to learn more so that we can do better with our horses. We need to fight for land for our horses, for standards for our barns and horse shows, so that our horses have the lives they deserve. We need to recognize when our humans and horses need to rest (probably more). We need to see behavioral and posture issues and address them before they become injuries and lameness. We need to share our data and our horses with the scientific community so that we can start to get more information on footing, fitness, and breeding longevity and proclivity.
Whether the governing body is there for our horses and ourselves or not, we need to lead by example. We all have the power to speak up and do what our young horses need, what our actively competing horses need, and what our old horses need. Every one of us can control how many jumps horses do, how many classes, and how fair what we are asking of them is. We can make sure our horses have the fitness for any ask. We can make sure that the first horse we rescue is our own and make plans so that the horses in our lives have soft places to land after long or short careers. We can equip these horses with the ground manners to have as many options as possible in all stages of their lives.
Today and every day, look at your process. How can I do better for my horses? How can I support my people? It could be as simple as not rushing a trainer who is thinking of how to deal with a specific problem, or giving your grooms a surprise afternoon or evening off to get some more sleep. It could be giving yourself grace and a pause when making big decisions, or taking the time to build trust and community with people who might be helpful to you and your horses long-term. It might be doing an extra local show and one less away week this year, so that your horses and your humans can all sleep in their own beds more. It might be politely asking the horse show to drag the lunging ring one more time so that even though everyone has to wait a little bit longer, they all get to lunge on footing that is safer.
We all have the power and ability to change little things every single day that add up to big things. We build a better sport one step at a time, and we are all part of that process. Every single one of us is responsible for our language, our actions, and the expectations and pressures we put on the humans and horses around us. Doing better might be asking the people around us how we can support them better, or it might be jumping right in and helping. It might be holding people that we love accountable to things they simply can’t face seeing or doing on their own. It might not always be fun and it might be uncomfortable in the moment, but the pursuit of better will always be worth it over time.
I hope you spend this November feeling invigorated to give thanks–be as specific in your gratitude as you can–and use your time to first ask yourself, and then everyone around you to do better. We all can, and together we will all make our sport the place that we want to be– whether the governing body is involved in our pursuit or not.
Read the November 2025 Publisher’s note here.
