So, 15 months after British Equestrian established its independent Equine Welfare and Ethics Advisory Group, with its eight point terms of reference in order to “provide guidance and recommendations in the key strategic area of equine wellbeing and standards”,, what have we got?
Basically, another fancy graphic and yet another mother hood and apple pie statement from Carl Hester.
But why is it so little so late?
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| A reminder of the EWEAG terms of reference late in 2022 |
Well as I predicted back in January 2023 while doing nothing was not on option for the BEF (given the establishment of the FEI Equine Ethics and Wellbeing Commission (EEWC) in 2022) doing anything meaningful was clearly a challenge given the EWEAG only gave themselves four meetings to complete their task. Reading between the lines of Winnie’s once again excellently crafted press briefing we see that the EWEAG have simply decided to copy the EEWC’s homework and implement “the recommendations of FEI’s EEWC at national level”.
Of course this is probably a sensible step, it makes more sense to align with the FEI recommendations then to try and repeat the exercise ourselves. It might feel even more of a sensible step if we could actually see just what the FEI are planning to do with the EEWC recommendations as, since they were presented in November, it’s all gone very quiet with the FEI Board now considering "the way forward before presenting a plan for discussion at the 2024 Sports forum". (Note the EWEAG are working with the interim, April 2023 report and not the final, November 2023 report).
It might feel even more of a sensible step if we could actually see just what the FEI are planning to do with the EEWC recommendations
What we are promised is “extensive revisions to the British Equestrian rule book and Equine Ethics and Welfare Policy, which underpin the Charter.” The revisions are based on the EEWC recommendations. I am told that this work is nearly complete but there will now be an extensive consultation with the member bodies to ensure what’s proposed is workable, and most importantly, enforceable. The new rule book is due for release in 2025.
In the meantime we have an Olympic Games to survive and a nice picture to look at.
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The BEF Charter for the Horse
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author - David Robinson CEng FIET David spent approaching 50 years in Her Majesty's Electricity Supply Industry before retiring He was part of the highly successful design team on the Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station Project before spending 25 years producing safety cases to keep our aging AGR fleet generating for the good of the nation He is responsible for the Harveywetdog YouTube Channel which he maintains as an outlet for his creative talents David has recently recovered from blood cancer but refuses to be a victim All views are his own but might be influenced by the medication he's had to take
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