Social license to operate - BEF establish Independent Advisory Body

Recently, I was looking at a ten year old picture of myself and Jazz and suddenly realised I felt a little uneasy that I was carrying a dressage whip. At the time I wouldn't have given a second thought to carrying the whip or using it to give Jazz a tickle if I thought he wasn't listening to my leg aid. But here I was in 2023 having second thoughts and thinking it didn't look right and realising how quickly things can change and become no longer acceptable.

Of course I am allowed a little bit of rose coloured glasses because I no longer ride and as much as I loved Jazz he could never have been described as particularly forward so a little bit of encouragement was necessary. But nevertheless it would appear I'm not the only one looking afresh at our relationship with our competition horses and wondering what we need to do to help them live their best lives.

Jazz and I at Kings in 2013
Photographed by PJP

I'm not in support of setting them all free, as I don't think most would survive, but I do believe there are things we can all do to address the concerns that society in general has with some aspects of horse riding and thereby ensure a future for our sport/pastime. 

With this in mind I've been studying the final British Equestrian press release of 2022 "British Equestrian puts welfare top of the agenda with new advisory body". 

My thoughts are set out below. 

Independent Advisory Body

Just before Christmas BEF announced the "launch" of The Equine Welfare and Ethics Advisory Group, an independent body to provide guidance and recommendations in the key strategic area of equine wellbeing and standards.

The Group consists of

        Independent Chair: Professor Madeleine Campbell

plus 

• Jim Eyre, BEF Chief Executive
• Roly Owers MRCVS, BEF Board Director and CEO World Horse Welfare
• John McEwen MBE, BVMS MRCVS, BEF Director of Equine Sports Science and Medicine
• Richard Waygood MBE, BEF Technical Director
• Iain Graham, British Showjumping Chief Executive
• Sarah Phillips, BHS Chief Operating Officer
• Lynne Bailey, BEF Head of Integrity and HR
• Winnie Murphy, BEF Head of Communications

The terms of reference for the Group (see below) are laudable and yet very broad, especially when one reads that they are to complete in 2023 and will only meet quarterly. "Flash Gordon we only have four meetings to save the world" comes to mind so there will probably need to be a lot of work behind the scenes. I also liked the commitment to "scientific evidence", a need to "identify research priorities" plus an assurance that "this advisory body hasn’t been set up to defend our sports", which appears to have been some of the responses to date, but of course we wait to see how successful they are in achieving this aspiration.

Advisory Body Terms of Reference
Photo ©Harveywetdog

My Concerns

Of course with the FEI setting up a similar group earlier in 2022 there never was going to be a "do nothing" option for BEF so it is good to see action being taken. I do worry that ultimately it is only an "advisory group" and although it is described as "independent" it isn't really is it? I worked in an industry with an independent regulator and believe me this group isn't independent. And people will also notice an absence of Dressage and Eventing (I appreciate BEF list 14 Equestrian Sports on their website).

BHS have a seat at the table, although when I wrote to them on the issue of Young Sport Horse Attrition they told me it wasn't their role and that I should contact BEF (who never even replied!). So BHS's contribution is going to be limited when it comes to horse welfare in Sport. "Systems of equine safeguarding reporting" sounds okay although as always that is literally closing the stable door after the horse has bolted! Let's hope it isn't just encouraging us all to simply rat on our "neighbours".

More important in my opinion is answering the question "how did we get here?" After all, all horse sports put horse welfare as their number one priority so it must be of concern that the public don't believe that it is (in a recent YouGov Survey 60% of respondents said there should be more safety and welfare measures in place in horse sports). World Horse Welfare claim to have been monitoring this shift in public opinion "for some time" but it would appear that they have failed to take action to address it. When we talk about public opinion the Survey results show that people who interact regularly with horses think the same as those who don't, so this can't be brushed off as "not understanding horses". I've said before I think we have too many bodies with seemingly conflicting responsibilities and terms of reference which leads to a protection of vested interests and a lack of joined up thinking.

Social License to Operate at the heart of BE's The Howden Way
British Eventing download

Which leads me onto my other concern, the make up of the Advisory Body. One thing that the pandemic brought home to us very clearly is that the general public do not understand the concept of risk assessment in general or societal risk in particular and the fact that just because you make a risk as low as reasonably practicable doesn't mean the risk won't still happen to someone, you've just taken reasonable steps to prevent it from happening too frequently. Things generally become unreasonably practicable, or broadly acceptable, when they cost too much - but you need to have mechanisms and frameworks in place to assess this, show the judgements that you've made and demonstrate what you have spent your money on has helped to reduce the risk. I don't see anybody on the panel bringing in the necessary skills to either make or drive these assessments; perhaps they need someone from the Health and Safety executive to help out?

It is also clear that this is largely an issue of the social media age. So if you're identify key threats and challenges and collating a list of current issues you need someone who's "down with the kids" arguing about these issues and often providing answers and counter arguments. I'd really like to see some young blood on the panel, not only to give it a bit of credibility amongst that part of the equestrian family but also to ensure that their input is taken now when there is still time to act on it.

The Elephant in the Room

There is a belief that if we can get our house in order, back what we're doing with some science and reasoned argument, public opinion will swing behind equestrian sports and everything in the garden will be rosy. I would go as far as saying if we don't do those things we are definitely doomed to slow decline, but my fear is that it won't be enough. Why do I say that? Well I'll try and explain below but it comes down to equestrian sports still being considered elitist to many while at the same time diversity and inclusion has failed to gain traction within the sector.

I think I’ve said before that I was never really a fan of fox hunting until it came under attack from Tony Blair throwing a sop to the hard left within the Labour Party. The ban on fox hunting was never wholly about animal welfare, it was just as much an attack on a perceived elitist pursuit practiced by the landed gentry and their cronies. This combination of animal welfare and toff bashing proved unstoppable and gave animal rights activists a foothold such that, once hunting with dogs was banned, it was clear that other "sports" involving animals would ultimately come under scrutiny.

If we accept that we are moving into less conservative times in the UK, with a continued attack on British values and traditions it is easy to imagine that no matter what we do on the animal welfare front equestrian sport will still struggle to regain social license if it appears to remain an elitist activity. This will have a particularly adverse impact when it comes to retaining the Lottery funding that our sports rely on. 

Of my two sports I see Dressage doing better on diversity and inclusion especially because it has a strong para wing to draw on. Interestingly it appears to have a flush of members despite the actual numbers competing seemingly down compared to say 10 years ago. BD seem to have achieved this by providing a wide range of championships for a wide range of horses and abilities. Perhaps dressage saw the problem of people going unaffiliated first and reacted sooner - after all you need is a reasonable, well drained arena and someone thick skinned and knowledgeable enough to be a half decent judge.

Unfortunately Eventing has its own particular set of problems of which its elitist persona, long term links with fox hunting and less obvious progress with diversity and inclusion are relevant here. On the slide I've also listed the fact that it is inherently risky. While this is part of the attraction, and risks can be better managed using the output from the Advisory Group described above, it is the fact that when things go wrong they are likely to go wrong in public (as with National Hunt Racing) that makes this a particular problem for eventing when compared with dressage.  

Eventing - the mountain it has to climb to achieve public approbation?
©Harveywetdog

The way forward

The BEF Independent Advisory Body is an important first step and we must all strive to support it and act on its findings, some of which will be painful for our sport

This is going to take much longer than one year to address and some of the research will need to go on for years. People need to be prepared to fund this research and analysis. Our equine Universities have a part to play here, but we all need to be open with our data when it comes to analysis of equine breeding, training, competition and demise

We all need to be prepared to be ambassadors for our sports, demonstrate the love and care we put into our horses and what we do to help them be happy athletes and willing partners

And we must do more to be a diverse and inclusive environment for people to work and compete in - I don't know how we will do this but ultimately this is the Five Star question we have to answer

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Author - David Robinson  

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 is currently recovering from blood cancer but refuses to be a victim

All views are his own but might be influenced by the drugs he's currently having to take