You may have heard about the US Equestrian Compliance Department but don’t have a firm grasp on what exactly its role is. In short, Compliance is there to help make the member experience better at horse shows and help ensure competitions are held to the appropriate standard. What many people don’t realize is that they aren’t a regulatory group. Compliance helps facilitate communication with competition organizers to resolve issues.
The Compliance Department has three main roles: processing confidential member evaluations, pre-competition outreach to licensed officials, and performing on-site evaluations. Member evaluations contribute most of the reports, with over 3,000 submitted in 2025 (66% of which were positive).
In addition to member evaluations, issues are reported through steward/technical delegate reports or are identified during Compliance inspections. A total of 1,967 compliance issues were logged across member evaluations, steward/technical delegate reports, and compliance inspections in the 2025 competition year.
The Compliance Department reviews all member evaluations and may share relevant information with the various USEF departments for feedback or awareness. For example, licensed officials are included in competition evaluations, so any comments pertaining to them will be passed to the Licensed Officials Department. Additionally, redacted feedback from competition evaluations is shared with competition organizers to raise their awareness of certain issues, or to draw their attention to areas their competitors rank highly following an event.
Because USEF staff can’t attend every competition held each year, member evaluations are incredibly valuable. Any USEF member can submit a Confidential Competition/Licensed Officials Evaluation for competitions they attend as a competitor, trainer, licensed official, or spectator. The online evaluation form is available once the competition starts and closes 21 days after the show ends. If you wish to submit an evaluation after that period closes, you can email [email protected]. The evaluation form submission can be found through your My USEF Dashboard, and it covers the following topics:
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Safety and Welfare
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Footing
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Facility
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Stabling
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Officials
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Overall Management of the Competition
If sharing a compliance concern, we encourage you to submit photos when possible, as it helps the Compliance Department physically see the issue and appropriately address it.
While it’s helpful to include contact information with evaluations so Compliance can follow up if more details are needed, evaluations can be submitted anonymously. Whether a report needs follow-up depends on how much information was included initially and how serious the issue is. US Equestrian takes confidentiality very seriously, and staff omits any identifying information when discussing issues with competition managers.
The Compliance Department also conducts on-site evaluations at competitions across the country and across a variety of breeds and disciplines each year. In 2025, the Compliance Department performed 37 on-site inspections across four breeds and disciplines (hunter/jumper, dressage, eventing, and Arabian) and 17 states. When determining which competitions to attend, Compliance considers previous member evaluations, recommendations from other USEF departments, and whether they’ve attended that competition or venue before.
“A compliance visit doesn’t mean there have been issues with an event or venue,” said Julia Green, US Equestrian Manager of Competition Compliance. “It could be that we want to learn more about how rules and standards are being implemented in the field. It’s a great way for us to learn how a venue looks and operates. It’s also a great opportunity for us to gather feedback from participants, organizers and licensed officials about what’s going well and where there are challenges.”
While conducting an on-site visit, Compliance speaks with managers, licensed officials, and participants. They utilize a three-page checklist covering the following requirements: riding and lunging areas, facilities, biosecurity, operations and safety, Safe Sport communications, and suggested best practices.
If Compliance is not attending a competition, they may reach out to the licensed officials working that competition. Because there’s a steward or technical delegate at every event, their presence and feedback are valuable to collect information, confirm or deny previously reported concerns, and provide additional insight.
Conversations with managers focus on how to remedy issues for future events rather than being punitive. Competition managers who are renting a facility have utilized letters from the Compliance Department when meeting with venue owners to get the required fixes made.
“Our goal is really to be a fresh set of eyes for the organizer,” said Green. “We’re there to gather feedback and open a door to create a relationship with organizers and members. It’s information gathering and helping us gather a greater perspective of challenges or concerns.”
Want to learn more about Compliance? Visit their webpage here.