Conflict of Interest

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net


Subject: 
   Date: 
        Wed, 28 Mar 2001 17:52:11 -0800
   From: 
        "Swigart, Kathy" <kswigart@zgf.com>
     To: 
        'home' <katswig@earthlink.net>




Tom Ivers said: 
>Your post is an excellent example of how to use foot-stomping rage to make a mountain out of a molehill. 
.. 
> Getting all worked up over very minor situations suggests that you are either a very unhappy person 
> or that you have an unreasonable, fixated agenda. Either way, running headlong into brick walls is not 
> the solution. And if you're not a part of the solution, then you're a part of the problem. The incidents 
> you cite are part of the history of the sport. Things are getting better. Still not perfection, but better. 
> If you dwell on past imperfections and turn them into your own personal religion, you doom yourself 
> to perpetual misery. If you feel your personal goal in life is to foment dissent and aggitation with some 
> kind of "movement" mentality, so be it--but I can tell you that screaming at the top of yourlungs like 
> a stuck pig that "the sky is falling" is slowly becoming passe in the modern world. 

It is unclear to me how the following statement (yes, I am quoting
myself back to you) can be construed as "foot stomping rage",
"getting worked up", "running headlong into brick walls", "fomenting
dissent and agitation", or "screaming at the top of my lungs like a
stuck pig that 'the sky is falling.'"

> Far better to say: Yes, we recognize that there exists a conflict of interest by 
> accepting sponsorship from participants, but we think that the advantages of 
> getting the sponsorship far out weigh the possibility of impropriety.  We 
> believe that the sponsors, the participants and the officials are more committed 
> to fair competition than they are to other motivations and are sure that they 
> would all sacrifice whatever those other motivations are in the name of 
> fairness.  AND ...  These are the steps that we have taken to ensure that this 
> is the case (and then lay out the requirements for having, acknowledging and 
> mitigating the consequences of conflict of interest). 
> 
> Conflicts of interest exist in all walks of life; they are virtually impossible 
> to avoid. And they cannot be avoided by pretending that they don't exist.  What 
> can be done is to expose them to the light of day and then let individuals 
> and/or the organizations to which they belong, decide to what extent they are 
> willing to accept them and attempt to manage their possible unfavorable 
> outcomes.  
> 
> Participating in endurance is completely voluntary on the part of all 
> participants so I am not compelled to participate if I am uncomfortable with the 
> extent of the conflict of interest of any of the officials and how that might 
> color their judgment while officiating.  

Here I thought I was trying to explain that though conflicts of interest do exist
(and provided examples of how they have exhibited themselves with respect to the 
sport of endurance riding in the recent past and some of the negative press 
associated with them), the best way to address them is not to hurl insults about, 
claiming that anybody who notices them is a rabid racist with some kind of personal 
agenda, but rather to bring them out in the open where they can be rationally 
discussed so that individuals and organizations can decide for themselves the 
extent to which they are comfortable with the conflicts of interest that inevitably 
arise.

Obviously I failed in communicating this idea to at least one of the people who read it. 
Although, for the life of me, I cannot find anywhere in anything that I wrote that
would even suggest that I was foot stompingly angry, all worked up, or fomenting
dissent.

I have never cared for the rather trite cliche that if you aren't part of the solution
you are part of the problem.  Since, to use one of Tom's favorite people as an example.
I don't see how Tiger Woods could, in the development of endurance riding as an
international sport, be considered as either part of the problem or part of the solution..
There IS such a thing as a non-participant.

However, I must confess that in my previous post I was trying to be part of
the solution.  I was trying to suggest that identifying conflicts of interest, 
addressing them, and developing methods for dealing with them is far more
productive than flinging around insults and trying to pretend that they don't 
exist.

> The sport has its problems, as does every sport. As it becomes more professionally
> conducted, many of these problems will disappear--and others will probably take their
> place. But all problems can eventually resolved. 

Not without addressing they can't (well, some problems can be solved buy just ignoring them
and having them go away, many problems resolve themselves merely by being "overtaken
by events, " but, I contend that this is not one of them).  And you can't
address them unless you bring them to light.

In that vein...

Connie Caudill said: 

> So we had Larry and Jerry graciously volunteer to support this part of 
> the ride. It will cost around $4,500.00 to get all the officials, lodge and 
> feed them for the 4 days. That is what they are paying for, and only that. 
> These officials are FEI and are on our own AERC Board. Mike Tomlinson,  
> Maggie Price and Susan Kasemeyer, I believe these officials can satisfy all 
> requirements. 

Since it is the responsibility of the FEI officials (not just the
vets) to officiate at an FEI ride and ensure that all of the FEI
rules are being followed by all of the FEI participants (and
disqualify those participants who are not in compliance with the
rules). IF Larry and Jerry (or any of their connections) participate
as FEI riders at the ride, then Mike Tomlinson, Maggie Price and
Susan Kasemeyer (because they are being paid out of funds provided by
Larry and Jerry) DO have a conflict of interest at the event.

Just because they have a conflict of interest doesn't mean that they
will let that conflict color their judgment in officiating at the
event.  I am personally acquainted with Mike Tomlinson and his
actions in the role of head vet at numerous AERC endurance rides, and
I have no reason to believe that he will not officiate fairly giving
no thought to which of the participants may or may not have
underwritten his compensation.  And though I don't know Maggie Price
or Susan Kasemeyer personally, I have no reason to believe that
either of them would allow it to alter their judgment either.  And I
do not, for one minute, believe that Larry and Jerry have volunteered
to underwrite the compensation of the officials so that they may
color the judgment of the officials in their own favor. (I believe
that, just like I believe about the UAE, they are keen to see the
advancement of the sport at the FEI level and don't want riders and
ride managers to be precluded from participating because they cannot
afford it). But whether the conflict colors their judgment or not,
the conflict exists.

It would appear that it isn't only the Arabs who might have
difficulty in understanding the concept of conflict of interest.

As I alluded to before, conflicts of interest are rampant in
everything we do. E.g. there is an inherent conflict of interest at
every endurance ride between the interests of the riders and the
interests of the horses; we have vets and vet checks ... and rider
education as methods of hopefully mitigating this conflict, in
addition to trying to structure the "pay scale" (as Matthew
MacKay-Smith calls it) for riders in such a way as to reduce the
conflict itself (That's what Bobbie's summary of MMS's thoughts
were...a way to address apparent conflicts of interest between 
endurance riders and endurance horses).

In my experience, the best way to deal with the rampant existence of
the conflicts of interest in our lives is to acknowledge them,
address them, expose them to the light of day, and then come up with
realistic plans to ensure that we feel that all of the interests 
have been treated fairly.  If instead we attempt to fool ourselves
that these conflicts don't exist, then they will fester and boil and
eventually come back to bite you in the ass.

If there is anybody who doesn't think that any FEI official is at
risk of being accused of having been bought when their sponsors are
also participants in the event, they didn't read the AP story about
the ride in Egypt closely enough (I can quote that back to you too, if you want
me to).   

No, I do not believe that the UAE sponsored the event in Egypt for the
purpose of being able to ignore the rules with impunity.  I believe that the UAE
sponsored the event in Egypt because they sincerely wanted to help the fledgling
Egyptian endurance community with putting on their ride (and I think that that is
why they offered to underwrite the FEI portion of the NC ride too).  The conflict 
of interest that arose out of the event was an unfortunate by-product of the 
intents and actions of well-meaning individuals and organizations.

I would be interested to know, if (as Tom suggests) the possibility of all 
such conflict of interest problems is part of the past (10 months ago) of 
international endurance riding but not the present, just what steps the 
FEI has taken to ensure that the same types of things don't happen again.

It seems to me that it would be meaningful to start a dialogue to address the
issue rather than hoping that if you can convince everybody to ignore it, that
it will go away.  Maybe they have, and I'm just not in on it (I am not in on everything).
But if they have, I am not the only one who is not in on it.

kat
Orange County, Calif.

p.s.  In my, perhaps poor, attempt to address the conflict of interest issue with
respect to international endurance riding, I was also quite careful in my last 
post to point out (again in the post script), that it would be best not to muddy the
conflict of interest issue with the other highly charged issues of amateurism vs.
professionalism or of short flat competitions vs. long mountainous ones.