 Today is aura deal and Denise sighs we're talking about the class system within the NCH a the current system is as everybody knows complicated and not without its problems when it comes to things like fairness in terms of being a competitor and there's been a proposal put forward at the convention this year to look at that and see if it can be Reborn so to speak and these guys have really come up with that proposal and we're going to be talking about that today So ladies, how did this eventuate? What was the impetus at the beginning you was talking about four years ago that this really Came into being yes at the convention about four years ago the frustration of People showing and not showing and who can and who can't the rules that are complicated and just you know, I don't even know where I'm supposed to show Was very evident to all of us And I just suggested that you know, why don't we try and find some kind of a level playing field that we can as divisions show And Denise spoke up and said or I've done some research. I've got some numbers. Let's get together and basically that's how it has evolved truthfully You know just We know that You know Especially in the non-pro and maybe even in the in the open I would say there are just There's just so much an ocean of difference. Oh, wow. I mean, it's you know You you you have one good horse that brings you to the top and then you may not have it for a while And then you just sit and you just kind of simmer and you don't it is you just lose total interest So we were hoping that by leveling that not only could it bring horses that were Not, you know, possibly able to market to 18 every time that those horses could still compete on a level with a rider at You know that that's a B or a C student, you know, so to speak and hopefully our Limited age Proposal is is hopefully going to rectify some of this That's our that's our hope so explain on an individual level because you're a competitor and you were thinking at one stage when this was all Coming into being that as a competitor You what didn't want to bring your horse to certain shows because you just knew that you wouldn't have a chance or explain that? Yes, basically you When you're when you're gifted to have an exceptional horse and you money out of a On this horse and you have it for your three or four or five or six year old year And then you go three or four years and don't have that caliber of horse You are basically added money and you sit back and you kind of take back and the economy goes and the recession Starts and all of those numbers and it just it all falls apart. So hopefully what this leveling system will allow is I Can enter in my salmon intermediate rider I can enter a horse that not necessarily has to mark What the non-pro top level has to mark but I can bring it as a B student and maybe me a B rider I can mark on my level But yet I might take a shot and enter up and I I might be able to you know Be able to be compensated for both sides of that It gives me choices Which I don't presently have at the current structure. I now have a choice I can choose how to play this game and that's basically it in a nutshell Okay, so let's go over to you Denise. What was it that had got you looking at the numbers at? the Earnings and thinking about what the research that was needed to be done and what you needed to look at well, I mean like we're a said people just did not feel like they had a level playing field and When they felt that way, they just wouldn't compete and so the entries were going down So we just looked at the database and started coming up with Looking out where it how big the spread was in lifetime earnings in the various divisions And tried to figure out well if we made certain levels within those divisions Would the player or the member then decide to enter like they used to? so we we looked at that and shared that with the competition committee the full competition committee and Came up with the current three structure three levels within each division And it gives it gives a beginner rider in each division an opportunity to compete against their peers It gives that intermediate rider an opportunity to compete against their peers And if either one of those two levels feel like they could be competitive in a higher level They can enter and so it it gives them the option. It doesn't force anybody in to enter It just gives opportunity And with our current numbers we need to grow membership and we need to grow show entries And so this is an idea that hopefully will be successful at the cotton states I'm sure there's things that we're going to need to tweak But at least it'll give us an opportunity to try an idea So basically the proposal doesn't actually change this class structure. It creates levels within the structures And what's the spread of each of those levels well within the well There's like I said, there's three levels within each division and in the amateur you have Well in each division you have a limited an intermediate and then the top level for that division in the amateur The limited is zero to twenty five thousand in lifetime earnings. The intermediate is twenty five to nine ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine and then the top level in the amateur is anything over a hundred in Your non-pro it's zero to a hundred thousand for your limited It's a hundred thousand one dollar to forty four thousand nine hundred ninety nine Let's see four that four hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine up to the intermediate And then anything over half a million is the top level in the non-pro in the open It's structured where it's zero to two hundred in the limited open Two hundred and thousand and one two seven hundred and forty nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine is the intermediate and then anything over seven fifty 750,000 is the top level in the open We you know, we looked at previous shows. We took the top ten regional shows that had already occurred last year Including the triple crown events and we stratified Those entries to see what the payouts would look like and what the size of the classes would be to make sure that the The dollar amount breaks that we proposed worked and so there was some trial and error Like I mentioned to you there's a subcommittee Under the cloud under the competition committee and we went through a ton of shows to Just challenge whether the payouts worked and whether the class size worked and it did under this Under the what we've proposed for the cotton states So you kind of I don't know use those past shows as a case Study, they were our pilot studies and like I said, we we did the 2017 cotton states and we did a lot of the major shows last year including the super stakes and the summer spectacular and And and looked at payouts and like I said looked at the number of entries that would have been in in each level And they all they all seem to work so Will the entry fees change at all? part of our proposal and and part of an incentive to get people to enter more is That we under our proposal recommended a graduated entry fee schedule Which means that your limited level is going to be cheaper to enter than your intermediate Which is going to be cheaper to enter than the top level in that division in addition if you choose to enter? Multiple levels multiple classes. There will be the show But we encourage the show producer to discount the entry fee so that it would be even more attractive To enter let's say the limited and the intermediate or even all three of them at a at a discount To again generate more entries the cotton states followed our Recommendation and they've done just that in their entry forms and how many holes would be paid out for each level? Well, it just depends it it's driven just like the current payout structure is right now So the number of entries will drive how many holes that are paid in each in each level The cotton states I think are requiring 25 horses in a level to have a working finals if not It's a pencil finals a lot of those same rules that the show producers had as far as the number of poles paid and Whether it was a working or non-working finals is exactly under under our proposal like it currently is and The I guess breakdown of payouts The higher the level The higher yes the high the amount under under our proposal under our proposal We recommended that the added money that a producer puts to a show needs to be Concentrated at the top level because even though we're creating these levels the incentive is for people to ride up But we want to encourage them We don't want to force them and the way we encourage them is to is we recommend that the added money needs to be The concentrate at the top with some in the intermediate and at the discretion of the show producer They could put some in the limited But again, we don't want we don't want the limited rider to ride out of that class Sooner than they're ready to compete in the intermediate So we don't want them to win a lot of money, but we recognize that they have to win some so it's it's It's up to the show producer at the limited levels for each division our initial proposal we said don't put any in there, but Again in the in the past the show producers have put money in those beginner classes So it's hard to not put at least some in there Okay At the convention this was proposed How was it received? very well the open riders want to to make sure that their purses are staying the same and What we have told them that at the present levels? they are equal to or very close and Those levels that are in the divisions could possibly change The very next year, but we have to start somewhere We were trying to explain that the only way I can prove that it will work is to show you that this is a mirror of What you are presently? Receiving now there is there these are the numbers They could change Hopefully they will change We as a subcommittee wanted different levels to pay more Range so to speak but we could not maintain the payouts that these folks are are acceptable for so We had to start somewhere Hopefully that will be the incentive to Grow and maybe like you say those those students that aren't playing this game And those horses that are being left at the barn instead of coming to town to play Hopefully they will show up and if they do these levels could go from three levels in a division to possibly five I mean it depends on the numbers and And who's to say I mean it's we don't have a crystal ball that says here it is This is what it's going to do. We only could mirror what we had to sell to you that This is feasible this will work Is who is not coming to town to play and so that so it's kind of like you're not hearing those voices Yeah, so it's kind of like the pilot studies showed us a worst-case scenario This is who actually entered and this is leveling those riders in these various divisions So it's nothing, you know, so all this is a worst-case scenario If we get more people coming to play the purse is going to be bigger because we have more riders So and it was it was very I feel like it was very positively received at the convention This this year made the third year that I've been to the NCH a convention And I have to tell you it was the first year where I came away with people were excited They're they're ready for some change. They're ready that they recognize that there are some things that need to be changed And the willingness to try that things that are not the old way Um was it was cool to see that that actually people are excited about wanting to try something new So and I think that's a very important point that you raise that it's not just trying to fix it for those who are competing Right now to make it fair. There's a real problem of membership. Yes numbers and the loss that's occurred over the past few years And actually talk about some of those numbers in the over the ten years. I Think Denise is probably Well, you know we can we we have lost about Six or seven thousand in membership over the past ten years We we peaked out at over twenty thousand and our membership number is a little over thirteen thousand and it's and it's all due to the fact that People Didn't feel like they had a place to play It got too it got too costly The schedule was such that the the classes were going on the weekend level so late into the day or into the night That they didn't want to stick around and play. So really the convention I felt like people became aware of our problem and they weren't just turning their head to it They were like, yeah guys, I get it We we have got to turn these trends around and let's sit down and let's brainstorm and come up with some Ideas on how to do it and that's why I feel like this LAE proposal was so well received as they were like We we hear you we we see the numbers. We've got to do something Show entries on the weekend side are down dramatically over the past ten years over 60,000 show entries we've declined from 2017 to 2007 So we've we've got to do something and so The LAE is the first side of it The weekend is it is a whole nother Issue that's got it. We've got to come up with some better ideas to get our weekend cutter back in playing with us But it'll be interesting to see how the cotton states turns out. So this is a trial in in Action in terms of the first show that it will be applied at if it if all goes well What will you deem a success? How where's the gauge on that? well Certainly the number of entries will determine whether it's successful or not and Looking at whether the payouts were Approved were reasonable and and the the competitors felt like that was the case and is Is the minimum payout going to be to try to cover entry fees? Is that what you're looking at or it's not really part of the formula? Well, you know, that's that's really the show producer Business plan What we've done is we've provided a concept of how we feel like class structure could generate more interest They were the ones that made the decision on what the entry fee was going to be and what the class schedule was going to be and What the added money was going to be so those are all going to decide what the profitability is or not of the cotton states, so Certainly that's important But whether or not this class structure actually increased entries an increased number of horses walking to the herd Is going to be to me the telltale of whether this format is successful or not And whether it needs to be applied Or tried at other shows and and we've been asked, you know is is you know Other shows in the fall can they have they've been approved to do this? And and they haven't because we want to test the cotton states see if it's successful See what needs to be tweaked and then go from there Charles he asked for it. I mean Robert Robert Charles has Been having declining entries He's he's he is willing to do something to step outside of the box and try something new So then potentially what would be the if if all goes well and you get a positive result at the cotton stakes What would be the next show that looks to That would be looking to perhaps try this Well, that's going to be up to the ec and the officials at at the nca May I know that there's a lot of fall shows that would like to do it And even some shows like the bi I know babo bannon has been very supportive of this proposal There's very there's things that he would like to Incorporate into his show next may But if if the ec Wants to see it out of the shows they can give those show producers the approval And then we'll just go from there And I guess besides the numbers the other thing that will Determinate success as feedback Yeah Absolutely and and that's just it is that we want we want to Get the constructive criticisms and on how this thing needs to be tweaked and and just see You know I do I want to talk to the competitors at the cotton states and see How they like Showing under this format if it makes sense for them if it makes sense for the horse You know if it makes sense for the show producer It'll it's going to be interesting And talking about the horse Not only is it going to give a place to horses that you as you were referring to earlier just are in the barn It'll also help market them and give them value that they haven't necessarily been getting because I've had to go to other disciplines That's correct. That's correct. We're hoping that that will incentivize owners maybe to You know, hopefully for the faturity and these other, you know smaller aged events to To enter and to continue to do so with horses that aren't maybe at that top level, but that are You know competitive just You know on their best day they're they're going to mark a 16 and you know you come to a major here and Casey green is exactly right. You know, I have Horses that can mark 16s all day, but I need a horse that can mark an 18 if I'm going to compete against this level Here, so he you know he He has been extremely helpful As far as as a trainer's approach to this Denise and I both are non pros and I mean the the amateur parts of it have been you know extremely helpful with you know The the revolving door and how that works and you know the the caps and trying to make it as fair As possible for not just a certain group, but for the masses and that has been our goal That was on our whiteboard when we first started It was the best horse gets the most money And then we wanted to and he's keep it simple because it was so complicated I mean all these different, you know Different exceptions for this and that and the other we wanted it like he said We wanted to create a level that you're your skill level is at Regardless of your age and that you can compete at that level. So, you know That was probably our our main and keep it simple. Yeah, definitely keep it simple Yes, yes simple as as you can because it's there's too many exceptions to the exceptions to the exceptions And we were talking earlier It's not something you you can never find a solution that will please every single person But There's got a big compromise. It's the masses. That's that's what this is all about is is it's not I it's about we You know, we we have to Yes, exactly and that that was that was our approach It's there's been a lot of time and effort, but a lot of facts have been found When we first started we didn't realize that the weekends were the were the ones that were in trouble the shows And the weekend, I mean, there's some regions and there's some affiliates that are Are flourishing but there are some of them that are in serious trouble And these numbers that we're finding and trying to find a solution The aged event was easier to fix because of The the the the ages of the horse, you know the three-year-olds or the four-year-olds or five and six-year-olds But not so much the novice horses or the you know the the 2000 limited rider or those and some some areas They don't exist some areas. They flourish so it that is another animal and they are totally two different animals So we are so that's still a work in progress. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes And what about the challenges series? Have you seen any change there with the with the weekend events? Have not have not. I am not that familiar with the challenger I know that there are some regions and some affiliates that love them And then there's some that they can't even get an entry. I know in our area in florida We we have not been great It has not been something that has been but we are flourishing our our little Affiliate is very strong, but there are You know up in you know our east side of the coast is But there are some right here in texas that are struggling really struggling. So That's the complexity of trying to fix all of it with one rule You've got to take all of the pieces of the puzzle. It's difficult Okay, and finally you've set up here at the summer spectacular get the word out explain the rules and Get people encouraged to go to the cotton stakes. What is the feedback and response been like just here from people? Great so far. We just we just came in this morning denise flew in and We have met with several trainers Already addressed to two situations that they needed to know, you know can the same horse, you know show In the top open division and in the intermediate with another rider and yes, they can They're willing to pay those two entry fees. Yes, they can You know, how would you you know just just specifics that We needed to to address and we've done It's it's I think people like to know that I can talk to somebody and I can get an answer back and if I don't know that answer I'll find you that answer. I'm not going to just pick it out of thin air. I'm going to find you the answer Yeah, well great work ladies. I mean four years in the making It's about to come to fruition at the cotton stakes. So So best of luck with that and thank you for all your hard work. Thank you. You bet. Thank you. Thank you