Article 17 — Sanctions (2/2)

The safety of the pair is not traded in points.

17.3 — THE HORSE

• An accessory, item of dress or piece of tack that strikes or disturbs the horse during the program: elimination. The horse's reaction is proof (article 14).
• Removing tack during the program: elimination.
• Excessive use of the whip or spurs: −40 points, and elimination where the use amounts to brutality.
• Incorrect behaviour towards the horse: elimination, and referral to the committee, which may go as far as exclusion from the Federation.

17.4 — WHO DECIDES, AND HOW TO APPEAL

WHO DECIDES — Points penalties are entered by the jury on the score sheet. Elimination and non-admission are pronounced by the supervisor, and by the supervisor alone. A judge who observes a failing reports it.

IN WRITING — Every elimination and every non-admission is set out in writing with its reasons and handed to the competitor with the score sheets. No decision of this kind is taken orally.

This requirement is not a formality. In a federation where the supervisor knows the competitors, a decision explained at the edge of the arena can always be told differently six months later. The written reason protects, first of all, the person who decides.

APPEAL — The competitor may refer the matter to the committee of the Federation within eight days of the decision being handed over. The committee rules and its decision is final. The supervisor does not hear an appeal against their own act.

17.5 — FRAUD

Everything above sanctions failings. Fraud is another matter: it implies an intention to deceive, and it is not dealt with in the same place.

The following amount to fraud:

• A video edited or shot in several takes.
• Substituting horse or rider.
• An inaccurate declaration of level.
• Altered music presented as untouched.

The edit is the material proof: no one cuts a video by accident.

Fraud is not sanctioned only in the competition where it is found. The performance is not admitted, the committee of the Federation is seized of the matter, and it may cancel the results of the season and pronounce exclusion from the Federation.

FRAUD DOES NOT WRONG THE FEDERATION: IT WRONGS THE COMPETITORS who presented their program in a single take, as they were asked to.