The Maryland Horse Council Has Been Busy! President’s Letter
- Jane Seigler T e MHC Annual Membership Meeting is coming up on Tuesday, November 19, at the Miller Senate Offi ce Building in Annapolis. T e meeting will be preceded by a behind-
the-scenes tour of the Capitol conducted by a state legislator, including the room where George Washington resigned his commission in the Continental Army. T e Statehouse in Annapolis is the oldest state capitol still in continuous legislative use and is the only statehouse to have ever served as the nation’s capital—see more details about the meeting and tour elsewhere in this issue. Traditionally, this is the meeting where our members gather to consider their role in one of our core missions: making our voices heard in the legislative process. T is is also the meeting where we review our progress and accomplishments in the year since our last annual meeting. Elsewhere in this issue of the Equiery you can read detailed accounts of some of our activities; following is a summary of what we’ve been up to—quite a bit! Of course, we should start with the signature
event of the year, the Annual MHC BBQ. T is was our 7th Annual BBQ, and this event has been getting bigger and better every year. Held at the Pittman family’s beautiful Dodon Farm in Davidsonville, this year’s BBQ was a huge success. T e event drew well over 200 attendees, including Lt. Governor Anthony Brown, who made a pledge that he would fi ght to prevent any eff orts to divert slots revenue from horse racing to other purposes. We gave him a barn tour and a thorough review of the issues confronting our industry. As it turns out, he has had some experience with horses; he told us that he worked as a hot walker as a young man in New York! We were also joined by MDA Deputy Secretary Mary Ellen Setting, Senator Norman Stone, Delegates Guy Guzzone, Eric Luedtke, Jeannie Haddaway-Richio, and representatives of Senator Karen Montgomery, Delegates Shirley Nathan-Pulliam,
Susan
Aumann, and Craig Zucker, as well as Anne Arundel County Council Member Jerry Walker. It’s so exciting to see how the Horse Council is more and more becoming the place to be and be seen (and heard) for both Maryland horse people and the public offi cials who serve us. In addition to great food, live music by Kingstreet Bluegrass, and a fabulous silent auction, we were also treated to hayrides through the beautiful woods, fi elds and vineyards of T e Vineyards at Dodon (operated by Steuart’s sister Polly and her husband), including a stop at their gorgeous new winery building and tasting room, then on to a demonstration
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of cross-country jumping by several fabulous horses from Steuart’s Dodon Training Center. All on an absolutely spectacular autumn day! We are already working on next year’s BBQ. Stay tuned for great things! Another great event of this past year was the Horseperson of the Year Banquet in February, which honored legendary racing writer Joe Kelly. Great “MC” work by Baltimore CBS TV station WJZ-TV’s anchor Denise Koch, and an unbelievably heartwarming and inspiring tribute to Joe Kelly’s life by the incredibly talented writer and raconteur Vinnie Perrone, combined with great food and drink and an amazing silent auction made for a truly magical evening in the beautiful Carriage Room at Laurel Race Course. T e fi rst Sunday in June brought us our fi rst annual Day at the Races. T is is just one of a number of activities that MHC is planning to celebrate and honor our members—and to increase membership value. T is was a “members only” event (although members could buy an unlimited number of tickets to bring along friends and family). It was a huge hit—about 100 attended—with backstretch tours of the Sagamore Farm training barn, talks by trainers, jockeys and handicappers, and an absolutely unbelievable champagne brunch. It will be back by popular demand next year, and we’d like to do a similar event at a Standardbred venue. T at may seem like a lot for our all-volunteer organization to have accomplished in one year—but wait, there’s more!
Membership
We have continued to grow our membership, but there is still a lot of room for more growth. As we “dialogue” with our elected representatives and regulators, there is strength in numbers. Even if you belong to a club or association that is a member of MHC, we also need your individual membership now! Find our membership application elsewhere in this update, or go online to mdhorsecouncil. org. T is year, we revamped our dues structure to add the option of three- and fi ve-year discounted prepaid memberships, in addition to the one-year and lifetime options. And, if you join as an individual member, you can earn cash rebates for your member organization. Contact
admin@mdhorsecouncil.org for more info.
2011 2012 2013
Association 23 26 40 Business 47 62 67 Farm 77 96 101 Charity/Foundation n/a n/a 9 Individual 119 122 178 Youth 4 4 3
Meeting Attendance
Our Quarterly Board of Directors meetings draw 75-100 directors and guests, and all
Executive Committee meetings have had a quorum. T is is a good place to discuss a little Horse Council 101: T e Maryland Horse Council is an all-volunteer organization, assisted in its work by contract with an outside administrative fi rm (Mythic Landing Enterprises). T e MHC membership consists of associations (e.g., breed, interest and discipline groups, clubs,
etc.),
farms, businesses, charities/foundations, and individuals. T e policy of the Maryland Horse Council is set by its Board of Directors, which meets four times a year, in January, May, August and November. T e Board of Directors is formed as follows: each association that is a member designates a representative to sit on the Board; in addition, farm, business, charity/foundation and individual membership categories each elect directors-at-large to represent their membership category, one director-at-large for every 25 or fewer members in each category. T e policy decisions of the Board and the day- to-day business of the organization are overseen by the Executive Committee: the President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, plus fi ve additional members elected by the Board. T e Executive Committee meets monthly on the last Tuesday of the month.
Legislative and Regulatory
MHC did not present any of its own bills in the 2013 legislative session, but reported to our membership on bills aff ecting farms, horses and horse people, and advised legislators and regulators on issues that aff ect our industry. Our members, and especially Executive Committee member Royce Herman, were tireless and agile in testifying on the various county-by-county Sunday hunting bills in the last session. (For the upcoming session, we are working on a statewide legislative approach that will address the deer overpopulation problem, while preserving one weekend day for quiet and safe land use by riders and other user groups.) In the last legislative session, MHC submitted testimony supporting continuing the contributory negligence standard in negligence lawsuits; supporting authorizing courts to order a defendant convicted of a specifi ed charge of animal cruelty, as a condition of sentencing, to pay—in addition to any other fi nes and costs—all reasonable costs incurred in removing, housing, treating, or euthanizing an animal confi scated from the defendant; and successfully requested an amendment to create a fund for neutering/spaying dogs and cats, to make clear that the proposed funding feed surcharge would not apply to horse feeds. On the federal level, we voted to support federal legislation that would put new controls on “soring” and other practices intended to artifi cially create “big lick” movement in certain breeds. We kept our membership informed on
continued on page 10 NOVEMBER 2013 | THE EQUIERY | 9
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