A high-ranking executive with the USEF said that "implementation of the progressive list has been delayed a year" during the public USEF High Performance Eligible Athletes Eventing Committee meeting at the USEA convention in Reston, VA. According to the USEF executive, they had just heard from the FEI about the issue and a press release is coming soon from the FEI. When asked if the information is public, a member of committee said "it is now."
On December 1st, the FEI delayed implementation of the new prohibited substances list until April 2010 amidst widespread public outrage at allowing horses to compete on bute and other NSAID's. This latest delay means that the 2010 World Equestrian Games will be conducted under the pre-Copenhagen zero-tolerance list.
Media members from the Chronicle, USEA, and Eventing Nation were sitting in on the the meeting along with several other members of the public, and I think we were all surprised to hear the news. This news is corroborated by statements made by Mark Phillips on Thursday, when he said "The progressive list will probably be postponed again until January of 2011." We are not reporting that the FEI is 100 percent going to delay the progressive list, which we will when we see the FEI press release, but only that we are 100 percent certain that we heard an extremely credible source say that it was going to be delayed.
Thursday Night Update: The Chronicle's Friday recap is entitled "Rumors Confirmed..." so we are glad to see that they are just as confident in the story as we are.
Also, check out the USEA's excellent and extremely thorough recap from Friday, by Emily Daily, Leslie Mintz, Erica Larson, and Lisa Thomas. A great 20 minute break from work.
Yay!! Thanks for giving us updates on the convention! Wish I could be there, but hearing some of the good advice is really cool.