In 2019 a meeting of stakeholders concerned with the discipline of Jumping met to discuss issues of the day. During this session concerns were raised about inconsistent standards across events, in particular in areas such as biosecurity, stabling and security. Deciding to investigate, the FEI embarked on consultation with FEI Technical Committees, National Federations through the annual FEI Sports Forum, and via an extensive global stakeholder survey. 

Consultation concluded that although the majority of events provide very good levels of service for our athletes, grooms and horses, there is room for improvement, and a more robust system was needed to ensure that critical aspects of event delivery are consistently in line with FEI Rules, requirements and general client expectations.

The FEI Key Event Requirements (KER) process has been launched to address this. The initial 14 KERs that have been identified cover aspects such as biosecurity, veterinary services, field of play and training provision, as well as multiple aspects of stable provision, including security, stable size, ventilation, fire precautions and stable cleanliness.

All 14 KERs are covered by FEI Rules, and monitoring of their compliance is carried out by FEI Officials on-event and through established post event reporting mechanisms. Organisers are then contacted as part of an open and accountable process to follow up in the case of any one or more KERs not being met and to ensure that any such shortfalls are addressed prior to the next running of this event.

Key Event Requirements are referred to in FEI General Regulation Article 112.3 and detailed in FEI General Regulations Annex L.

The table below lists all 14 KERs and the relevant FEI rules that must be followed in order for each KER to be achieved, for example all of the detailed requirements that must be considered for KER 1 to be met (Event Biosecurity) are listed in FEI Veterinary Regulation Article 1027.

FEI officials assigned to each event are responsible for monitoring whether or not KERs are satisfied and record this through the post event reporting process.

A single ‘Yes/No’ question for each KER is incorporated into the appropriate official’s report. An ‘open text’ box enables the official to provide further detail in the case of a KER not being met. To assist the official, alongside each KER question is the relevant rule reference and rule text in full.

Nine of the fourteen KERs are reported on by the Veterinary Delegate, one by both the Veterinary Delegate and Chief Steward, and the remaining four by Technical Delegates and Foreign Judges depending on the discipline. In the case of a KER being reported on by two officials, both must answer ‘yes’ in order for the KER to have been considered met.

All KER reporting is carried out online either through existing web-based reports (Veterinary Delegate, Jumping Foreign Judge and Chief Steward and Endurance Technical Delegate), or in the absence of online reporting, by way of the relevant official being sent a dedicated email with links to submit their responses.

The table below outlines KER reporting responsibilities and relevant questions.

All KERs reporting must be submitted to the FEI within 15 days of the conclusion of the event. Once all responses have been submitted, a summary KER report is produced for each event which enables the FEI discipline and veterinary departments to monitor and identify any events not meeting one or more KERs so that they can initiate the follow up. The relevant host National Federation is informed of any such case.

Upon submission of post-event reports, the KER summary report is reviewed. If all KERs are met, the next running of this event is permitted to proceed.

If one or more KERs are not met, the FEI Discipline/Veterinary Department will investigate the matter further.

Following investigation, formal communication is sent to the Organising Committee informing them of the KER(s) that has not been met. The Organiser is asked to submit a ‘formal commitment’ outlining how they intend to resolve the issue(s). Once the plan has been accepted by the FEI, the following event* is permitted to proceed and can be accepted into the FEI calendar. The host NF is informed throughout the process. Furthermore, relevant FEI Officials of the next event are informed of the KER not being met and the agreed plan for resolution.

If the same KER(s) is not met at the following event, any subsequent event is put on hold. If the same KER(s) is not met at the following event, any subsequent event is put on hold. In this case the Organiser will be required to provide evidence that the issue/s has been resolved before the event will be re-considered for inclusion on the FEI calendar.
*event is defined as the same venue delivered by the same / related organiser

If two or more events are organised in the same year, at the same venue, and there is insufficient time for the above process to satisfactorily be concluded, the following process applies: