Every now and then, a self-published work makes its way from vanity-press oblivion into currency and actual social relevance.  Off Course, a 188-page soft-cover read from the keyboard of seasoned newspaper scribe Judy Berkley, is one such gem — or at least should be.  It’s a clear, fact-based glimpse inside the toney, insular world of equestrian competition riven by wokeness.

Berkley, a long-time columnist with The Oakland Tribune and a nationally known horsewoman and author, offers her credible, first-person insight into how the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) succumbed to the DIE (or DEI)/CRT metastasis.  USEF, which is the nation’s National Governing Body for Olympic horse-related matters, boasts a membership of over 200,000, including some of the wealthiest and most politically influential families and businesses in the nation. 

 Berkley details how USEF was overcome by speech codes, racial and sex-based preferences, anti-white indoctrination, and the promotion of black and LGBTQ agendas.  Berkley’s deft chronicle explains how DIE/CRT “poured forth from academia” following the death of George Floyd, resulting in the “denigration and erasure [of] white history,” as America was deluged with the culture-changing “language of the woke and the pent-up rage of marginalized people.”  Berkley welcomes us to the arena of unbridled “microaggressions,” “code shifting,” and “cultural appropriations” as she traces the Marxist roots of DIE/CRT from American universities to the insular world of neatly groomed paddocks, pastures, and barns.

Specifically, Berkley details how USEF, headquartered in Lexington, Ky., absurdly retained the services of a University of Kentucky African American Studies professor as an “external thought leader” (political officer?) to inculcate its membership with the guilt of white privilege via an insidious “Inclusion Playbook.”  That “Playbook” includes a “trans inclusion messaging toolkit” that is rife with unapologetic Marxist dogma: 

The equitable distribution of resources, opportunities, and representation in all levels of sports, from grassroots to professional, ensuring [sic] that marginalized communities have the power and autonomy to define and achieve their goals within sports. Sports Justice recognizes the intersections of social, economic, and political contexts in shaping access and aims to dismantle structures of oppression that hinder participation and success in sports.

Berkley asserts that USEF abandoned its primary mission as a rules and regulation organization for disgracefully mandated DIE/CRT.  She cites examples of how USEF failed to resolve countless claims of physical and emotional abuse and pedophilia as it ran roughshod over its membership with leftist indoctrination. 

Then there’s the abject silliness of DIE/CRT.  Berkley reports that there is an ulterior movement within the USEF to transform Olympic competition by replacing the traditional emphasis of excellence, elegance, attention to detail, and precision with woke imperatives that reward non-competitive, subjective measures such as sportsmanship, camaraderie, and niceness to ensure the predominance of participation rather than competence.  USEF also has taken steps toward an affirmative action plan to recruit and endorse race-based and sexual identity groups to ensure that all participants feel included.  Who pays for those expensive horses, plush French saddles, other tack, veterinary bills, stables, feed, and  the stylish accoutrement necessary to ensure that members of “historically underserved communities” feel included in the show ring is left to one’s imagination.

Berkley’s insights resonate with those who follow the writings of Shelby Steele or Christopher Rufo, who have likewise observed identical, simplistic DIE/CRT tactics that employ Marxist dogma to redefine traditional institutions as bastions of white, masculine, institutional oppression and control.  True to form, the left’s attempted brainwashing of USEF members serves as a template to replace history and tradition with a victim-centric narrative.  The Marxist endgame?  The elimination of equestrian competition altogether.  After all, it is the clearest vestige in all of sport of monied white privilege.

Berkley’s readers are endowed with a nagging question of why leaders of USEF, whose entity epitomizes wealth, exclusivity, and privilege, seem willing to slurp from the anarchist trough.  Perhaps the trendily liberal equestrian elite actually are ashamed of their trust-funded entitlements, though certainly not enough to publicly rend their jodhpurs.  Most likely, however, theirs is but a darkly cynical virtue-signaling public relations campaign designed to keep the left off of their well curried backs. 

Off Course is a chatty trot through a field many of us would never otherwise visit.  It serves as a solid reminder of the societally pervasive nature of DIE/CRT and the ongoing threat those edicts pose to American culture and all of its institutions. 

Residents of Berkley’s equestrian universe will know the names, personalities, jargon, and scandals referenced in this well crafted read.  I suspect that her words have already ruffled more than a few horse feathers in her crowd.  For those both in and outside  the small equine circle, Berkley’s book is a fling-wide-open-the-barn-door must-read and a worthy contribution to the national discussion.

Bruce Tucker Smith is a retired United States administrative law judge and a twenty-one-year veteran of the United States Air Force.

Image via Pxhere.