At age 13, Princess Haya was the first female to represent Jordan internationally in equestrian sport in showjumping. She won an Individual Bronze Medal in the Pan-Arab Equestrian Games in 1992, and is the only female ever to have won a Pan-Arab medal in equestrian sport. Additionally, She was also the first Jordanian athlete to turn professional, signing a commercial contract with the Italian designer Loro Piana in May 2000.

In 1994, HM Late King Hussein created ‘Team Harmony,’ a group of international show-jumping horses and appointed Princess Haya as athlete director. In recognition of Her accomplishments, the Spanish Equestrian Federation named Princess Haya the Equestrian Personality of the Year in 1996, when she was just 22 years old.

In 2000, Princess Haya fulfilled a lifelong dream by competing at the Sydney Olympic Games in show jumping. Two years later, Princess Haya competed for Jordan in the World Equestrian Games in Jerez, Spain. She was the first Arab woman to qualify for and compete in an equestrian world championship. She achieved another “first” when she obtained a license to drive heavy trucks to transport her horses.

Princess Haya was elected President of the FEI in 2006 (and re-elected in November 2010 for a 2nd term). Princess Haya has been an IOC member since 2007 and has served on the IOC Athletes’ Commission (2005-2010) and on the Commission for Culture and Olympic Education. Princess Haya stepped down as FEI chief in 2014.

In the August 2008 issue of THM, the one that followed the Hong Kong Games, I raised some serious issues, issues that as I saw it, put the FEI in a state of crisis. I was a little surprised to discover that not only had the FEI President, Princess Haya read the editorial, but she thought it a good idea for an interview to air the issues. Here is the interview, whether you agree with all HRH’s views or not, you must admire her frankness and willingness to respond to what were, fairly tough questions…

The presidency of the FEI looks a bit like an hereditary monarchy, with the position passed from one ruling house to another… do you think that this – along with the top hats and tails et al – is bad for the image of equestrian sport, reinforcing the impression that equestrian sport is elitist and out of place in the modern world?

I agree that the FEI has worked like a hereditary monarchy in the past and I agree that the top hat & tails and the elitist image are bad for equestrian sport as a perception but although previous Presidents were from the monarchy they were not elected, I am proud of the fact that I am the first elected President. Furthermore, when I ran for President, the National Federations had clearly stated that they didn’t want a title, they wanted a working President. I ran against the Vice President, Freddie Serpieri who everyone thought was bound to win because he was a worker and not from the monarchy and I really had a tough fight to prove that I could be the working president that the electorate demanded. So in many ways my fight was harder because it was in a socialist atmosphere. I see my presidency as a transition and I see my legacy as enabling a self-sustaining institution so that anybody can take it on after me.

When you assumed the presidency, one of the things we were promised was that the judicial process would be overhauled, and yet the results in the Tryon and Hoy cases would seem to indicate that the process is still painfully slow with the result largely influenced by very expensive legal teams rather than the claims of justice?

I believe in the old FEI that ‘for the good of the sport’ there were cover-ups. I don’t believe that drugging and doping is endemic in our sport but I do believe it is my job no matter which hero it is, or if it is a hero, that we need to make a black and white call, particularly if it’s a doping case, fearing no one and protecting the system.

On the system, we have set up an independent tribunal and we have a properly functioning legal team in the FEI. The tribunal can come up with its decision on any case and we can agree or disagree with it, but the important thing for people to realise is that the President’s tool is HQ not the tribunal. So I expect to follow my political policy and the situation I am in right now, is that I might disagree with the tribunal but it is important that it is independent because everything I am doing is about institutionalising the FEI.

The feedback I am getting is that the people in the sport want long bans but I have my hands tied in that I believe in the system and when I promised to facilitate and not interfere, I meant it. It is not important what I think or about what we individually think but we must have a justice system that works because it is fair and independent.

I really respect the head of the tribunal. I really, really do trust his character and I know that if the tribunal made a judgement call then I know it was the right thing but I have never talked to them about these decisions. I talk to the head of the tribunal about a lot but not about these decisions. My job is about instituting the structures and protecting them once they have been established not getting involved in their individual decisions.

Did the events in HK help you to understand the events at the Athens Games?

I could see exactly what happened in Athens and the lesson I learnt from Hong Kong is that I now realise that what we were lacking is a member of the tribunal at the Games. In future we need to bring the tribunal that will hear the cases, to the Championships – at least three members of the panel.

 In hindsight, if you had concerns about a cross country fence at Hong Kong would it have been wiser to take those concerns to either the Ground Jury or the TD, proceeding through the proper channels?

The bureaucrats of the FEI have made this argument a protocol issue and the synchronisation of who alerted who has become more important than the fact that there was a parallel fence down hill, with the exact same scenario that has killed 16 riders so far – with rocks in front of it.

I did observe the correct channels, through the Executive Director of Sport I spoke to the TD when we reached the next fence to express my concerns. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to me, the course builder chose to make alterations to the fence before the TD arrived to discuss it with him. The only person who I didn’t alert was the missing link and I would love to have talked to was the Chairman of the Eventing Committee, Wayne Roycroft. I would have valued his input because no President can be a jack of all trades and a master of 8 disciplines. But I couldn’t because he was the coach of a competing team. Knowing Patch as I know him, I should have asked him, 6 months before the Games, not to be coach of the Australians. He would have done Australia proud in whichever role he served the country. The lesson I learned is that the federation can no longer go on with conflicts of interest.

Much has been made of the four positives to a capsicum derivative at Hong Kong. Would it not have been wiser for the FEI to make known that these substances could and would be tested for at the Games?

When I was competing, I knew that it was a banned substance. My grooms also knew 7 years ago on the circuits that it was banned, we all knew Equiblock shouldn’t be used. It is up to riders to educate themselves. The talk at grass roots level is how could they be so stupid. It wasn’t even a cutting edge product…. it was old.

Given the widespread use of these substances can you be totally sure that in your showjumping career, no groom ever similarly treated a jumping horse you rode?

There was no new testing procedure and it was definitely not secret. It cannot be seen as entrapment that the Governing Body is doing its job. We don’t owe anybody anything, we only have to do what is right, there is no agenda, no under-currents, just an ultra transparent organisation and people in the sport are looking for ways round it and insinuating that it is entrapment is not one.

Princess Haya competing for Jordan at the 2002 WEG in Jerez

I am not an idealist, I completely understand the difference between medication and doping and I enjoy the debate – I keep in touch with that debate, with the travelling circus, the grooms and riders who travel from show to show, the people who really know, not the people who make it a champagne debate. I know the conversations but at the same time I do not see it as my job to protect the sport, I just see that I need to put the boundaries back in and then protect those boundaries.

In the case of the American dressage horse, Mythilus the FEI tribunal has found that the rider and her team, did not administer the substance, were not aware it was administered, took all possible steps to prevent this happening, and that the horse did not in any way benefit from the banned substance… and yet, the rider was convicted and her team disqualified. Is this not a bizarre miscarriage of justice? If this is what the rules demand, then do the rules need to be changed immediately, and the rider and her team pardoned and their position re-instated?

The Person Responsible is the person responsible. In a sport as elitist as ours you make justice when you make people responsible for the animals that they ride and this applies equally to everyone who gets into trouble because they don’t know the rules. Having said which I am not a lawyer and I don’t want to become involved in details that are ongoing.

My father taught me to have faith in good people when you don’t know the odds. I really trust the tribunal, it is their job to be good at what they do and I fear the day when a President doesn’t trust the tribunal and that is why I have to protect a system where the President can fall against them.

The judging situation in dressage continues to cause problems with wide fluctuations of scores even at the highest level, with the most senior judges. What plans do you have to address this problem?

In Dressage, there are two things that must change. The first is the composition of the Technical Committee. The Committee is currently comprised of judges who dictate the future of the sport. Furthermore they ensure that no new faces can make any decisions on the Technical Committee. This extends to the allocation of judges for Championships.

This kind of conflict of interest, which extends across other disciplines but especially Dressage, cannot continue. It’s just wrong.

The judging system is the main thing that needs addressing. The IOC has received complaints about this area specifically from our stakeholders and they have felt compelled to write to us on this question. The discipline will have to go so far as to consider a situation where they adopt a similar judging system to that of skating or gymnastics. This proposal has yet to be fleshed out but the current system is not transparent and it needs to become so.

 As a rider from a non-European country, are you aware that there is a common perception that the rules and regulations that come out of FEI head office in Lausanne are largely Eurocentric. For instance, while qualifying in Europe is relatively easy in all three disciplines, because of the large number of top international shows, it causes considerable difficulty in other parts of the world where opportunities to compete at this level are limited? The recent HSBC accumulator conducted on four star Three Day events, included every four star in the world, except one – Adelaide in Australia. Is it any wonder we feel like poor relations to the all-powerful Europeans?

Listen, I have been trying to change the FEI. I only have 15 federations giving me a hard time and they are the traditional powers that ruled horse sport. The centre of horse sport today is definitely Europe. My father sent me to train in Europe accepting that and celebrating it but it doesn’t mean that Europe is the higher moral authority or the visionary future of equestrian sport. It is Global. I won the election because from a federation of 134 countries only 15 are European and that is what they themselves forgot. Yes they are key influences but I won’t let go. I won on a platform that I gave the other 115 or so, as well as them, a voice. So I am not going to let it go, that is my ticket, but I am not doing it for myself I am giving the rest of the world a microphone.

To be specific about HSBC and Adelaide, the reasons that the series does not include is nothing to do with it being outside Europe, as is Lexington, but because it does not correspond to a number of the criterion to be part of the series. If it can meet these criterion then it would be eligible.

Are you aware of the widespread perception that because of your family ties, you have a hidden agenda to introduce Endurance Riding to the Olympic Games, even if it is at the cost of one of the traditional sports?

I am probably the only human being that I know of in this century that has survived (so far) not one royal court, but two…. The use of rumour and the spreading of innuendo are definitely not new! What hurts me personally, and what puts me in a difficult position as a Middle Eastern woman, is to have to defend, unnecessarily, the ambition of the man and family that I am married to. But those who protect their seats know to go for the weakest spot. It’s disappointing; it lacks sophistication compared to what I have seen and frankly its rubbish because I have said 1,000 times that under the FEI constitution and by IOC charter, endurance or polo cannot and will not replace any of the three Olympic disciplines. Not in my Presidency.

Neither my husband nor myself look at the short-term picture, both of us look at what history will record. He will never ride in an Olympic Games so why would I ever have an ambition to create this scenario? The union between two families in the Middle East does not come with ties in the equestrian world – so why would I owe this ‘gift’ to anyone?

Do you think there will be a renewed attempt to scrap equestrian from the London Games? Will there be equestrian sport in 2012?

If, after Hong Kong, the FEI continues along the blind path that it is currently on, I personally wouldn’t hold it against the IOC if it called its place into question. It is my job to tell them how far their modes of business are from the realities of the sports industry. I am quite sure that I am aligned with the industry and I am quite sure that we won’t let it happen. But if you have learned what I have learned during my time as President, then don’t underestimate the ability of the FEI volunteer body to instinctively do what’s morally wrong.

This interview first appeared in the September 2008 edition of The Horse Magazine