Have fun defending yourself against the UC. The UC is a law firm that sometimes dabbles in education.

These athletes need to have a conversation with the family that donated 120 million to the vet school, perhaps funding the equestrian team could be a condition of this incredible gift.

You are so right about the UC system. They have invested 100's of millions of dollars in the last few decades with retainer fees to firms to make sure that the best firms in CA do NOT go against them. I am sure that the handlers for the Vet school donation have already locked up the donation before going public. Rocko having an outside firm to look at the UCD's department is all the defense that the school needs to avoid a loss in court.

I believe they claim to be self funded.

[quote]Student athletes sue UC Davis after equestrian team demoted to club level[/quote]

The Abridged version:

Four current and prospective UC Davis equestrian student athletes filed a lawsuit against the school after it decided to discontinue the Division I program.

The suit alleges that officials knowingly continued recruitment and fundraising even as they planned to end the program.

All of the plaintiffs said they would have considered going elsewhere if they knew the team was going to be dissolved.

Whole article here: https://www.abridged.org/news/uc-davis-equestrian-lawsuit/

https://www.sfgate.com/collegesports/article/uc-davis-cut-equestrian-22317870.php

This was in the SFGate yesterday:

As UC Davis axes equestrian team, parents point to suspicious circumstances

This is old inaccurate information. A federal court has ruled that it has no jurisdiction over the case due to the personal injury aspect of the plaintiffs case. Case was dismissed a month or so ago. Simply bad lawyering which is hard to believe since this whole situation is fueled by the very wealthy parents of the players who can afford the best legal team. So they will refile in state court, probably Yolo county, unless they are willing to forego the personal injury cases, which are, of course, mental distress damages. So on we go to state court in yolo county which will be a much higher bar than the federal court in Sacramento. How the Chronicle missed all of this? Beats me

It looks like this isn't going to go away anytime soon.

Sorry equestrian folks, you have it all wrong and frankly appear ignorant of the facts. UC Davis has one of the most robust roster of women sports in the country. Equestrian athletics was not removed for a men’s sport it was replaced by another women’s sport. Each of the equestrian athletes were given their scholarship benefits until they graduated. They can still keep their horses at UCD. Ride with the club team. So this action did not move the title IX needle one notch against the women or the program. Did UC Davis ever tell the athletes that their program would never be terminated? I doubt that it would have happened. Where’s the evidence otherwise? This case is now morphed into a case where these poor daughters of the very wealthy want to complain of their mental distress and who are demanding monetary compensation for their situation. From someone with experience in the Yolo County court system I will say this is a case that does not have legs in front of a Yolo County jury.

Didn't they replace an expensive woman's sport with a less expensive woman's sport?

Stunt was elevated to an NCAA Championship sport earlier this year.

Equestrian is still in the NCAA "Emerging Sport" status--->40 schools must have Equestrian as a Varsity sport to be an NCAA Championship sport. Currently it's at 24...

I disagree with some of the tactics employed by the equestrian parents in their effort to reverse the decision to end the ICA-level program at UCD.

But with all due respect, let's also be honest. There's been several comments on AST similar to your characterization of "...these poor daughters of the very wealthy..." While equestrian is probably one of the most elitist sports around, many sports have become/are becoming increasingly difficult to play unless your family has money. The following is from an article today on ESPN regarding the play for pay system in US youth soccer:

"...the predominant way kids get started [in soccer] is through the increasingly capitalistic travel soccer system.

"It's a business, and one that caters to kids from the suburbs (where potential customers are) over rural areas or city centers. It all but requires parents to pay what can exceed $20,000 a year in travel, fees and training [including private coaches], in addition to investing lots of free time to drive three states away for some "elite showcase" (often to play a team from across town).

"And travel sports of all kinds are only getting bigger -- a $40 billion-plus industry, increasingly making it the playground of the upper middle class to the wealthy.

"When young players (and their ever-present parents) are paying customers, exactly how hard can you coach them? Break them down before building them up? Offer real adversity, especially the mental sort? Players can just flee to another club at season's end, if not sooner."

If you have family or neighbors (we do) whose kids are involved in youth sports - not just soccer, but baseball, basketball, swimming, volleyball, football - you know this. We've watched it within our family and within our neighborhood. And we've seen the sense of entitlement that it can produce. We've watched Little League All-Star team cater to travel ball players, even when those players are doing poorly, or haven't performed as well during the season as other players.

So I, personally would like to see an end to the comments about the elitist nature of equestrian participants. While it may be further along the spectrum, it's not really unique, and it's becoming less so all the time. Those comments also disparage UCD student athletes in equestrian who have put it the time for their sport, just as much as other UCD student athletes. They've also represented UCD pretty well in their short time as an ICA sport - 3 conference championships in its 7 seasons, 1 trip to the post season.

As a mountain biker, my comments are specifically about the parents. Horse people fight so hard to keep mountain bikers off their trails in the Peninsula and Marin. These are the people that piss me off. Not the kids. Also, it isn't the kids making all of the noise. It is the entitled/elitist parents.

Training Room guy, I have felt your pain with the cost of raising kids with sports. I have done the soccer, the skate boards, the karate and then with my daughter at UC Davis joining the rowing club (talk about an expensive sport, try the rowing). No, my intention was to try (poorly) to explain that from a totally legal standpoint, what has happened so far in this case (without reading the court record) is that the federal court judge dismissed the players case because the Title IX claims had no legal basis. If they were a valid Title IX case the court would have retained jurisdiction over the entire case under the pendant jurisdiction rules. So now the players have to decide whether they want to go forward with the mental distress/misrepresentation claims in state court. So, to get to my point about “Wealthy parents” it is this. The parents are paying for their kids education at UC Davis. These kids are wealthy. Their scholarships are pretty much guaranteed in any event. Where is their mental distress? That is all relevant evidence insofar as the mental distress claims are concerned. Not a great sell in from of a very blue collar Yolo County jury. Just my humble opinion.

Quite the statement from Rocko

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2026/7/13/a-statement-from-rocko-deluca-director-of-athletics.aspx

I’m honestly suprised he didn’t just say screw it and leave for another job at a certain point. People showing up at his house, attacking his daughter from personal social media posts, etc. Has anyone looked through the audit/has a better understanding of legal jargon?

It seems from my quick look over everything that much of what was found was similar to what a large portion of people had been saying about the issues being more factually grounded in issues around the universities less than perfect (to say the least) transparency and public relations processes than fraud, personal distaste for the equestrian team or bias towards stunt.

I will be curious to see how folks respond across the athletics space who know more than me, but I’m happy to see the audit come out. I think Rocko and the staff have done an excellent job concerning most things while involved with UCD and I hope to see that continue, but there is always room for improvements and a necessity for openness to different perspectives, both big and small.

These parents never cared about the school. I'm glad Rocko released that statement and made it personal.

I get your points about the legal issues, and agree with those. I also think the personal attacks on Rocko, his family, and other ICA and university officials are heinous.

https://www.ucdavis.edu/sites/default/files/media/documents/26-46%20Women%27s%20Equestrian%20Program%20FINAL%207.13.26_1.pdf

I read the actual report and I think it largely is captured by Jdur's second paragraph. It does kind of gloss over the fact that the consultant ICA retained probably did use too big of a number for Equestrian expenditures, but not maliciously. The report also implies the existence of (but doesn't quote) internal university calculations that were using more appropriate numbers.

Folks on reddit are seizing on that to point out that the audit is gently pushing back on the consultants' numbers, but what I'm not getting from either the critics or the audit report is whether the university exclusively made its final decision based on the consultant work rather than just as a third-party verification from a different angle.

yeah this is pretty much what I think. I doubt conversation about it all is just going to disappear

This entire case will disappear if and when the yolo judge rules and denies the Title IX claims. Because if the plaintiffs prevail, they carry the potential for the recovery of attorneys fees for these so-called “TItle IX experts” probably billing out at $700-1000 an hour. Absolutely ridiculous. But true. So if the judge throws out the Title IX claims these attorneys will jump ship so fast your heads will spin. Then we are left with these poor girls and their hapless “Mental distress cases” I feel sorry for the poor sac attorney who signed up on this case in the first place who will probably never be paid when he finally has to dismiss the case.
Absolutely disgraceful what has happened to Rocko and his family. Shameful for these girls and their families to engage in such behavior.

I have always felt that our AD's have led UC Davis Athletics with integrity and a commitment to ideals that Davis Athletics has always embraced. Rocko's statement is a testament to that. As he stated, there will always be room for learning and improving but, one thing that I will never doubt, is the integrity and honesty of his decisions. He is, as are the athletes, coaches and staff, a great example of Aggie Pride.

These lunatics should be kicked out of school and the parents should be publicly shamed.

I completely agree with AD De Luca on how many of equestrian supporters were harassing the AD online and also saw ones bringing up his family which is uncalled for and makes me angry. The equestrian supporters lost my support early on how they handled themselves and found their “poor us” and suffering posts yet on their social media has many of them on private yachts and traveling the world during their break seems display the opposite. I do feel bad that the program was downgraded but what the Eq supporter group did was so wrong.

I think the kids/students should be left alone and allowed to make their choice of staying at a top university for their education and play club sport or continuing their “dream”/hobby elsewhere. The parent on the other hand have zero sympathy as adults and were wrong on so many levels.
Frankly I want to know what companies/businesses the parents own and boycott them for being bullies and spewing hate and fake info online.

Try posting something online without these people harassing you. Some of them are Stanford professors. Shameful.

well you should let Stanford know since they have an online harassment/bullying policy for their employees.

Unfortunately, intimidation, bullying on social media, distortion of facts, outright lying and superfluous lawsuits have become far too prevalent in the American culture nowadays and it is often led by wealthy, powerful, influential people and, from there, it spreads easily to anyone with a bone to pick. So sadly, as shocking as the behavior of some of the equestrian folks has been, it also isn't all that surprising.

Literally half of the posts on Reddit this week on the UC Davis Reddit are from equestrian people (from 3 or 4 accounts). At first people generally seemed sympathetic but most people seem annoyed by it at this point. They have some legit gripes but also are pointing out a billion random, disconnected things, lumping in other sports, and debating anyone who disagrees slightly with them in the comments about how they went about their pr campaign. Also, any time anyone points out the crazy amount of posts they flood the comments with attacking Rocko and the admin (on posts completely disconnected from anything athletics), they just deny they did anything distasteful. It’s also objectively true that they went after him and his family. Whether it’s under first amendment rights or not, they did go to regents meetings with photos of his daughter saying he’s only adding stunt after “grooming” her to be an Aggie cheerleader for years, showed up at his house with massive box trucks with signs, and accused him of being a misogynist. I’m not saying they are not ALLOWED to do those things, but if someone has tried to say it’s not the best way to try and gain support, the eq people just say “let’s not make rocko and the admin the victim”. 2 things can be true at once: the admin could have been better at communicating and transparency and flooding posts with random claims, personal insults and taking away from other students, athletes and the university as a whole might not be the most effective way to campgain.

I was sympathetic to them at the beginning, but not anymore. I am glad they did away with the program now based on their response.