Equitas Partners with EQUISS - Because Safe Sport Day Can't Be the Only Day We Talk About This
Today is Safe Sport Day. It's a day built around a simple idea: that everyone in sport - every rider, groom, volunteer, parent and professional - deserves an environment free from abuse, bullying and misconduct. It shouldn't take a single day on the calendar to make that true. But while we keep building toward that, days like this matter, because they give us a reason to be loud about it.
So today, we're making it official: Equitas has partnered with EQUISS as our named safeguarding partner for the UK and Ireland.
Who EQUISS are
EQUISS is the only independent safeguarding organisation working to create a safer, more respectful and inclusive equestrian community across the UK and Ireland, where everyone can participate free from harm, abuse and misconduct.
At the heart of their work is free, confidential and independent advocacy and support for anyone in the equestrian community who has experienced, witnessed, or wants to report abuse, misconduct or a safeguarding concern.
They provide a safe, non-judgemental space to be heard, alongside practical advice and specialist support, and they work to raise safeguarding standards across the sport through education, training and practical guidance, while challenging the behaviours, cultures and systems that allow harm to happen or go unchecked.
Their mission is simple: to make sure everyone in the equestrian community feels safe, respected, supported, and able to speak up when something isn't right.
EQUISS was founded by Sarah Stoute, an entrepreneur and lifelong equestrian, after years spent running events and competing alongside her daughters exposed her to practices in the sport that shouldn't have been happening, and to countless victim-survivors who'd had nowhere to take it, no one who'd listen, and every reason to be afraid of what speaking up might cost them.
EQUISS exists because that gap needed to close. Their team draws on real experience across safeguarding, policing, governance, campaigning, the charity sector and the equine world, united by the belief that abuse is both unacceptable and preventable, and that victim-survivors deserve to feel empowered, not just heard.
It's also the same thinking behind EQUISS's ongoing #EyesUp campaign - a call for the whole equestrian community to stop looking away, to raise standards, and to hold each other to account, because the culture of this sport is shaped by what we're each willing to accept or challenge. As they put it: "The time for change isn't coming. It's now."
How you can actually help
This is the part that matters most. Awareness is a start, not an outcome - so here's where to put your energy today:
If you need support, or you're worried about someone else: EQUISS offers free, confidential, independent support. You don't have to already have the words for what happened to reach out.
If you want to back the work directly: EQUISS runs on donations, and every one goes toward being there for someone when they need it most.
If you want to know more: Follow EQUISS and the #EyesUp campaign, and don't let today be the only day you engage with it.
Safe sport isn't someone else's job. It's a responsibility shared by everyone who loves this industry, and we're proud to stand with EQUISS to help carry it forward.
