SAUGERTIES, NY - Less than two weeks after announcing plans for a $100,000 Hunter Final for its popular 3’3” Devoucoux Hunter Classic, HITS has decided to quintuple the purse and make history again by offering the richest hunter class in the sport of show jumping. The $500,000 HITS 3’3” Hunter Prix Final will be a culmination of more than 30 Devoucoux Hunter Prix qualifying classes offered at all HITS horse shows from January 19 through September 4, 2011. The Final will be take place September...

Jonathan Wentz, earlier in the week (Photo by Shannon Brinkman for USEF) Lexington, KY - The second day of freestyle competition for the FEI World Para Dressage Championships got underway early this morning with the Grade II and Grade Ib riders. Like in yesterday's competition, the riders all came to win and rode their hearts out to try to claim one of the coveted medals from the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. Only two riders from the Kentucky Equine Research U.S. Para-Equestrian Dressage...

Upper Marlboro, MD —Oct. 6, 2010 – John French and Small Affair made a big impression at the Capital Challenge Horse Show. With breathtaking efforts during the two-round $15,000 WCHR Professional Challenge, the bay French-bred gelding soared to victory with a score of 182.99 for owners Iwasaki & Reilly. Although French has contested the class on many previous occasions—and placed second in 2009—this was the first time he claimed the WCHR Professional Challenge and the Little Book Trophy,...

Boyd Martin and Neville Bardos (Photo by Shannon Brinkman for USEF) Lexington, KY - The FEI Eventing World Championships, presented by Reem Acra, are officially underway at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. Eighty horses passed the veterinary inspections yesterday, and the first forty performed their dressage tests today. With such decorated riders as Mark Todd of New Zealand, William Fox-Pitt and Pippa Funnell of Great Britain, and Ingrid Klimke of Germany taking to the arena today,...

Steffen Peters Celebrates a Bronze Medal. (Photo by Shannon Brinkman for USEF.) Lexington, KY - The brilliant United States dressage duo, Steffen Peters of San Diego, CA, and Ravel, owned by Four Winds Farm and Akiko Yamazaki, won the bronze medal at the FEI World Dressage Championship in the Grand Prix Special. They received a score of 78.542%, the best Grand Prix Special score that they have ever received. It was quite an accomplishment for Peters; an American rider has never won an...

Becky Holder and Courageous Comet (Joanie Morris/ USEF) Fairburn, GA – There were a variety of techniques for approaching the cross country course in the USEF Advanced Horse Trial Championship at the Land Rover/USEA American Eventing Championships. For many American and Canadian horses contesting the division, the greater goal is the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games which will take place in Lexington, KY September 25-October 10, 2010. But Becky Holder (Palmetto, GA) rode like a woman on a...

Arthur and Allison Springer (Emily Daily/USEA) Fairburn, GA – There is plenty at stake for the best riders in the United States this weekend at the Land Rover/USEA American Eventing Championships. Among the nearly 700 horses contesting the competition from Beginner Novice to Advanced, there are 38 American horses vying for the Jack LeGoff trophy for the USEF National Advanced Horse Trial Championship. Of those, 17 were vying for a spot on the Land Rover/US Eventing Team for the Alltech FEI...

Del Mar, CA - Twenty-nine horse-and-rider duets danced under the lights in the Del Mar Horse Park covered arena on the evening of September 4 in the $50,000 Grand Prix of Showpark CSI-W, presented by EquiFit, Inc. With riders representing eight different countries vying for the top prize, as well as points on the World Cup leader board, course designer Anthony D'Ambrosio had the task of building a course that tested both the scope of the horse and eye of the rider. Four earned a spot in the...

LEXINGTON, KY - August 17, 2010 - Equestrian Events, Inc. (EEI), organizer of the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, has announced a transition leadership team as it prepares for the retirement of Executive Vice President and Event Director Jane Atkinson after more than 36 years of service. Atkinson will be the Eventing Discipline Manager for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games this fall and will formally retire after those games. The EEI Executive Committee has appointed a Transition...

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Just ask Miami University of Ohio freshman, Tom Schoen, the 2010 recipient of the Jon Conyers Memorial Scholarship. Schoen rides on the Miami University Equestrian Team (MUET), representing his Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) teammates in the Walk Trot division, under coaches Heather Pinnick and Lori Cramer. Remarkably, the English Education major was not a rider before college. But it’s clear after listening to him talk about his passion for...