Saddle seat equitation athletes will light up the ring at the Lexington Junior League Charity Horse Show from July 3-8 at the Red Mile in Lexington, Kentucky. The show features the USEF Saddle Seat Adult Amateur Medal Final , a national championship event, which US Equestrian members can watch on the USEF Network on July 5 at 5:30 p.m. ET. There’s also a rare opportunity to see Saddle Seat Equitation Triple Crown winners meet in a single class established by the American Saddlebred Horse...

Last week, courtesy of the Hagyard Equine Medical Institute, we began our tour of the top 10 poisonous plants to watch for in your horse’s pasture, based on a list compiled by the American Association of Equine Practitioners . Part 1 of this two-part series spotlighted five toxic plants to keep an eye out for in your horse’s pasture (click the plant name to see an image and additional information): bracken fern , hemlock , water hemlock , tansy ragwort , and Johnson grass / Sudan...

The pastures are in bloom. It’s that time of year we all have been anxiously awaiting. Winter is over, and the green is taking over! When you take a walk through your pasture, I’m sure you will find plants that are toxic to your horse. Lots of these plants in general will pose little threat to your horse because they will have no desire to eat them, although one reason horses will eat non-palatable plants is hunger. Let’s take a stroll through the top 10 poisonous...

Dear fellow USEF member, Last Saturday, I was formally elected to be President of the United States Equestrian Federation. I am deeply honored to have been elected to this volunteer position and am so excited to have been given this opportunity to help drive growth in equestrian sports in the United States. For those of you who don’t know me, the first thing you need to know is that I come to this position with 45 years of equestrian experience. And put simply, I love horses. Our family...

A whirlwind 48 hours during which the eventing competition unfolded in a way that could give a storyline to the next Harry Potter movie. Quite unbelievable. Bronze for Philip Dutton - fantastic and so richly deserved. Perhaps the moral of the storyline to the last 48 hours is fight, keep fighting and never stop fighting until the Finish Line is disappearing in your rear view mirrors. The French have looked dangerous since the Europeans last year (where they had to secure Olympic qualification)...

Exploding wine bottle, flooding hotel, horse inspection, surprise substitutions, interesting team running orders, lost & found luggage, and a Brazilian party in the Maracanã Stadium. Quite a couple of days. So where to start; perhaps with the job in hand. All the U.S. horses looked fit, well and beautifully turned out by the grooms and the horse inspection went without a hitch for the U.S. Running order declared (Boyd, Clark, Lauren & Philip) and the dressage horses having been...

Saturday Nights Lights events at the main International Arena at TIEC have attracted a large following. Mill Spring, N.C. - Mark Bellissimo, managing partner of Tryon Equestrian Partners, confirmed today that the Tryon International Equestrian Center (TIEC) in Mill Spring, N.C. is working with United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) to ensure that the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games (WEG) remain in North America and USEF has communicated its support of the initiative to the FEI for the 2018...

Part I We have a green light and Mission Control has pressed the big red, white and blue button. Afterburners have been ignited and phase one of the move to Rio is under way. Ok, so a bunch of Team clothing arrived after we had left, we do not know how we are going to get some 60 bags from USOC Team Processing in Houston to Rio, we are not entirely sure where our containers are in Rio, and the delivery of Coca Cola product to the Venue in Rio didn't go quite as smoothly as we had hoped....

Stellenbosch, South Africa - The U.S. Saddle Seat World Cup Team traveled to South Africa to compete in the 2016 International Saddle Seat Equitation World Cup at the Mistico Equestrian Centre, July 7-9. The twelve U.S. athletes delivered excellent performances against teams from Canada, Namibia, and South Africa. Under the guidance of coaches David Cater (Dunbarton, N.H.), Pam Roush (Lutz, Fla.), and Kent Swalla (Columbia, Mo.), the Three-Gaited section won Gold and the coveted Three-Gaited...

Michael Hughes and Sans Soucis Z (The Book LLC) Lake Placid, N.Y. - Michael Hughes rode Sans Soucis Z to victory in the $30,000 Lake Placid Open Jumper Classic Friday at the 47th annual Lake Placid Horse Show, presented by Sea Shore Stables LLC. In the first round, 15 of 35 entries rode fault-free over the 15-jump course designed by Olaf Petersen, Jr. of Germany. The first to return for the eight-jump tiebreaker was Andrew Kocher on Uppie De Lis and he set the mark to beat with a clean round in...