Lexington, KY – John Long, Chief Executive Officer of the United States Equestrian Federation, announced today that Walter Herd will join the USEF as Director of Special Projects, effective September 4. A graduate of Centre College in Danville, KY, and a native of Louisville, KY, Herd recently retired from the United States Army as a Special Forces Colonel after 24 years in a variety of management and leadership positions. His responsibilities included commanding Special Forces units, ranging...

At exactly 8:08 p.m. on August 8, the official one-year-to-go countdown to the 2008 Olympic Games was launched. Eight is considered a lucky number in Chinese culture. In general, eight is an auspicious number for Buddhists. In front of 10,000 people gathered on Tianan’men Square, with the Forbidden City as a backdrop, a sumptuous ceremony took place where Chinese culture and traditions were clearly on show. The International Olympic Committee President handed out the official invitations to the...

The United States Equestrian Team (USET) Foundation awarded the 2007 Intermediaire I Dressage Championship Trophy to Christopher Hickey and Regent at the Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF Dressage Festival of Champions presented by Paul Miller Auto Group, held June 14-17 at Gladstone, NJ. The USET Foundation awards the Intermediaire I Dressage Championship Trophy annually to the winner of the Intermediaire I National Championship. Ivan Bezugloff, Jr., the founder and editor of the former Dressage and...

Lexington, KY – The United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) will be looking to crown a new reining champion on June 30th at 6:30 p.m. at the 2007 Adequan/USEF Open Reining National Championship. This event draws top reiners from around the country and is hosted by the Clayton Woosley Hall of Fame Reining at the Kentucky Horse Park. Matt Mills and Bobbie Cook’s horse, Easy Otie Whiz, won last year’s championship with a score of 231. The pair went on to be a member of the gold medal winning...

(Lexington, KY) – Pam Lane has joined the United States Equestrian Federation as Director of Para-Equestrian and Vaulting effective March 5th. She is located in the Gladstone, New Jersey office and will report to Jim Wolf, Executive Director of Sports Programs. Pam has extensive experience with the USEF and the dressage discipline. Since 1997 she has organized West Coast athlete and developing rider training sessions and has been an event organizer for such competitions as the 2002 qualifiers...

Bob Langrish (Steffen Peters aboard Floriano finished in fourth place in the grand prix special during Friday's dressage competition in Aachen.) (Aachen, Germany)—To say it was tough competition today in the dressage grand prix special at the 2006 World Equestrian Games (WEG) would be a gross understatement. But two Americans made it look like a walk in the park. American’s Guenter Seidel and Steffen Peters, who are now both poised to enter a showdown among the top 15 dressage...

Lexington, KY – One of the nation’s leaders in the fight against degenerative joint disease in equines, the veterinarian-trusted name of Adequan® (polysulfated glycosaminoglycan) has increased their commitment to the United States Equestrian Federation® family by signing on as the official sponsor of the U.S. Reining Team for the 2006 FEI World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany. This is the first time in the history of the World Equestrian Games, that a U.S. team will have a corporate sponsor....

James R. Wolf has been selected by the USEF to assume the leadership of the Federation’s High Performance discipline programs as the Executive Director of High Performance. He had been serving as Interim Executive Director. Jim has many years of administrative and competitive experience in horse sports. Prior to joining the USEF staff full-time, he managed the USET’s three-day eventing squad at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, where he was responsible for the coordination of the...

ATHENS, GREECE— As U.S. equestrians, already medal-adorned from the Olympics, hang up their proverbial tack for another four years, a new team swiftly takes the ring, anxious for their turn at the spotlight in the city of ancient Olympic glory. Along with athletes from 141 countries, Paralympic riders from the United States will make their debut at Athens’ Olympic Stadium during the opening ceremony Friday—setting out to replace hearts full of hope with medals of gold. The...

The facilities for providing first-rate care of horses brought to Hong Kong for the Olympic Games in August have been given the thumbs-up by members of the Animal Welfare Advisory Group (AWAG) who visited the two equestrian venues. “I think the welfare of the horses is being very well taken care of,” said Chan Pui-tin, after he and five colleagues inspected the venues on June 24.. “We have asked a lot of questions on a range of topics, big and small, such as whether the horses will suffer from...