When the 35th Edition of the Winter Equestrian Festival kicked off at 8:00 a.m., the sun was already high, conditions were perfect and the ground lush. The course designer this week in the Internationale Arena is Luc Musette, whose father, Jean-Paul, was national show jumping chef d’equipe for Belgium for many years until he retired to take charge of juniors and young riders. Musette was not originally scheduled to build until later in the tournament, but stepped in to deputize for Uliano...

The National Reining Horse Association (NRHA) announced remarkable success for the very first NRHA Sire and Dam Program online auction. The online auction for 2007 breedings began November 15 and ran through December 2. The “eBay-style” bidding war took off during the 2006 NRHA Futurity at the Oklahoma State Fair Park in Oklahoma City, OK. It went down to the final minutes leading up to cutoff at 8:00 pm CST on Saturday, December 2. The online auction was created to give the NRHA membership an...

The United States Equestrian Team (USET) Foundation awarded a $2 million grant to the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) in November 2006 in support of the organization’s eight High Performance programs. The High Performance disciplines are dressage, driving, endurance, eventing, reining, para-equestrian, show jumping, and vaulting. USET Foundation funding provided support, in whole or in part, for High Performance athletes to participate in both national and international events in...

This past weekend, the Capital Challenge Horse Show in Upper Marlboro, MD, held the Monarch International’s Show Circuit Magazine Professional World Championship Hunter Rider (WCHR) finals. The WCHR National Awards program recognizes the top professional, junior, adult amateur, pony and amateur riders through points accumulated throughout the year at the rider’s top four WCHR shows. The top six riders from each region and the top 10 riders in the standings are then invited to compete directly...

Lexington, KY – In a conference call held today in cooperation with the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), five members of the U.S. 2006 FEI World Equestrian Games (WEG) team answered a wide range of general media questions. On the phone from Germany were dressage team members Guenter Seidel from Cardiff, CA, and Debbie McDonald from Hailey, ID; vaulting team members Elizabeth Ioannou from Saratoga, CA, and Blake Dahlgren from Sun Valley, CA; and on the phone from Florida was show jumper...

Lexington, KY - The United States Equestrian Federation® is pleased to announce the United States representatives to the FEI/WBFSH World Breeding Championship for Young Horses in Dressage, to be held August 3-6, 2006 in Verden, Germany. The results of all three USEF/Markel Young Horse Dressage Selection Trials were tallied and horses from each age group (five-and six-year-olds) with an average score of at least 7.5 from the two weighted, selection trial classes were ranked to form the...

Susan Summers, riding Mags Motivator, finished first in a ride time of 9:54:59 at the CEI*** 100-mile endurance ride in Ashland, MT, on Sunday, June 11. Her average ride time of 10.48 miles per hour put her four minutes ahead of second-place finisher, Heather Stevens, riding RSA Count Laquen. Forty riders took the trail in the 4:30 a.m. eastern Montana dawn. The trail would take them over ranch land and through the Custer National Forest. Twenty-six FEI riders began this third and last...

Courtney King went six-for-six at the Windy Hollow Hunt Summer I Dressage show, held June 10-11, at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta, NJ. King exhibited three horses in six classes and claimed victory in all six competitions. King’s winning mounts were Harmony’s Wyoming, Jubilant and Idocus. High scores of the show were awarded by level/type and two of King’s mounts earned the high score in their respective divisions--Harmony’s Wyoming earned the Open High Score (79.444%) for first...

With the 2006 World Equestrian Games just three months away, the top endurance riders in the U.S. are preparing to demonstrate their abilities in the hopes of earning a place on the U.S. Endurance Team. In order to be considered, each rider must compete at one of three FEI***/AERC dual-sanctioned 100-mile rides scheduled for May 20 in Oreana, ID; May 27 in Grand Island, MI; and June 11 in Ashland, MT. Members of the National Selection Committee will be present at each event to evaluate the...

The World Equestrian Festival, perhaps the largest single week's horse show in the world, began Wednesday in Aachen, Germany, with the United States announcing a top team for the Samsung Super League. Aachen CHIO has added championship vaulting to the lineup of show jumping, dressage and four-in-hand driving that will be contested by 145 athletes from 23 nations on more than 400 horses, in front of what is expected to be well above 300,000 spectators during the five days of competition. For...