Lexington, Ky. – The 2023 USEF Pony Finals presented by Honor Hill Farms ended on Sunday with the Marshall & Sterling /USEF Pony Medal Final. A total of 187 combinations competed in round one over Jasen Shelley’s challenging track with the requirement of halting then jumping a trot fence during the course. Twenty combinations returned for round two with three from the small section, 10 from the medium section, and seven from the large section. The second-round course required...

Traverse City, Mich. – Two gold medalists emerged today at the 2023 FEI North American Youth Dressage Championships presented by USDF as the Young Rider and U25 divisions completed their individual championships. Mary Claire Piller (Oakdale, Tenn.) and Caterina, Emily Brollier’s 2011 Hanoverian mare, won the gold in the Young Rider division. Emily Hewitt (Atlanta, Ga.) was the U25 champion with Fidens, a 2010 KWPN gelding owned by Tammy Pearson. Mary Claire Piller and Caterina....

San Juan Capistrano, Calif. – McLain Ward and Kasper van het Hellehof bested the challenging track set by Leopoldo Palacios (VEN) in the FEI Longines Grand Prix of The United States CSIO5* to put the U.S. at the top of the podium in the highlight Grand Prix class of the FEI Jumping Nations Cup CSIO5* week at Rancho Viejo Riding Park in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. The pair finished with a time of 37.42 seconds, edging Jose Antonio Chedraui Eguia (MEX) and H-Lucky Retto in the two-horse...

Mounted stewards play an important role during the cross-country phase of the Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event presented by MARS Equestrian™. (US Equestrian) Responsible for crowd control, public engagement, and rounding up the occasional loose horse, mounted stewards play a fundamental role in the Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event presented by MARS Equestrian ™ , especially the cross-country phase. According to the event’s 2023 Mounted Steward Guidelines document,...

The Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event presented by MARS Equestrian™ is a dream competition for many aspiring eventing athletes. The same is true for LRK3DE first-timer Sydney Solomon of Dayton, Md. After attending the event as a spectator 15 years ago, Solomon set her sights on Kentucky, and she has worked hard and endured challenges to get here. Solomon, 26, makes her debut with Early Review CBF, a 2009 Hanoverian mare bred and owned by Laurie Cameron, and hopes for a positive...

Alex Waldrop, the former Chief Executive Officer of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), shared U.S. horse racing’s history and recapped some of the challenges that horse racing has faced in the past 15 years. The challenges affected horse racing’s social license to operate and required earnest changes to improve horse welfare. “An old adage comes to mind: ‘If you can’t be a good example, you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.’...

USEF Chief of Sport David O’Connor, University of Kentucky Equine Science professor and member of the FEI Equine Ethics and Welfare Commission, Dr. Camie Heleski, and Chief Executive of World Horse Welfare, Roly Owers, spoke to the USEF Annual Meeting about equestrian sport and the social license to operate. Here are five takeaways from their presentation. 1. Social license to operate is an unofficial but essential piece of the puzzle. Owers describes social license to operate as...

Jumping athletes were put to the ultimate test Saturday as they competed for individual honors in the Gotham North FEI North American Youth Championships for Jumping, presented by USHJA. Over two rounds, the Children’s and Pre-Juniors attempted to record clear efforts to their overall scores and emerge on the podium. In the Children’s, Rylynn Conway (Zone 2 – Fair Haven, N.J.) took the gold medal after a tiebreaking jump-off, while in the Pre-Junior category, Lawson Whitaker...

Herning, Denmark – Rebecca Hart (Wellington, Fla.) and El Corona Texel secured the first medal of the games for the U.S. contingent, bringing home an individual bronze medal in the Orifarm Healthcare FEI World Para Dressage Individual Grade III Championship presented by Elsass Fonden. The duo received a 73.147 percent for third, while Tobias Thorning Joergensen (DEN) and Jolene Hill took gold with a 78.676 percent and Natasha Baker (GBR) and Keystone Dawn Chorus earned silver on a 73.970...

Traverse City, Mich. – History repeated itself on the first day of competition at the 2022 FEI North American Youth Championships (NAYC) for dressage as the Junior team representing Region 4 won team gold for the second consecutive year. The 2022 NAYC Region 4 Junior Dressage Team. ©KTB Creative Not only was it a repeat win for the region, but the roster was made up of veteran horse-and-athlete combinations from the 2021 Region 4 Junior Team. Lexie Kment (Palmyra, Neb.) and Montagny...