Kansas City, Mo. – The 2023 show season for saddle seat equitation athletes came to its exciting conclusion on Saturday with the USEF Saddle Seat Medal Final at the UPHA American Royal National Championship Horse Show. A total of 16 entries came to compete in the final, which took place in two phases on a single day. Isabelle Fischer and family. ©Leslie Potter/US Equestrian Isabelle Fischer (Villa Hills, Ky.) closed out her wildly successful season by winning the champion title and...

Strzegom, Poland – The Land Rover U.S. Eventing Team had a successful outing over the weekend at the FEI Eventing Nations Cup™ Poland, holding a wire-to-wire second-place standing in the competition at LOTTO Strzegom Horse Trials. The team finished on a 142.8, with The Netherlands taking first on a 133.8. “The point [of the tour] was to give a younger group team experience,” said USEF Eventing Emerging and Development Coach Leslie Law, who led the team in Strzegom....

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...

The Plains, Va. – The Land Rover U.S. Eventing Squad along with alternate and reserve combinations completed their mandatory outing this weekend at MARS Great Meadow International as their final prep event before September’s 2022 FEI Eventing World Championships in Pratoni del Vivaro, Italy. Tamie Smith and Mai Baum. ©Leslie Potter/US Equestrian All five members of the squad, along with the eight reserve and alternate combinations completed the CCI4*-S at MARS GMI. Team...

The Plains, Va. – The five athlete-and-horse combinations named to the Land Rover U.S. Eventing Squad for the 2022 FEI Eventing World Championship will be among the competitors in the CCI4*-S at MARS Great Meadow International, August 26-28. This event serves as the final mandatory outing before the squad travels to Pratoni del Vivaro near Rome, Italy, for the World Championships, which take place Sept. 14-18. The reserve and alternate combinations for the Land Rover U.S. Eventing Squad...

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...

Traverse City, Mich. – At the midway point of the 2022 FEI North American Youth Championships (NAYC), Ella Fruchterman has already racked up a pair of gold medals in the Junior Dressage division. Ella Fruchterman and Holts Le'Mans. ©KTB Creative Group Fruchterman (West Lakeland, Minn.) and Holts Le’Mans, her own 2011 Danish Warmblood gelding, were part of the Region 4 team that won gold on Wednesday’s Junior Team Competition. On Friday, the pair clinched the...

Traverse City, Mich. – Team dressage competition concluded Wednesday at the 2022 FEI North American Youth Championships with the Young Riders completing their team tests under perfect weather conditions at Flintfields Horse Park. Sophia Schults and Conocido HGF. ©KTB Creative Group The team gold medal went to the combined USA Region 3/Region 9 team of Sophia Schults (Wellington, Fla.) and Conocido HGF; Mary Claire Piller (Oakdale, Tenn.) and Oreo; Sydney Schultz (Mandeville, La.) and...

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...