Lexington, Ky. – An accomplished panel of athletes and trainers from diverse backgrounds highlighted the Thursday afternoon session of the 2025 US Equestrian Meeting Annual Meeting. 

The session, which was led by US Equestrian Chief of Sport and  Olympic gold medalist, David O’Connor, featured conversations with U.S. Jumping Team Olympic gold medalist Beezie Madden, Dutta Corp. U.S. Dressage Team athlete Katherine Bateson-Chandler, and natural horsemanship and young horse trainer Dana Glass, who is also the husband of U.S. Dressage Team athlete, Kasey Perry-Glass, who is an Olympic bronze medalist from the Games in 2016. 

Following the Annual Meeting theme of “It’s All About the Horse,” O’Connor leaned into thought provoking conversations around social license to operate, earning trust, and alternative methods of horsemanship. 

“Based on a recent American Horse Council survey, it is estimated that approximately 39 million Americans want to be involved with or around equine activities. To put this in perspective, that number is roughly 10 percent of the population of the USA,” stated O’Connor. “My question is not what those 10 percent think, but rather does the 90 percent believe that we as humans are good for horses. Do they care, or do they have disdain for us?” 

O’Connor encouraged those in attendance to welcome those 90 percent rather than exclude them. 

“I really like a quote from author Steven Covey, ‘Seek first to understand, then to be understood.’ Their perspective is important, and we must continue to earn their trust.” 

Madden kicked off the panel portion of the session by sharing her experience with a horse named Judgment, his fear of water, and how positive reinforcement helped him overcome his fear. Madden reflected on a conversation she had with a marine mammal trainer, and how that opened her mind to a certain type of positive reinforcement training. 

“What was so impressive about this was that she talked about how they do behind the scenes stuff with them [using] positive reinforcement,” said Madden. “For instance, these very large marine mammals get dental work, and they will just hold their mouths open for the dentist because of this positive reinforcement training. And I thought, ‘Wow, that's got to be a really powerful tool and a motivation tool, if they can get that size animal just to hold their mouth open for the dentist to work on.’ That is when we became interested in it.” 

Based off that conversation, Madden utilized clicker training to reward Judgment for successful jumps over water obstacles, starting easy at first with a rolled up blue tarp next to a jump and gradually increasing the difficulty as his confidence grew. 

“It has become another tool that we can use that helps us and helps the horse understand what are wanting of them and when they do something right.” 

Bateson-Chandler also referred to looking for new tools for her toolbox when recently working with a new mare. Bateson-Chandler reached out to fellow trainer and horsewoman Claire Gallimore to see what training techniques she could use to create a better learning environment with her new horse to build trust and communication. 

“Within a few minutes, Claire was telling me things that I knew she could see right away in the horse. She pointed out how she was a horse that very much could feel patterns,” said Bateson-Chandler. “We started with groundwork and worked on teaching the horse some tools to think for herself.” 

Bateson-Chandler also reflected on how these new training methods have led to a different way of thinking for her personally.  

“I find it fascinating to learn more things about the horse and how mentally they go about things. I think it's about being super curious and trying to work with these animals. And nowadays we have a very different horse that is a lot more mentally sharp, a lot more physically athletic than previous times, and we have to move along with the times and find different ways to educate them - and for them to educate us.” 

“Until you actually dive in and try something new and let the horse think with you, you really are limiting yourself,” said Glass, when referring to where his past has led him to today. 

Following the panel’s opening statements, O’Connor asked Glass to reflect on the concept of rewards for a horse. 

“It is just the ability to gather understanding together with the horse. When you ask the question that the horse can provide the answer [to], the horse then seeks that reward,” said Glass. “It is not to say that that horse sometimes does not need to search for an answer. Sometimes a horse just needs time. They may be searching for an answer. If you would just wait for them to find that answer, you can reward that, and that horse will start to seek out that reward.  

When working with rewards, Glass said it is important to think ahead and have several options.  

“For me, you have a Plan A, and ideally your plan is going to be there in the end, but you might need to go to plan F,” said Glass. “But what I have found is that soon, Plan F will match up with Plan A. You just have to be consistent in how you ask and have building blocks.” 

Alternative Training Methods and Social License 

When asked about the role alternative training methods have within the picture of social licensing from a member in the audience, the panel reflected on the place that common-sense horsemanship has in the social license to operate. 

“Anytime you can work with a horse and help it overcome its fear or anxiety about something, you are helping the horse,” said Madden. “Anything you can do that is working with a horse in a way that they're going to trust you more is going to make you more successful.” 

“I hope we can bring these two worlds (high performance and horsemanship) closer together, because I think they're more similar than they are apart,” said Bateson-Chandler. “Dana and I were talking before and when I started to learn more about it, it is common-sense horsemanship. Those around horses their whole life can look at this and say ‘yeah, it makes total sense.’” 

“It was said earlier that violence starts when that knowledge stops. We have something we say...fear is a lack of knowledge,” said Glass. “The horses feel the same way. The more we can do to get inside the horse’s mind and grow that understanding, the better things will be.” 

Horse Protection Act Presentation 

Following the panel presentation (and prior to the postponement announcement seen here) Senior Director of Equine Protection for The Humane Society of United States (HSUS) Keith Dane provided an update on the Horse Protection Act (HPA) including a helpful overview comparing the changes in the HPA rule requirements.   

Dane reviewed several of the main changes to the law, which are focused primarily on the Tennessee Walking Horse and the racking horse breeds, although the HPA itself applies to all horses in the United States.  An important note that was clarified by Dane during the conversation, when racking horse is mentioned, it is in direct reference to the breed and not the action of racking. 

“USEF has been a great partner with the Humane Society, the American Horse Council, veterinary groups and more. Their support has been instrumental.”   

Watch On Demand

US Equestrian members can click here to watch the entire session On Demand as a part of your member benefits!