I knew, when accepting this job in December, 2011 that I was under-qualified. My writing credentials are fine enough, I have editing experience, a media background, and a good education. My deficiency was that I knew very little about horses and even less about equestrian sports. Compared to my USEF colleagues, I was in a state of almost complete ignorance.

I’ve twice been on group trail rides in western Colorado. Adding that to the rest of my riding experience I’d been on a horse exactly two times when I moved to Kentucky. I should have known more.  I grew up in Newtown Square, PA near the heart of Philadelphia area horse country and no more than ten minutes from the Devon Horse Show Grounds. I’d been to the Devon Horse Show, but I cannot remember ever seeing a horse. Circumstances imply that that cannot be true, but to me the show was more carnival than competition. I spent my time their bolting funnel cakes and failing to win cheap prizes by throwing darts at balloons.   

All over the country equestrian sports struggle to pull in audiences and stay culturally relevant (I knew that then and I’m more acutely aware of it now than ever) but in suburban Philadelphia they didn’t stand a chance. Not to a young boy, not to a teenage athlete, and not to my twenty-something self living on the corner of 20th and Arch. For me, the sporting excitement was all in Eagles football, Flyers hockey, and Phillies baseball. It was my perception that Equestrian sports were “boring.” It would take another blog post to explain or infer where that perception came from, and I wish had a less quotidian way of saying it, but it was my perception; equestrian sports are “boring.”

Only now, after coming from beyond the outside of the sport to the innermost inside of it do I appreciate how wrong that perception was. To say I’m an expert now would be lying. What I am now is a devoted fan. Through editing Equestrian Weekly, writing and helping to edit Equestrian Magazine, and being the motor behind the social media for USEF Network, I’ve been exposed to equestrian sports more thoroughly than I could have previously imagined. I’ve watched a winter’s full of Saturday night classes from WEF, I’ve watched the Rolex Three-Day Event and the Dressage Festival of Champions in their entirety, I’ve been introduced to surprisingly entertaining breed shows (the Piedmont Classic kept me company as I worked Thursday through Sunday ), and I’m more excited for London than I have been for any Olympics in recent memory. On top of all that, it was a Show Jumping observation event on USEF Network that, 630 miles removed, finally got me to turn my head toward the ring at Devon and realize what I’d been missing.

Most of you reading this have already been convinced. Equestrian sports are something you follow, believe in, and participate in. I’m only now becoming one of you, and I know that there others like me that would enjoy Equestrian sports, if only they knew more about them.  I can’t reach the world through just this newsletter, but I can try and, perhaps more importantly, I can help you all stay connected to and in love with equestrianism. Equestrian weekly will not be stagnant; I will continue to introduce new features (like this column), change layout and graphics, and highlight different disciplines and breeds. Please feel free to contact me when there is something on your mind. Let me know what is working, what there is not enough of, when there is something I’ve missed. I’ll do what I can to bring more people, people like I was, to the sport. I’d like you to help me make sure that when they get here, they’ll want to stay.

Andrew Minnick is the Editor of Equestrian Weekly and E-Communications Manager at USEF. You can reach him by email at [email protected] or on twitter by following @ahminnick.

The opinions stated in this blog do not reflect the opinions of the USEF. Good or bad, they are Andrew Minnick's thoughts and reflections.