Ju’Riese Colón is the Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Center for SafeSport with a professional background in children’s safety policy and education. She spoke at the USEF Annual Meeting about participant protection and SafeSport in the equestrian community. Here are five takeaways from her presentation. 1. The equestrian community has become a leader in participant protection efforts. The U.S. Center for SafeSport was designated in 2017 as the nation’s safe sport...

Sydney Moriarty is a lifelong hunter/jumper rider and a second-year medical student at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine. In 2021, she graduated with a B.S. in Clinical Neuroscience from Virginia Tech, where she worked at the Helmet Lab assisting on the Equestrian STAR helmet rating project . Moriarty gave a presentation on the history, future, and current research around equestrian helmets, body protectors, and air vests. Here are five key takeaways from her presentation: 1....

Sarah Hamilton from strategic communications consulting firm Kivvit gave a presentation on social media to kick off Friday’s Workshop Sessions. She reviewed the basics, different platforms, strengths and weaknesses of social media, and best practices. Hamilton concluded by fielding questions from the audience for a thoroughly informative session. Social media is a communication tool “Social media is just one tool in a larger communications and marketing external relations plan that...

Ellen Ahearn and Eric Markell at Badminton. We became involved in the sport of eventing when our daughter, Alexandra Ahearn, became an eventer. She started in Michele Pestl’s program in Renton, WA on an older horse named Sir Frederick. After a couple of years, it was clear that Alex had advanced as a rider to the point she needed a younger, more vibrant horse. So, off Michele and Ellen went to Munich, Germany, where we were fortunate enough to locate and purchase Mai Baum at the...

Jane Hamlin My journey as a judge has led me from northern New England all around the world, including judging at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. It’s been an exciting ride starting when two friends and I traveled down monthly to the New England Dressage Association dressage judges’ program. This was prior to the USDF “L” program. We had the good fortune to spend a weekend a month for nine months learning from different judges before taking our final exam to become a...

Lexington, Ky. - Following a review of Area VI community feedback, modifications to the 2023-2027 U.S. Eventing Calendar were recommended by the Eventing Strategic Calendar Task Force to the Eventing Sport Committee, who in turn recommended the modifications to an Ad Hoc of the Board of Directors. Due to hardships demonstrated for qualification under the current structure and criteria, and to limit the travel to achieve those qualifications in the interest of horse welfare, the following...

Lexington, Ky. – US Equestrian is pleased to announce the athlete/horse combinations that will represent the United States at the 2022 FEI Endurance World Championship, scheduled to take place February 25, 2023, at Butheeb, United Arab Emirates. The following combinations will represent the U.S. Endurance Team and are listed in alphabetical order: Marissa Bartmann (La Plata, N.M.) and RGS Rollo Ze Monarch, a 2010 Arabian gelding owned by Jessica DiCamillo Karen Binns-DiCamillo (Las...

Photos taken at the US Equestrian Annual Meeting by Adam Brennan are now available here . Browse and download images from the Pegasus Awards and SmartPak/USEF Horse of the Year Awards. If you share photos on social media, please credit the photographer as Adam Brennan @picturesbyab. To purchase high-quality prints and downloads from photographer Adam Brennan, go to picturesbyab.com . To access the US Equestrian 2022 gallery, use password Equestrian2022 . For media requests of high-resolution...

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...