Lexington, Ky . – US Equestrian is pleased to announce the recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Junior Equestrian of the Year Award, to be presented at the 2024 US Equestrian Annual Meeting in Louisville, Ky. Cecile Hetzel Dunn is the winner of the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award, while Marin McKee is the 2023 Junior Equestrian of the Year. Dunn and McKee will be recognized at the Pegasus Awards Dinner on Sunday, January 14. Cecile Hetzel Dunn (Adam Brennan - www....

Lexington, Ky. – US Equestrian is pleased to announce the athletes who have been selected to participate in the 2024 Robert Dover USEF Horsemastership Clinic Week (RDHCW) presented by Zen Elite Equestrian Center . The clinic will take place January 3-7 at the Adequan ® Global Dressage Festival in Wellington, Fla. The following participants are listed in alphabetical order: Taylor Allen (Niwot, Colo.) Korey Denny (Williston, Fla.) Leah Drew (Lincoln, Mass.) Kat Fuqua (Atlanta, Ga.)...

Fulton, Mo. – A total of 23 of the country’s top saddle seat equitation athletes have convened at William Woods University this weekend for the U.S. Saddle Seat World Cup Team Trials. The trials will determine the roster for the three-gaited and five-gaited teams that will compete at the 2024 International Saddle Seat World Cup in Parys, South Africa, next December. Athletes at the World Cup compete on horses they’ve never ridden before, loaned by owners in the host country....

Lexington, Ky. – The US Equestrian Board of Directors has approved updated selection procedures for the 2025 FEI Driving World Championships at its November 2023 meeting. These selection procedures for the following events can be downloaded by clicking on the linked titles below. 2025 FEI Driving World Championship for Pair Horses Beekbergen, Netherlands Dates TBD 2025 FEI Driving World Championships for Single Ponies La Pin au Haras, France Dates TBD 2025 FEI Driving World Championships...

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...

An edit was made in the original release. Under “GR108 – Defining Coach Status,” there is a list of “Important Information for Rule Impementation.” The second bullet now reads “A coach signing the entry blank must be a USEF Senior Active Member." Lexington, Ky. - The United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) held a Board of Directors meeting Monday, Nov. 13. During the meeting, the Directors heard updates from around the sport and made several important...

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...