With the competition season drawing to a close, the deadline to submit nominations for the American Saddlebred Horse Association’s (ASHA) individual awards are no later than the close of business Friday, October 30, 2009. Each year, the Association’s highest honors are presented at the annual Saddlebred Ball, held in conjunction with the ASHA Annual Convention and Youth Conference. This year both the Annual Meeting and the Saddlebred Ball will once again be held at the Griffin Gate Marriott...

Two Champions "Three-Peat" as Breed Show Wraps Up When individual breed classes took center stage on day three of Dressage at Devon 2009, two horses who had dominated the news in the prestigious show's first two days continued to grab headlines. Perfect Qredit, a yearling colt by Quaterback, added an 83.80% win in the Oldenburg (GOV) division to his Grand Championship, Young Horse Championship, Colt Championship, and Yearling Colts and Geldings title for owner Michelle Coursin, an air-traffic...

The largest gathering of FEI Four-in-Hand drivers ever in the Americas will go head-to-head October 1-4 at the Kentucky Horse Park for Kentucky Cup Driving, the third official test event for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. The CAI-A competition will be held in conjunction with the annual Lexington Combined Driving Classic (also the 2009 USEF National Driving Championships), and will feature drivers from Australia, Canada, and the United States. Several drivers competing in the test...

In a major new initiative, the American Hanoverian Society (AHS) is pleased to announce a new foal life recording partnership with the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF). The USEF, which serves as the National Governing Body for Equestrian Sport in the U.S., licenses equestrian competitions of all levels across the United States each year and maintains the points and standings for the annual USEF Horse of the Year (HOTY) Awards in its comprehensive database. Through cooperative efforts...

The Swedish Warmblood Association of North America (SWANA) is pleased to announce the 2009 Sweden Equestrian Tour. SWANA and its parent organization, ASVH, and SwedeHorse are hosting an equestrian tour of southern Sweden from October 11-19, 2009. If you love horses, this is one of the most fun and educational tours you could imagine. Sweden is one of the most horse-centered countries in the world; their National Stud farm, Flyinge, is one of the oldest in Europe, and Sweden was the founding...

The Executive Committee periodically meets to review and approve extraordinary rule changes and rule clarifications. You can find summaries of rules approved by visiting www.usef.org/_IFrames/RuleBook/Changes/2009.aspx . These rule changes have also been incorporated into the online USEF Rule Book . The online rule book is continually updated with new rule changes and corrections; it is always the most complete version of the rules.

When I'm at home, I generally have a pretty good sense of direction. Even when I don't know where I'm going, I can apply logic based on where the mountains are, what direction the freeway is, etc., and keep from getting lost. My husband gets lost often, but I probably shouldn't tell you that because he's reading this. Anyhoo...something about flying to Kentucky has thrown me completely off kilter. I can't tell which way is north or south, in what direction our hotel...

The third annual 2010 EQUUS Foundation/United States Equestrian Federation Youth Convention will take place on Saturday, January 16, 2010, at the Louisville Marriott Downtown, in Louisville, KY. The convention unites youth from around the country and helps to nurture and develop a growing interest in equestrian sport. As in prior years, this will be held in conjunction with the USEF Annual Meeting, allowing our youth the valuable experiences of watching and learning from some of the great...

Besides delighting my readers with scintillating stories (we writers like to use words like "scintillating" because we think it makes us sound writerly), my main purpose for being at Sport Horse Nationals here in beautiful, damp Kentucky is to help out (in other words, provide slave labor for) my good friend and mentor, Patience Prine-Carr. This means that I get a lot of mane pulling and braiding practice every day. While it's good for me to get the practice, it's frustrating because...

The premiere event of the American Endurance Ride Conference (AERC), the annual National Championship ride, proved to be a weekend of celebration in Northern California on September 11 and 13. At the site of the annual Patriot’s Day ride in Greenville, CA, competitors arrived from all over the western U.S. and Canada to compete for AERC’s top prizes. The 100-mile championship ride, held Friday, was won handily by Lindsay Graham, a fourth-year veterinary student at the University of California...