Tricia Booker

Victoria Colvin had never picked up a championship at the Devon Horse Show & Country Fair, so when she traveled to the show in Devon, Pa., for Junior Weekend, May 27-29, she had a mission.

Aboard three ponies and four horses, Colvin picked up four championships and two reserve championships, the grand junior title and the reserve best child rider on a horse honors. Of the 220 possible points she could accrue, she had 139 points with nine blue ribbons.

Rodrigo Pessoa wasn’t the only rider pleased with tonight’s results in the $75,000 Fidelity Investments Grand Prix and USEF WEG Selection Trial 2. While the Brazilian rider may have taken the lion’s share of the purse in the class, Laura Kraut and Lauren Hough left the International Arena at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center with nothing—and they were thrilled.

Todd Minikus and Pavarotti lead the way after the first Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games Trial, held Feb. 25 at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center in Wellington, Fla.

Minikus, of neighboring Loxahatchee, Fla., clocked the fastest clear round (0/83.24) to take the lion’s share of the purse in the $40,000 USEF WEG Trial 1 over Margie Engle aboard Hidden Creek’s Campella (0/84.03) and Rich Fellers and Flexible (0/87.30).

After months spent in discussion, debate in open forums and behind closed doors, the rule changing the allowable therapeutic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs from two to one passed with a seeming collective sigh of relief at the U.S. Equestrian Federation Board of Directors meeting today, Jan. 17, in Louisville, Ky.

In a nutshell, the two new changes to GR 410 Equine Drugs and Medications will work in concert to allow an interim time to collect data and educate the membership. But effective Dec. 1, 2011, only one NSAID will be permitted.

Other details include:

One night after his horse Ravel received the Farnam/Platform USEF Horse of the Year honors, Steffen Peters stepped up to the stage to receive his own accolades. The California-based dressage rider earned his second consecutive USEF Equestrian of the Year award tonight, Jan. 16, during the Pegasus Individual Awards in Louisville, Ky.

During today’s Board of Directors meeting on Jan. 16, USEF CEO John Long presented a report on the three-year strategic plan that began in 2007. He gave the USEF an overall grade of a “B” as the area needing the most improvement remains the membership services, which he graded a “D.” He graded Operations and IT an “A or A-” for their major improvements including the call center and customer service.

“We still have a long way to go on the strategic plan,” he noted, but added that there have been major steps taken in event management and marketing.

After three days of the U.S. Equestrian Federation Annual Meeting in Louisville, Ky., the word in the meeting rooms and hallways today, Jan. 15, is “compromise.”

When I was searching for my current horse, I made a wish list of attributes I was seeking. Because I was looking for a young horse, I put conformation near the top of the list. When my search finally ended, I was thrilled that the check marks were plentiful.

As I helped prepare my 2-year-old for the hunter breeding ring this year for my first foray into the division, I received a lot of advice. Most people were supportive of the division, but others had stern warnings for me about politics, subjectivity and the “good old boy’s club.”

McLain Ward had set his sights on winning North America’s richest grand prix with his star mare, and he succeeded.

It was just the blink of an eye—but it was enough.

And in the .02 seconds that separated Sapphire and McLain Ward from Eric Lamaze and Hickstead in the jump-off for the $928,501 CN International, that blink meant a lot, literally and figuratively.

A friend and long-time owner of top hunters confided to me this summer that one of the most difficult aspects of owning a hunter breeding horse is maintaining your fingernails. I must have looked at him quizzically, because he went on to explain that if you stand at the rail at such shows as Devon (Pa.), Upperville (Va.), Del Mar (Calif.) and Warrenton (Va.) you can feel the indentations where for decades the horse owners have stood and dug their fingernails into the wood railing as they watched their horses compete.

Now I understand.