U.S. Equestrian Team: Plans Laid For Participation in Olympics June 10-17
February 2, 1956
Horses and riders now training hard at Tryon, N.C., to make the U.S. Prix des Nations jumping team include William Steinkraus, Westport, Conn., captain of the 1955 jumping team; Hugh Wiley, Towson, Md., and Charles Dennehy, Jr., Lake Forest, Ill., his ’55 teammates.

Coach Bert de Nemethy has nearly a dozen horses in training, including Night Owl, Coq de Guerre, Nautical, Pill Box, and Altmeister, all owned by the three riders.

Official Olympic trials for the U.S. jumping team will be held at Tryon on March 10-17, after which horses and riders will be flown to Europe to compete in shows prior to the Olympic Equestrian Games in Sweden. Brig. Gen. J. Tupper Cole, a former Army rider for the U.S., is general manager of all operations at Tryon and will be in charge of the overall American foreign invasion this summer. Maj. Robert J. Borg, The Dalles, Ore., is also in Tryon as coach of the Three-Day Event and Dressage teams, of which latter he may become a member.
Riders named to the Three-Day Event squad in a preliminary trial are now in training at Tryon for the final trial to be conducted in May by the Olympic

Equestrian Committee. Riders include Walter Staley, Jr., Mexico, Mo.; Frank Duffy, Birmingham, Mich.; Maj. Jonathan R. Burton, Fort Hood, Texas; William Haggard III, Nashville, Tenn., and Warren Wofford, Milford, Kan.

White City And The Olympic Outlook
Lt. Col. C.E.G. Hope
August 26, 1960
Although Mr. Douglas Bunn has introduced on-the-ground betting at his new international show jumping arena at Hickstead in Sussex, I should hesitate to give any odds on the Prix des Nations show jumping at Rome next month. However, on the form shown at the leading CHIOs in Europe this summer–Lucerne, Turin, Aachen, and London–the three leading nations are certainly: Germany, Italy and USA (in alphabetical order, please!), with Great Britain just in the offing.

The USA three could really be chosen by a spin of the coin, so level is the form, but I am willing to make another guess at William Steinkraus, with Riviera Wonder; George Morris, with Night Owl; Hugh Wiley, with Master William; and Frank Chapot, with Tally-Ho in reserve.

USET Prize Of Nations Trials
May 10, 1968
These Trials, to be held at Gladstone, N.J., on May 10-12, will consist of three phases planned to give each rider an opportunity to demonstrate ability of Olympic caliber. Unlike the USET Screening Trials, where potential ability is the criterion, the object of these tests is to find riders whose present ability and experience would qualify them to ride in the Olympic Games this year.

The phases of the Trials are: first day, work on the flat under observation; second day, work on the flat, cavaletti, and jumping under direction; and third day, a jumping course designed to test horse and rider for Olympic standards.

All candidates must provide at least one horse for the Trials. It is not expected that the horse be of Olympic quality. Both horse and rider must have a superior record in competition to be eligible. All riders must have passed their 18th birthday, be citizens of the United States, and certified amateurs by the American Horse Shows Association. Horses must be at least 5 years of age.

Dressage Trials Rescheduled
Feb. 11, 1972
The United States Equestrian Team’s final Olympic dressage trials have been rescheduled for April 14-15 at the American Dressage Institute in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Whitney Stone, president of the USET, made the announcement Saturday, adding that the Prix des Nations (jumping) squad probably would leave for pre-Olympic training in Europe at the end of April and the three-day squad would head for England before March 31.

The Olympic Games are scheduled for Munich, West Germany, Aug. 26-Sept. 10.

The dressage trials originally were scheduled to be held at the ADI on Feb. 26, but Stone pointed out that the candidates for the team would need more time to get their horses ready. Some of the riders who intend to try out are in Europe.

Three preliminary area dressage trials have been set before the finals. They will be held on March 25 at Bloomfield Hills, Mich., April 1 at the Potomac Horse Center in Gaithersburg, Md., and April 8, at Pebble Beach, Calif.

The USET’s pre-Olympic training schedule has been crippled by the outbreak of Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis last year. The outbreak prevented the entire team from competing in the Pan-American Games in Cali, Colombia, and kept the three-day squad from making a tour of England in the fall because of a ban on United States horses.

The restrictions were lifted during the winter, but England, Ireland and France all have announced that an embargo will be placed on the entry of United States horses again this year starting March 31.

Stone explained that the three-day team would get into England under the embargo deadline because it badly needs some pre-Olympic training in major events.

“Jack Le Goff, our three-day coach, plans to bring 10 horses and six riders to England,” Stone said. The dressage riders selected will go to West Germany on the same flight as the jumping team, Stone said.

USET Olympic Jumping Team
June 2, 1972
Whitney Stone, president of the USET and chairman of the Equestrian Sports Committee of the United States Olympic Committee, made the announcement May 1st, adding that the group, along with its horses, would leave for Europe by chartered airliner Thursday, May 4th.

In addition to Steinkraus, who resides in Noroton, Conn., the team members include Frank Chapot of Neshanic Station, N.J., Kathy Kusner of Monkton, Md., Neal Shapiro of Old Brookville, N.Y., and Bob Ridland of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.

Bert de Nemethy, in his 17th year as coach of the jumping team, will lead the group.

Sixteen horses, including Snowbound, the mount Steinkraus rode to the gold medal in Mexico City, will be on the plane.

For the 45-year-old Steinkraus, this will mark the sixth time he has been a member of the Olympic team.

Chapot, who is 38, is second in seniority to Steinkraus. This will be Chapot’s fifth Olympics. He was fourth on San Lucas, one of the horses making the trip, in 1968 in Mexico City and missed winning the bronze medal by one-fifth of a second.

The 32-year-old Miss Kusner rode for the USET in both the 1964 and 1968 Olympics. Shapiro, who is 26, joined the squad in 1964 and on last year’s European trip won the Grand Prix of Aachen, one of the major events on the continent. Ridland is 21 and the junior member of the team. He competed in Europe as a team member in both 1970 and 1971.

USET Selects Olympic Dressage Team
Alexander Mackay-Smith
June 25, 1976
The U.S. Equestrian Team, Inc. held Selection Trials for the Team that will represent this country in the dressage events at the Olympic Equestrian Games, Bromont, Canada, at its headquarters, Gladstone, New Jersey, on June 18, 19 & 20.

Fourteen candidates appeared for the three days, on Friday, the Grand Prix Test for the Team Medals, on Saturday, selected movements, on Sunday, the Grand Prix Special Test for the Individual Medals. These were well distributed geographically–four from the Northeast (Massachusetts and New York), four from the Southeast (Maryland, Virginia, Georgia), three from the Midwest (Michigan, Illinois) and three from California.

The object of the trials was to select four individuals for the Olympic Dressage Short List, from which one will be dropped, just before the Grand Prix Test on July 28, leaving a Team of three horses and riders. The four top riders on Friday and Sunday were not surprising–the same four chosen for the Mexican Pan-American Games last October–Hilda Gurney of California with the 17.1-hand, 10-year-old U.S. Thoroughbred gelding Keen; Edith Master of New York (not able to ride in Mexico because her horse went lame) with the 16.2-hand, 12-year-old chestnut gelding, Dahlwitz; Dorothy Morkis of Massachusetts with the 16-hand, 15-year-old gray gelding Monaco; and John Winnett of New York with the 16-hand, 10-year-old brown gelding, Leopardi; the last three being Hanoverians bred in West Germany.

Notes From Abroad
Ann Martin
August 22, 1980
The USET jumping team’s fine Nations Cup victory at the Royal Dublin Horse Show on August 8 came at just the right time to give the American riders a confidence-raising boost immediately prior to the Olympic Substitute Show Jumping Championship at Rotterdam on August 13-17.

Under the expert guidance of Chef d’Equipe Bert de Nemethy, whose vast experience on the European scene has been of immense value to this team (only Dennis Murphy has been a team member in Europe before), the USET riders have gradually been going from strength to strength.

The team victory in Dublin, where the United States riders broke Ireland’s three-year hold of the Aga Khan Cup, was achieved by Wallenstein (Armand Leone), Silver Exchange (Katie Monahan), Allegro (Norman Dello Joio) and Calypso (Melanie Smith).

This team gave the United States a total of 1 fault, a time penalty. The other scores were Great Britain (41