Mike Huber doesn’t have to think too hard when asked about the most frustrating misconception he’s encountered in his job as a U.S. eventing team selector. It’s right at the tip of his tongue.

“People have to realize that it’s not a good old boy’s club,” said Huber, the chairman of the U.S. Equestrian Federation’s High Performance Eventing selectors. “I hope that’s not a misconception. Some riders are afraid of us and see us as being the tough guys or the bad guys or whatever. But we want the riders to succeed. We want them to win at the trials. We want to put them on teams.”

Huber, Bartonville, Texas, has served two different terms as a selector since retiring from team contention himself in 1994, and he’s now the public voice of the five-person committee.

From the outside of the selection process looking in, it’s easy to assume the selectors wield a good bit of power, and they do. But their determinations of talent are no more important than the veterinarians’ determinations of soundness and health.

USEF officials nominate a panel of three veterinarians to advise the selectors. Catherine Kohn serves as the evaluating veterinarian, P.J. McMahon as the associate and Brendan Furlong as the treating veterinarian.

“Generally, Cathy’s more conservative, and P.J.’s kind of the fresh set of eyes looking at these horses in a snapshot,” explained Sara Ike, USEF Director of Eventing. “And then Brendan’s the one who’s going to be our treating vet, so they’re all bringing a different point of view to the table.”

The selectors rely heavily on the veterinary panel’s data. They’ll frequently inspect horses after competitions, even in non-championship years, to build a history. Then, when it comes time to consider a horse for a team, the selectors often have a solid scientific background to help sort their picks.

“At the final vet evaluation or after it, the three vets go off into their own corners and put a number on the horses,” Ike explained. “That’s their percentage of likelihood to complete.”

Since there are no guarantees in eventing, stamping a 100 percent likelihood to complete score on any horse would be a bit naïve. So the panel has set a curve, at which 75 percent is the top score a horse can receive. Then, after the veterinarians score the horses themselves, they average their three percentages into one score to pass on to the selection committee.

The Horses Pick Themselves

In general, the selectors try to put no more than one horse on any given team who’s scored 50 percent or lower with the veterinary panel. Any more would pose too great a risk to the team’s completion.

“Of course you’d like to have none [below 50 percent], but with a good horse, you can take that risk sometimes,” said Huber. “It’s just going to depend on the format of the competition we’re talking about.”

At the Olympic Games, for instance, teams consist of five horses and riders, and the two worst scores are dropped. But for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games this fall, only four horses will comprise a team, with just one drop score.

“That’s where our job comes in to sort of weigh the pros and cons,” Huber said. “We try to plug in all that information and weigh out each candidate individually, and then as a team. Are at least three horses really sound, or how do they rank? Or are all the horses maybe a little bit older, and you have to only take one [with a lower percentage]?”

The veterinary panel’s scores make the process much easier on everyone involved, but that ease hinges on the riders’ trust in those assigning the numbers.

“Dr. Kohn is sort of the unsung hero of the whole process, because she’s the only unconflicted vet on the panel, and she’s the ballast that basically keeps everybody in line,” Ike said. “Some riders moan and groan, but they know that each and every horse, when they’re doing flexions and being palpated, is done the exact same way. When she comes around the corner, they know that they’re going to be treated equally and fairly.”

Selectors rely heavily on the findings of the three-person veterinary panel and also on the knowledge of team Chef d’Equipe Capt. Mark Phillips.

“His input is very valuable to us, because he’s working with them and knows the horses a little bit more intimately from training sessions,” Huber said. “But at the end of the day, he doesn’t, obviously, have a vote. Many times we’ll just ask him questions, or he might give us his opinion, and the same with veterinarians, and then they’ll leave and we’ll continue our deliberations.

“You don’t leave somebody behind you really think could win you a medal,” he continued. “We don’t have those kinds of numbers [of top-notch horses]. We wish at some stage we would, but I’m not sure any country really does. If we do well, somebody might want to take the credit, and if we do poorly, somebody else might want to say we picked the wrong people. But in most cases, the horses really pick themselves. It’s pretty clear at the end of the day.”

Documented And Communicated

In the past two decades, the U.S. Equestrian Federation has outlined its team selection processes in greater detail than ever before so that riders and selectors can understand their jobs as clearly as possible with much less speculation.

“In many other countries, the team is whoever the coach says it is,” explained Jim Wolf, USEF Executive Director of Sport Programs. “You could put their whole selection methodology down on one page: ‘Go compete internationally, do your best, and on this day we’re going to tell you who the team is.’ ”

But the U.S. process is designed to dramatically decrease those political conflicts and concerns about cronyism.

“[The United States] is such a litigious society that our selection criteria has to be much more well documented, much more clearly communicated to the athletes, and on a certain timeline,” Wolf said. “We have to document what criteria they will be evaluating you on, where they will be evaluating you, who will be evaluating you. I think athletes do much better if they’re communicated clearly to what’s expected of them. It’s not mysterious; people just have to take the time to read.”

The USEF selection procedures are available to anyone on their website, www.usef.org, under the international eventing High Performance section. The .pdf document of 2010 WEG selection procedures alone is 16 pages, plus addendums and attachments, all of which fully outline how to apply for team consideration, which events count as observation trials, and what factors weigh in the selectors’ decisions.

Better Know A Selector

Mike Huber—Chairman

Age 50, Bartonville, Texas

Huber hit the U.S. team scene in 1978, when he finished 13th at the World Championships in Kentucky. He went on to ride on the 1980 Alternate Olympic Games (France) team and won individual and team gold at the 1987 Pan American Games (Ind.). Huber also represented the United States at the World Equestrian Games in 1990 (Sweden) and 1994 (the Netherlands). He’s a former president of the U.S. Combined Training Association and former chairman of the USEF Eventing High Performance Committee.

Bea di Grazia—Member

Age 52, Carmel Valley, Calif.

Di Grazia trained with legendary U.S. coach Jack Le Goff in the late 1970s and early ’80s and competed in Europe at top events such as Badminton (England), Burghley (England), Boekelo (the Netherlands) and Luhmühlen (Germany).

Kerry Millikin—Member

Age 47, Millbrook, N.Y.

After an up-and-down history with the team in the 1980s (see our full-length story in the Aug. 6 Eventing Issue of The Chronicle of the Horse), Millikin earned individual bronze at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and team bronze at the 1998 World Equestrian Games in Rome, in addition to team gold at the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg. That year she also placed third at the Badminton CCI**** (England).

Mark Weissbecker—Member

Age 56, Richmond, Mass.

Weissbecker represented the United States in the 1997 Open European Championships (England) and was short-listed for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games team. He placed in the top 10 at the Rolex Kentucky, Badminton and Burghley CCI****s and won the Fair Hill CCI*** (Md.) twice.

Julie Richards—Member and Eligible Athlete

Age 39, Atlanta, Ga.

Richards’ membership on the selection committee satisfies the U.S. Olympic Committee’s mandate to have active athlete representation (meaning she’s represented the United States within the past 10 years). Richards rode at the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games in Sydney and Athens, respectively. In 2004, she was part of the bronze-medal team. She also placed fifth at Rolex Kentucky CCI that spring.

Ann Taylor—European Observer

Age 52, Daventry, Northants, Great Britain

Taylor, who represented the United States at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, has long been based in Great Britain and competed in every major three-day event there through the four-star level. She serves as the selection committee’s European observer, reporting on how U.S. riders perform abroad, but she doesn’t vote in the selection process.

In keeping with longstanding USEF policy, the selection committee chairman serves as the group’s sole public spokesperson. The remaining selectors either declined to be interviewed for this story or did not respond to requests.

To learn more about how the selection committee functions and the history of the U.S. team selection process, read the full-length version of this story in the Aug. 6 Eventing Issue of The Chronicle of the Horse.