he news that Australian Phillip Dutton would be representing the United States, where he has lived for the past 15 years, came on the weekend of the U.S. Eventing Association annual convention, Dec. 7-10, at historic Union Station in St. Louis, Mo.

This announcement came as Dutton collected his eighth overall USEA Rider of the Year title. Tru Luck, owned by Ann L. Jones and ridden by Dutton, was also named Horse of the Year.

The changing face of eventing was a frequent topic throughout the convention, with discussions ranging from the perpetual long/short-format debate to the problem of drastically shrinking land availability.

“Kids in America are just not able to get out and ride their ponies over open land, and it’s going to get a lot worse,” said Denny Emerson in Thursday’s open forum. He remembered that as a 13-year-old, he and his pony would go for 17-mile joy rides out over open land in 8-degree weather.

In his 45th year of eventing, Emerson said he has tried to look as far forward as he does back. “There’s so many pieces to this big puzzle,” he said. “You have the whole ethic of the country and the growth of the country [changing].”

Rider Karen O’Connor also agreed: “We need to stay ahead of it and we need to steer it. We need to be proactive in society.” She added that with today’s busy schedules and time constraints, young riders and adult amateurs are often limited in their time spent with their horses and may miss out on the things “that make one a great horseman over time.”

As a sign of shifting sentiments, open forum attendees also responded enthusiastically to the idea of promoting the sport from an entertainment standpoint. While recent efforts to promote eventing as an “extreme sport” have been slowly succeeding (more television broadcasts and major sponsorships than ever before), the exposure may also have some negative effects on the organization, especially concerning safety.

A moment of silence was observed during Saturday’s open membership meeting for Mia Eriksson, the 17-year-old rider who was fatally wounded after a fall in the Galway Downs CCI** (Calif.) last month. The slow but continuing recovery of Debbie Atkinson, who sustained serious injuries at the Kentucky Classic Horse Trials in September, was also remembered, as were the nine horses lost from various causes in competition this year.

With news of the fatal fall at the Asian Eventing Games in Qatar fresh in everyone’s minds, the topic of dangerous riding was a hot-button issue. Although most of the accidents reported in the media this season were not deemed to have been a result of unsafe riding, negative exposure, no matter the reason, has put added pressure on the USEA and U.S. Equestrian Federation to assure the public that the sport is safe and humane.

The quandary of dangerous riding was discussed at length in Thursday’s open forum and again in a special session devoted exclusively to the topic on Saturday. While no definitive conclusions were drawn, it became evident that the issue will be high on the USEA’s priority list in 2007. Ideally, organizers would like to have a desig-nated authority figure at every competition to be on the lookout for dangerous riding, a clear-cut system for warning riders and coaches, and a reliable method of tracking previous histories of unsafe behavior.

“There is a sense of urgency to have someone, some group, to really fill in the cracks,” said O’Connor, noting that the technical delegate cannot be expected to police 15 places at once, and jump judges should not be making the call. “We have to make sure that whatever way we do it has got some teeth to it.”

O’Connor also added that she believes the sport “has gotten to the level of technique where there is no such thing as winging it anymore. It’s just gotten too dangerous to do that.”

Rider Darren Chiacchia concurred, saying that eventing puts particular stress on the importance of moving up the levels, which leads to riders pushing their training too quickly. “One thing I always stress to my students is that you get good first and fast second,” Chiacchia remarked. “We’ve got it totally turned around.”


Staying The Course
The continued development of the USEA’s various rider programs was also a concern at the convention. The 2006 American Eventing Championships were hailed as a great success, with riders from 35 states attending, 190 of which were young riders. However, several individuals expressed a wish that more top-level professional competitors would attend the event to “shake hands and kiss babies.”

“This is their heyday,” said Bit of Britain owner and AEC sponsor John Nunn of lower-level amateur riders. “This is their Olympics. They need to meet people. They need encouragement. The AEC has been great, and I’m going to keep standing behind it. But it’s really sad when your top riders are riding at Fair Hill [Md.] or Plantation [Pa.] that weekend. I think it would be so great if everyone would really participate in it.”

“I do think it was wrong this year at the AECs that the big guns weren’t there,” Emerson agreed. “But it has to work both ways. If we have a national team, I think we need to support them. If you haven’t–then they’re not really your team over there. If we support them, yes, then I think we can expect them to support us.”

Financial support will be critical in the upcoming year, because fundraising raffles will no longer be allowed, as they jeopardize the organization’s non-profit status. Young rider and adult rider programs will now be forced to replace their traditionally lucrative raffles with silent auctions or more creative fundraising activities.

However, there will be fewer young riders looking for funding this year, as organizers have designated that this year’s North American Junior and Young Rider Championships will only offer two divisions, a one-star championship for junior riders (ages 14-18) and a two-star championship for young riders (ages 16-21). In the past, riders aged 19-21 were also allowed to compete at the one-star level, but not so in 2007. Organizers are planning to implement a mentoring program for riders in this older age group by interning with event officials throughout the week.

In future years, the USEA would also like to establish a separate national one-star championship, likely one on each coast, for riders in the excluded age group.

The nation’s young riders weren’t the only ones being invested in, as interest in the fledgling Young Event Horse Series had exploded in comparison to last year.

“I think when that started, none of us could anticipate how far-reaching that would be,” said Chiacchia, one of the major proponents of the program. “We can’t rely on running to Europe and buying a product that someone else has produced.”

A large group turned out to hear speakers discuss the aims for 4- and 5-year-old horses in all three phases of competition. “By the end of their 5-year-old year, a horse should be performing between training and prelim derby level,” remarked USEF President David O’Connor. “The second-career event horses’ days are numbered.”


The Top Of The Pyramid
America’s top riders were not to be left out of the discussions in St. Louis, as this year’s World Equestrian Games competitors glanced back on their ever-so-slight miss of a team medal. Looking ahead to the future, the USEA competitions division will be striving to establish a more balanced calendar of destination events for upper-level riders in 2008.

“We’re getting horses going to Kentucky [CCI****] now that are past their peak,” said U.S. Chef d’Equipe Capt. Mark Phillips. “You have to start in February to get ready for Red Hills [Fla.] in March. For the Kentucky horses, we need to create a calendar that doesn’t encourage them to be eventing in February.”

In addition, Phillips encouraged organizers to take into consideration the weather in their respective areas when planning the upcoming event calendar. “When it’s hotter than hell, when the ground is awful, keeping horses sound is more difficult here than in any country in the world,” he said. “Give the horses a holiday in June, July and August.”

The association’s aim is to have an event calendar with three-days dispersed across the months and the map to benefit as many riders as possible as they strive to meet upper-level qualifications. Officials hope to offer four three-star events in 2008, as well as two four-stars, introducing one in the fall.

In Thursday night’s active athletes forum, Phillips described the plans for the 2008 Olympic Games in China. Although the majority of the Olympic competitions will be held in Beijing, the equestrian disciplines will be housed at the prestigious Hong Kong Jockey Club facilities, approximately 1,200 miles to the south.

Rather than flying westward, the team tentatively plans to ship horses to England, stay in quarantine for a period of about two weeks, and then fly on to Hong Kong with a short stop in Dubai. The U.S. will be sending two horses to a two-star trial event in 2007 to assess the travel plan and competition conditions.

Phillips told riders to be prepared for extreme heat conditions in China, much worse than anything teams encountered in Atlanta. Summers in Hong Kong typically involve 90-plus degree temperatures with 90-plus percent humidity, for which Phillips warned there was no way to train. Riders will likely be able to take their horses out for work in 15-minute intervals, then bring them back inside the air-conditioned stables and ice them down.

Olympic organizers plan to run the dressage and cross-country phases early in the mornings, likely over two days each. Show jumping will be held in the evening in a lighted arena.

Plans are now underway for the 2007 convention in Colorado Springs, Colo.


Lifetime Achievers Join Eventing Hall Of Fame
Friday evening’s Hall of Fame Gala gave many of the nation’s hardest-working equestrians a chance to prove that they still “clean up pretty good” as three humans and two equines were inducted.

Master of Ceremonies Jimmy Wofford led off with the induction of lifelong eventing advocate and two-time USEA president Denny Emerson. “There is no aspect of eventing in the USA that has escaped his gaze,” Wofford noted.

During his humorous and heartfelt acceptance speech, Emerson encouraged young riders to strive for true horsemanship, recalling that at the age of 10, he had heard that in the Native American culture, the true test of a rider’s skill was to scoop up a running chicken from the ground while riding a galloping pony. Instantly intent on doing so, Emerson proceeded to attempt the feat, only to be unseated and trampled each time.

“I only tried it about half a dozen or eight times,” Emerson said with a laugh, saying that he learned from the experience pretty quickly. “It really pisses off the chicken.”

Following Emerson’s induction, Richard and Vita Thompson’s Biko was honored. “This horse has always had the look of eagles,” rider Karen O’Connor said proudly. “To watch Biko growing old with dignity continues to be amazing for me.”

Biko competed in 18 long-format three-days, 12 of which were four-stars. The horse’s massive frame and striking white blaze made him a favorite throughout the 1990s, including the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where the U.S. team captured a silver medal.

In a tribute to the evening’s next inductee, O’Connor recalled that at her first year riding at Rolex Kentucky, a young girl seeking an autograph had come up to her and timidly asked whether she was Karen. When O’Connor replied with an affirmative, the youngster said, “Karen Stives?”

“No, I’m Karen Lende,” O’Connor had replied, as she was still riding under her maiden name at the time.


New Rules Cause A Ruckus
Several rule changes for the jumping phases have been proposed for 2007 in response to safety concerns. The USEF eventing committee voted in a closed session on Saturday to decrease the number of disobediences allowed in cross-country and show jumping to match current FEI rules and eliminate confusion.

“This entire meeting had a great deal of discussion on safety and dangerous riding,” said Malcolm Hook, USEA Rules Committee Chairman. “The eventing group in the USEF drives the safety issue,” USEF President David O’Connor said at Sunday’s Board of Governor’s meeting. “Usually the other disciplines follow in a few years.”

He also assured the board that the USEF would defend any affiliate organizations such as the USEA should they ever be challenged on safety issues.

The new rules will disqualify a horse and rider combination after their fourth overall refusal on cross-country or their second refusal or first fall of the rider in show jumping. (Current USEA rules state that horses will be eliminated on the fifth overall refusal on cross-country, or the third refusal or second fall of the rider in show jumping.)

The change in show jumping rules in particular incited animated debate in the rule change open forum, as many attendees argued that the changes would be detrimental to lower-level competitors.

The changes will be given final consideration and voted on at the USEF annual meeting in January, which gives competitors a window for comment on the issue. “The plan right at the moment is to attempt to change something,” said Hook.

“Oh,” the girl said. After a pause, she asked, “Do you know where Karen Stives is?”

Stives herself was greeted with a rousing round of applause when she accepted her Hall of Fame induction. A team gold and individual silver medalist at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Stives was named U.S. Combined Training Association Rider of the Year three times in the 1980s. After retiring from competition, she became an FEI judge and served as chairman of the U.S. Equestrian Team Three-Day Event Selectors’ Committee for several years.

Although Wofford was at no loss for words while performing his emcee duties, the induction of his own horse of a lifetime, Kilkenny, proved an emotional moment. Momentarily overcome while speaking of his late mount, Wofford graciously accepted the applause and eventual standing ovation given by the entire room.

“The worst of them sense our fear and take advantage of us,” he said in reference to the multitude of horses he has ridden over his career. “The best of them sense our dreams and take us there.”

“Henry” was one of only three horses to ever compete in three different Olympic Games, and won two gold, two silver and two bronze medals at various Olympic, World and Pan American competitions.

The evening’s final honoree was Michael Page, rider of the famous Grasshopper, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1999. Page rode in three Olympic Games, earning one bronze and two silver medals, and won one bronze and four gold medals at Pan Am Games throughout the 1950s and ’60s. He also served as the U.S. team’s chef d’equipe at two Olympic Games and one World Championship and coached the Canadian Olympic team in 1976.

Decades ago, the Page children’s riding instructor had told their parents, “I think your daughter has some real talent, but Michael should find another sport.”

Kat Netzler