United States Eventing Association

Madeline Bletzacker wasn’t really looking for a horse in 2008 when she came across Landtino S at a local farm near her home in Ohio. The Danish Warmblood gelding (Solos Lantinus x Chess S) had been imported from Europe as a dressage horse when he was 5 and decided he didn’t like dressage.

The saying goes that the most talented horses have the biggest personalities, and Harbour Pilot is no exception. Retiring this year at the age of 19, Jacqueline Mars’s Irish Sport Horse gelding leaves the upper-level scene with one of the most decorated and lengthy careers in the sport, including in his credits ten CCI5*-L starts and the 2011 team gold and individual silver at the Pan American games. His partner in all of these endeavors has been Hannah Sue Hollberg, who took over the ride on “William” from David O’Connor in 2010.

Adult rider Dan Kreitl recently claimed his first FEI win in The Dutta Corp./USEF CCI 4*-L Eventing National Championship, but his eventing story traces way back to his Dressage roots in high school. USEA podcast host Nicole Brown sat down with Kreitl to talk business, family, and, of course, eventing with the Muncie, Indiana native.

“Is that Fergie?!" As I stand on the sidelines coaching, it's without fail, I get this question at every show. With 12-year-old Maya Burke in the irons, the pair get recognized everywhere they go. It’s equal parts an adorable, light-colored palomino pony with a killer jump, and a long-legged, young, talented, rider of color. And as a pair, they are easy to spot and hard to forget.

When Helen Alliston and Ebay fell on the Advanced cross-country course at the Spring Event at Woodside on May 28, 2021, everyone thought that the then 12-year-old gelding walked away without injuries. The pair had been leading their division when Ebay caught a leg on a corner jump toward the end of the course and, as a result, had a half-rotational fall, landing on his neck and partially landing on Helen. Helen was transported to Stanford University Hospital with a broken pelvis, but immediate reports after the event announced that Ebay was unharmed in the accident.

USEA Podcast host Nicole Brown sits down with Wilton Fair Grant and Holekamp/Turner Grant recipient Caroline Martin to chat about her six month stint competing in Europe all leading up to the pinnacle of her European trip- contesting the highly regarded FEI World Breeding Championships at La Mondial du Lion in Le Lion d’Angers, France.

“All of life is sentient, and all of life communicates all the time. We have separated ourselves from it. We deny it, but the capacity to hear is there as is the capacity to send. And so the thing becomes as an adult, then, to get back to that place, which is really about intuition.”

My first memory as a tot growing up in Cleveland, Ohio was about my love for horses. I had a horse collection as a little girl and I would play all afternoon with them. They were numbered and named and I kept this very vital info in an index card box. I went out to the country twice a week to go riding and was a very happy, self-entertained kid whose world revolved around horses.

“I love to travel. I’m very adventurous. And obviously, I love horses, so to travel and to ride, that’s a win-win for me.” Based in Bucyrus, Kansas, Julie Wolfert probably logs more miles per year on the road than most eventers, a notoriously itinerant bunch. Her most recent and arguably most courageous journey involved flying to East Asia to participate in the Mongol Derby this past summer.

His dad was a calf roper when Travis Atkinson was just a baby, but that didn’t have anything to do with how he got his start riding horses. When Atkinson was about 10 years old, his family left Pennsylvania for Utah and his dad started training Thoroughbreds for Atkinson’s brother-in-law. It was there that a fire was lit.