United States Eventing Association

2024 USEA Volunteer of the Year Susan Hart Makes USEA History with Gold Medal Achievement

Veterinary pathologist Susan Hart has been trapped in an “always the bridesmaid, never the bride” loop on the USEA Volunteer Incentive Program (VIP) Volunteer Leaderboard since 2022. After two years of chipping away at the leaderboard, 2024 was finally her year to proverbially walk down the aisle. With a total of 691 and a half hours, Hart topped the leaderboard to become the 2024 USEA Volunteer of the Year, sponsored by Mrs. Pastures, and win the first gold medal in USEA VIP history, which is awarded for achieving over 2,000 lifetime volunteer hours.

“I had only two goals this year; one was to try and beat last year’s top volunteer [Jim Moyer, 687 hours]. I was actually shooting for a total of 700 hours and fell a little short. I don't think I have it in me to exceed that next year,” Hart said. “I wanted my gold medal before the fall season, and I knew that wasn't going to be much of a problem.”

Hart’s passion for horses started around the same time she first held a pencil. “My mother swears that from the time I could write ‘pony’ was on my Christmas list. I cannot remember never being fascinated by them,” Hart said.

Despite a lifetime of fascination with the large animals, Hart didn’t sit on a horse until she was in college.

“That was when my life actively involved with horses started. I took riding lessons through college but had to put them aside for veterinary school," she said. "It wasn't compatible economically, but as soon as I was out of school and back earning a living again, I've either owned or taken lessons or some combination of both.”

Currently, Hart owns a 30-year-old Morgan, Rum Brook Siobhan, who retired around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic due to EPM and Lyme disease. “It was a match made in heaven,” Hart remembered fondly. “I had a great trainer. We got her to the point where she was doing probably the equivalent of third and fourth level [dressage] work.”

Now that “Darby” is retired, Hart says volunteering allows her to stay connected to the meaning and connection that horses have brought to her life.

“I can't think of anything more beautiful than a horse at speed in a big open field with or without a rider. The balance and the grace are just phenomenal. And the second reason I love horses is the relationship you have with a horse. I think of pets as being more like children. They depend on you and you get the joy of seeing them develop and blossom,” Hart said. “But the relationship you have to have with a horse is a true partnership. It's more like a marriage. Of the horses I've owned, it's always been that heart relationship. There has to be a deeper understanding, trust, and reliance when you're working with a horse. If the trust isn’t there, you have nothing.”

As a volunteer, Hart says she gets to see that working partnership blossom at the highest levels of the sport.

“I'm thinking back to scribing at the Maryland 5 Star this year, where the test was new, and there was one movement that absolutely had me flummoxed. How you could possibly set the horse up to do that and do it accurately was beyond me,” Hart said. “Seeing 30 riders do it flawlessly time after time just feeds that scientist part of me. So if I can't ride on my own, I can live vicariously through other people. And there's also the need aspect of it. Competitors can’t compete if we're not there. So to give that opportunity to somebody who has the kind of relationship with their horse that I've had with mine means a lot to me.”

Volunteering also brings connection and friendship to Hart’s life. “More than a community, I found a family,” Hart said.

“The Fair Hill group is phenomenal. I remember mentioning this to Mary Coldren at one point. There's a core group of maybe 20 of us that are behind the scenes at all the competitions– different ages, different walks of life, different backgrounds—and there's no fighting, there's no politics. Everybody has everybody's back. And I just said, ‘How did you get so lucky to get a group of people that’s this diverse and this cohesive?’ I can't figure it out. Maybe it's the shared goal. Maybe it's the leadership.”

As an Area II native, Hart is not short on opportunities to volunteer. Beyond Fair Hill, she also volunteers at Plantation Field (Unionville, Pennsylvania), Waredaca (Laytonsville, Maryland), with the St. Augustine Pony Club, and beyond. As she noted, “I could be, and have been, volunteering every weekend from April through October.”

While Hart has worked in nearly every volunteer position under the sun, she finds maintaining and decorating the cross-country course to be one of the most satisfying and gratifying jobs.

“Course decorating is very physical. I think if I hadn't been a desk jockey, I would have been a landscaper or something like that. I love working with natural materials, such as plants," she said. "There's something very zen about painting. If you give me a ratty old fence, some sandpaper, and a couple of cans of paint, I'm happy for an afternoon. There's just something about taking something that looks rough and making it nice. That's part of what you do with decorating, even though I know it's more than that.”

Hart says that course designing isn’t just about aesthetics. There’s a big safety component to the process, as the decorations serve a purpose.

“I've learned a lot about the sport from decorating, believe it or not, since I've never gone cross-country,” Hart said. “But as people have explained to me, the decorations help horse and rider read the question. First of all, it's given me a lot more respect for the people who do this, since I'm too chicken. And it's a little scary, because it's like, geez, I've got a huge responsibility here. I think it took a couple of years of doing it before that really came home to me—that there was a reason we were doing this. That's when I kind of got the bug. I really wanted to learn and understand the purpose behind the decorations.”

Working in an environment filled with some of the best course designers in the business has certainly given Hart some great mentors. Her most memorable experience while volunteering was learning directly from now-retired cross-country designer Ian Stark.

“It was my second year assisting with course decorating, and I still didn't know what I was doing. I had been sent to do some ground lines on these little cabins that needed to be very narrow," she recalled. "I'm sitting there fussing with this pine straw that I'd never worked with, trying to make it work. And all of a sudden, over my shoulder is this Scottish man who said, ‘Let me show you how to do this,’ ” Hart said. “I looked up, and there's Ian Stark. He gets down on the ground, takes the bale of pine straw, and shows me this neat little trick to spin straw into ground lines. He just got down on his hands and knees and showed me how to do this. And I’m thinking, ‘OK, this is a big shot on the ground beside a filthy volunteer in dirty pants who's making a mess and showing her how to fix it. Oh, wow. Wow.’ I use that technique to this day. It made a huge impression on me.”

Hart says that she quickly found Stark wasn’t the only one with a respectful “professor” type of attitude towards volunteers. “This is how the officials look at volunteers. I guess that's what impressed me most as part of the team. They're willing to share what they know with you and the competitors are the same,” Hart said.

Looking ahead to the future, Hart says she won’t exceed this year’s volunteer hours next season. But, she isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Next season, riders and spectators will be able to enjoy Hart’s hard work on cross-country courses and at events across Area II.

About the USEA Volunteer Incentive Program

Volunteers are the lifeblood of our sport—the unsung heroes, and the people who make it possible to keep eventing alive. In efforts to recognize the dedication, commitment, and hard work that volunteers put into eventing, the USEA formed the Volunteer Incentive Program (VIP) in 2015. In 2017, an online management portal was designed for volunteers, organizers, and volunteer coordinators at EventingVolunteers.com, which is also available as an app for iOS and Android.

Volunteer incentives include national and area recognition, year-end awards, a top-10 USEA Volunteer leaderboard, and a Volunteer of the Year award which is given to the volunteer who accumulates the most volunteer hours on EventingVolunteers.com at recognized events throughout the USEA competition year. Click here to learn more about the USEA Volunteer Incentive Program.

The USEA would like to thank Mrs. Pastures Cookies for Horses for their support of the Volunteer Incentive Program.