United States Eventing Association

Do you have dreams to become a licensed eventing judge, technical delegate, cross-country course designer, or eventing show jump course designer? One of the goals of the USEA Eventing Licensed Officials Committee (ELOC) is to encourage and educate the next generation of officials. You can be part of the next generation of officials. Get involved and get licensed!

“Horses are so humbling,” says Valerie Vizcarrondo Pride with a wry laugh.

We are speaking a few days after the Land Rover Kentucky Three Day Event. She is on her way to go cross-country schooling with her beautiful black horse Favian, before tackling the CCI4*-L at Jersey Fresh.

Her week wasn’t supposed to pan out like this. She and Favian should have been resting on their laurels after completing their first CCI5* at Kentucky. However, they fell on the cross-country, and ticking that five-star box will have to wait for another day. Luckily, they are unharmed, Favian has already “cruised around some easy stuff” on an earlier cross-country schooling outing, and Vizcarrondo Pride is determined to start righting the ship at Jersey Fresh.

The USEA has developed a rule change proposal schedule for the 2023 eventing season in an effort to keep the membership better informed about the process. As a reminder, all rules for eventing are under the jurisdiction of the US Equestrian Federation (USEF) and the U.S. Eventing Association (USEA) only has the ability to put forth rule changes proposals for consideration by the USEF.

When tabling the Appendix 3 Rule Change Proposal the USEA committed to establishing a task force to further review the proposal, make additional inquiries into related data, and analyze the extensive member input received.

Did you pre-order a copy of the 2021 USEF Rules For Eventing? They are now in the mail, so keep an eye out for your copy and contact [email protected] if it doesn't arrive in the next week.

Didn't pre-order, but still would like a hard copy? The 2021 USEF Rules For Eventing is available for purchase from ShopUSEA.com.

On March 1, 2021 the USEA Board of Governors submitted a rule change proposal to US Equestrian (USEF) modifying Appendix 3 of the USEF Rules for Eventing. That proposal was outlined at the 2019 USEA Annual Meeting & Convention, shared in May 2020 by the Chair of the USEA Cross-Country Safety Subcommittee Jon Holling, later discussed in Eventing USA and through various other communication platforms including a live webinar hosted by the USEA. This was one of four different safety related rule proposals submitted by the Board to the USEF and previously considered with the membership.

With the introduction of frangible devices for cross-country fences came the introduction of penalties associated with activating a fence's frangible device. In 2015, the FEI rule regarding frangible devices, which originally gave a rider 21 penalties for activating a frangible device, was changed to 11 penalties.

Following feedback from our membership to the rule change proposal for the USEF Rules For Eventing: Appendix 3 – Participation In Horse Trials, the United States Eventing Association (USEA) Board of Governors voted to modify the rule change proposal, but still to recommend the establishment of rider licenses and increase Minimum Eligibility Requirements (MERs) to the regulating authority of the sport US Equestrian (USEF).

After the popularity of Rules Open Forum held virtually during the 2020 USEA Annual Meeting & Convention in December, the USEA Competitions, Calendar, and Rules Committee decided to host another Rules Webinar to share information about the extraordinary rule changes going into effect on April 1, 2021 and the rule change proposals being put forward to the USEF by March 1, 2021 for approval for the 2022 competition season.

Every year, the USEA has the opportunity to submit rule change proposals to go into effect during the current competition year as a part of the extraordinary rule change process. This year, the USEA has submitted four extraordinary rule changes for consideration by the USEF.