United States Eventing Association

Established in 2004 as an eventing talent search like similar events in Europe, the United States Eventing Association (USEA) Young Event Horse (YEH) Program was designed to identify young horses that possess the talent and disposition to, with proper training, excel at the uppermost levels of the sport.

“This is a real blood individual,” Chris Ryan first observed of this 3-year-old Thoroughbred filly. “She has a lovely big eye and ear. The eye of the horse can tell so much. Vincent O’ Brian, the legendary racehorse trainer who discovered Northern Dancer, in his biography wrote that he spends a lot of his time at the yearling sales at Kentucky, etc., studying the horse’s eye.”

At the risk of stating the obvious, most of us who event do so because we enjoy jumping. But most of us could stand a bit of improvement, whether in the way we ride, in the way our horse goes, or both. Additionally, most of us will at some point be faced with the task of starting a green horse or re-schooling a horse that has devel­oped problems over fences.

While 2020 has been unexpectedly challenging, the USEA Young Event Horse (YEH) program found a silver lining and had several positive outcomes and record-breaking results this past year. With high turnout in both the YEH qualifiers and The Dutta Corp. USEA YEH Championships to the extraordinary achievements of the YEH graduates, it was a good year for the YEH program.

This video features Martin Douzant of The Frame Sport Horses explaining his process of backing young horses from start to finish. The video focuses on the backing process of Daedalus WG (Doctor Wendall MF x Blumins Best) a 3-year-old Oldenburg gelding, bred by Eileen Pritchard-Bryan, owned by Will Duhring, and ridden by Meghan O’Donoghue.

Three years after the creation of the USEA Young Event Horse Program (YEH), the USEA Future Event Horse Program (FEH) was born in 2007. Sharing similar goals as YEH, the FEH program evaluates the potential of yearlings, 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds, and 4-year-olds to become successful upper level event horses.

“What a stunning photo of a stunning individual,” was Chris Ryan’s first remark when assessing this 2-year-old Thoroughbred gelding. “He typifies the refinement the Thoroughbred brings to the table. Look at the fine outlines. Look at the jugular groove and those beautifully light connections."

The United States Eventing Association (USEA) is pleased to announce the renewed partnership with Etalon Diagnostics. As a Contributing Level Sponsor to the USEA Young Event Horse (YEH) and USEA Future Event Horse (FEH) programs, Etalon Diagnostics will provide 10 Minipanel PLUS Tests with Ancestry to be used towards prizes for the USEA YEH and USEA FEH Championships.

Three years after the creation of the USEA Young Event Horse Program (YEH), the USEA Future Event Horse Program (FEH) was born in 2007. Sharing similar goals as YEH, the FEH program evaluates the potential of yearlings, 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds, and 4-year-olds to become successful upper level event horses.

For over 20 years the USEA Instructors’ Certification Program (ICP) has been educating all levels of eventing instructors to confirm their knowledge base, both theoretical and practical, upon which they will continue to build throughout their teaching lifetime. The USEA is now shining the spotlight each month on some of the 300 ICP Certified Instructors.