United States Eventing Association

So far this year, three USEA Young Event Horse (YEH) competitions have taken place. From those three competitions, nine horses have earned qualifying scores for The Dutta Corp. USEA YEH Championships in October 2020. Out of the nine qualified horses, there are seven 5-year-old horses and two 4-year-old horses.

Have you ever wanted to look through the judge’s eyes and see what they see during the conformation portion of a USEA Young or Future Event Horse competition? Now is your chance! Using only a photo and information on age and breed, legendary horseman and prior FEH/YEH Championship judge Chris Ryan is sharing his insights into young horse conformation in our Conformation Critique article series.

For over 15 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.

In 2005, the second year of the USEA Young Event Horse Program (YEH), there were a total of 258 starters at YEH competitions and over 30 horses competed in the championships held at Morven Park in Leesburg, Virginia.

For over 15 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. Click here to learn more about the USEA Instructors’ Certification Program.

The USEA Future Event Horse (FEH) and Young Event Horse (YEH) programs have around 30 qualifying competitions each, and youngsters around the country are about to begin their seasons aimed at Championships.

“It was a down in the trenches kind of day,” said USEA Future Event Horse (FEH) co-chair Robin Walker about the final day of the USEA Educational Symposium. “It was a great value for the judges and necessity going forward.” This year’s FEH portion of the Symposium focused on judges’ training as the program works to refine the pool of judges and makes sure that every FEH horse is getting the best evaluation possible.

An enthusiastic group of USEA Young Event Horse (YEH) judges, breeders, riders, trainers, organizers, and fans started their morning in the classroom to kick off YEH day of the USEA Educational Symposium. Andreas Dibowski and Maren Engelhardt gave a presentation on analyzing the gallop using videos of Dibowski’s horses. Englehardt asked all the attendees to think about her perfect gallop and to have that in mind when watching the videos.

Yesterday Andreas Dibowski said that he was ready for the “fun stuff” and today he had the chance to share his knowledge of both show jumping and cross-country to a large audience who attended day two of the USEA Instructors’ Certification Program (ICP) Symposium. The morning started out in the ring at Barnstaple South with three groups of riders – Beginner Novice, Training, and Preliminary, and three groups of the same levels took to the cross-country in the afternoon. While the exercises and jumps got progressively harder throughout the day, the warm-ups and themes stayed the same.

The USEA Educational Symposium is a unique opportunity each winter for eventers to gather together to soak in knowledge. The first two days of the 2020 Symposium focus on the USEA Instructors’ Certification Program (ICP) with attendees learning how to be better, more effective instructors. German Olympian and world-renowned rider Andreas Dibowski is this year’s guest instructor and he spent the first day dedicated to dressage with one Advanced show jumping group to wrap-up the day. Dibowski taught the instructors to teach using demo riders and horses from Beginner Novice to Advanced of all ages, breeds, and sizes.