United States Eventing Association

After Two Decades of Organizing, Grandia-Dodson Celebrates Her Final Area VII Young Rider Benefit Horse Trials

Lizzie Hoff is about to be busy. In a few weeks, she’ll start her freshman year at Syracuse University in New York, and she’ll also be competing her string of four event horses this fall. Know what else the 19-year-old Gig Harbor, Washington, native will be doing?

“Every opportunity I have to volunteer, I’ll take it,” said Hoff, who says her longtime eventing coach, Anni Grandia-Dodson, fostered her drive to give back to the sport. Grandia-Dodson, 40, is an elite eventer, was Hoff’s coach until the teen moved to the East Coast in 2023, and for the last two decades, has been the organizer of the United States Eventing Association Area VII Young Rider Benefit Horse Trials. The most recent event, and Grandia-Dodson’s last at the helm, was held Aug. 3-4 at Caber Farm in Onalaska, Washington, about 100 miles south of Seattle.

Grandia-Dodson has organized the event for nearly half her life. During that time, she’s encouraged many a young rider, parent, and anyone else who was around to give of their time to support the sport she discovered as a little girl.

“Teaching people to love the sport and love to volunteer has been so rewarding! More than ever, I believe that everyone that competes should volunteer!” Grandia-Dodson said in a July 23 Facebook post when she announced she was stepping down as the event’s organizer.

During a subsequent phone chat, Grandia-Dodson elaborated on her passion for eventing and volunteering as she hacked HSH Bold Decision (Sibon W x Dubietys Fashion) around her 27-acre Grand Farms in Vaughn, Washington.

“I had a really good core group of volunteers and a good relationship with a lot of different young riders. It’s about getting them to realize, if only for the short term, that they have to give back, and then a lot of them learn it’s actually quite fun to give back,” she said. “The Benefit was always supposed to be about teaching kids to volunteer and raising funds and teaching people how important it is to give back to the sport.”

If Hoff is any indication, Grandia-Dodson’s message has come through loud and clear. Her parents, Mollie and Andy Hoff, are owners of HSH Bold Decision, a 9-year-old Irish Sport Horse gelding with whom Grandia-Dodson competes at the three-star level. “Armani” and Grandia-Dodson won the Open Intermediate division at the USEA Area VII Championships in September 2023 at Aspen Farms in Yelm, Washington. Lizzie said Grandia-Dodson approaches volunteering in the same way that she does coaching.

“She’s super positive. Everything is always really fun. Of course, there’s negative things about riding, but she always tries to make it positive, which was motivating for me. [Stuff] happens, but we’re going to keep going, and we’re going to make it fun,” Lizzie said of Grandia-Dodson’s training approach.

“There was always an expectation for us to help at shows,” she added. “It’s the same as with her coaching. She made it fun, and [stressed] how important it is for the sport to have the kids and everyone help out.”

Lizzie represented Area VII at the 2024 USEF Eventing Young Rider Championships at the Maryland International at Loch Moy Farms (Adamstown, Maryland) in July. She finished second in the CCI3*YRC-S riding HSH Limited Edition (Sibon W x Tinirana Velvet), a 9-year-old Irish Sport Horse gelding. The duo also helped earn a mixed group representing Areas I, VII, IV to a silver medal in the team competition.

“I love where I’m from, and I love to represent,” Lizzie said. “I love Young Riders, and I’m always going to be involved. I think it’s important to encourage young people to be involved.”

Grandia-Dodson couldn’t agree more. She herself was just a teenager when she began volunteering with the Area VII Young Riders council. After several years on the council, she was asked to take over managing the annual Benefit. At that time, it was held at Donida Farm in Auburn, Washington.

“I learned a lot along the way. I got a crash course in organizing events,” she said. “The organizing end of it has really changed a lot in 20 years. What was acceptable 20 years ago is no longer acceptable. For the first five or so years, I don’t think any of us had any idea what we were doing but it worked.”

In 2011, the council moved the Benefit to Lincoln Creek in Centralia, which she said was a beautiful location, albeit remote.

“Even though it was literally in the middle of a hay field, it was the best ground,” she said. However, the lack of cell reception and internet made the organizing end of things tough. “It makes it really hard in this day and age to organize an event with no cell phone service.”

Two years ago, the benefit again switched locations, moving to Caber Farm. This year was the last year it’ll be held there, as Caber Farm has its own schedule of shows it offers. Area 7 officials are going to spend 2025 focusing on schooling shows while looking for a new location to host the Benefit. A lot has changed over the years, she said, as eventing has evolved from a grass-roots discipline where competitors “would camp in tents and put their ponies in hot-wire paddocks, and nobody really had trainers with them. Now, everyone has living quarters, and there’s stabling, and almost everyone is with a trainer group. People want more amenities, they want schooling rounds on Thursday, and they literally come to shows and set up their Starlink [satellite] internet and work. The sport has evolved to where it’s more commercial.”

That means that there has been a drop in volunteerism, she said, although she’s worked hard to ensure the Area VII Young Riders Benefit always had all the help it needed.

“In general, there’s been a significant drop,” she said. “I think the ability to work remotely means there’s not as much free time to volunteer, and then some people don’t seem to want to be bothered. A lot of trainers encourage people to volunteer, but then there are also a lot who don’t think they need to.”

Kendra Zartman, 56, is one of Grandia-Dodson’s cadre of volunteers. The two women are close friends who met when Zartman’s daughter, Kayleigh Zartman, now 19, began riding with Grandia-Dodson almost nine years ago. Kayleigh doesn’t ride anymore, but the love that Kendra developed for horses and eventing during Kayleigh’s competitive career has stuck.

“For a person who doesn’t ride horses, it’s ridiculous how involved I am,” said Kendra, who has been the volunteer coordinator for the “last few years” for the Area VII Young Riders Benefit. She also co-owns, with Mollie, an 8-year-old German Sport Horse named Mistral (Millepoint—Ragusa), who’ll compete with Grandia-Dodson at the two-star level this fall. When Zartman found herself with an empty nest, she sold her home, and looked for a new house near Grandia-Dodson’s farm. Not finding anything, she ended up buying a travel trailer and moving to Grand Farms.

“They’re family, and they’re great people,” she said, adding that she travels to shows with Grandia-Dodson, acting as “barn mom” and is always there to provide moral and other support as needed.

“I follow Anni everywhere and volunteer,” she said. “I love watching Anni because she always does what’s right for the horse…and she manages to ride multiple horses at a show and knows the quirks and needs of each one. I respect her so much, too, because even though she’s a trainer herself, she takes lessons and is always furthering her training.

“I think the thing I’m looking forward to the most for Anni is her being able to focus on her goals,” Kendra added. “She’s so selfless. She’s always taking these kids to shows, developing them, cheering them on, and being there for them. It’s finally Anni’s turn. I just want her to be able to accomplish her goals. “

In addition to organizing the annual Benefit, Grandia-Dodson also has acted as the Young Riders’ chef d’equipe for several years while pursuing her own eventing career. She has a string of competition horses, including Armani; Mistral (Millepoint x Ragusa), an 8-year-old German Sport Horse gelding known as “Rolo” around the barn; and HSH Cellesto (Cellestial x Lotte), a 6-year-old Hanoverian who Grandia-Dodson is moving up to Preliminary at the Caber Farm Horse Trials this month.

She’s also got her semi-retired gelding Chaos (Cahuna x Cindy’s Foxy Lady), 19, who’s going around at Novice with one of her students, and then her 19-year-old mare Halcyon, who suffered a stifle injury in 2021, ending her eventing career. She came back to do dressage in 2022 and just recently had a foal who’d named “Noodle.”

She said despite the food-related names for a couple of her horses, “I cannot cook, but I do love good food, and I love good wine.” She’ll hopefully have a bit more time to enjoy both now that she won’t be organizing the Area VII Young Riders’ Benefit. But mostly, she plans to focus the time she gets back on her own competitive career and her family, which includes her son, Carter, who is 8, loves soccer, and is headed into third grade this fall, and her husband, Mark Dodson. He operates My Haunted Forest, a popular Halloween attraction that he runs at the family’s farm every October.

While both Mark and Carter enjoy horses, neither has been truly bitten by the horse bug. But there’s more than enough horse lovers in the family, as Grandia-Dodson’s brother, Marc Grandia, is an elite level eventer, while both her sister, Nicki Grandia, and her mom, Linda, are upper-level dressage competitors.

“We had ponies when we were little, and I think my mom realized that if she didn’t get us into lessons, we were going to kill ourselves,” she said. “We lucked into the sport. We all did lessons and completed the Pony Club path.”

On Grandia-Dodson’s to-do list for the fall is an outing with Armani at the CCI3*-L at the Maryland Five Star (Elkton, Maryland), as well as several other events with her string. She’ll also help Area VII officials get a schooling-show series going at T90 Ranch in Tenino, Washington, and plans to put on her thinking cap with respect to broadening opportunities for Area VII riders.

“I’m hoping I’ll be able to look at the area a little bit differently,” she said. “We need a calendar change. I think it’s time for a fresh look at our overall calendar, and not having a vested interest in one of the events will help me look at it differently.

“I’m looking forward to doing a little less volunteering and more riding and competing, and being able to be available for Carter’s activities,” she added. “But I’ll always be involved. I don’t like to sit idle.”