United States Eventing Association

When Alice Sarno was 8 years old, she begged her parents for riding lessons. “All I could do was think about horses,” said Sarno, 75, recalling that they eventually agreed. “They finally gave up on giving me dance lessons and got me horseback riding lessons instead. My mom and dad made a deal thinking I would phase right out of it. But by the next year, I had two more horses.”

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?

Correct jumping positions, generating a quality canter and keeping it rhythmic, and practicing good habits consistently were the takeaways from the second day of the 2024 USEA Emerging Athlete U21 (EA21) West Coast II Regional Clinic on Wednesday.

Catching riding was the theme of the first day of action at the 2024 USEA Emerging Athlete U21 (EA21) West Coast II Regional Clinic on Tuesday at Aspen Farms, a 240-acre facility in Yelm, Washington, about 60 miles south of Seattle.

Claire Allen remembers when she was 11 years old, having just made the switch from the hunter/jumper ring to three-day eventing. She told her new eventing trainer that her goal was to one day compete in the United States Equestrian Federation’s Eventing Young Rider Championships.

You might not know her name, but chances are, if you’ve competed at an event in South Carolina, Virginia, or other venues across the eastern United States, you’ve met Diane Bird.

Nicole Nair remembers the first time she rode Jack Run, her 14.2 hands high Morgan-Appaloosa cross gelding. It was October 27, 2019, and Nair says it was a day that changed her life.

Sometimes, a kind word is all it takes to make someone’s day, says Laury Marshall. Marshall and Finley, her 17-hand Thoroughbred mare, had just finished their dressage test at the 2023 USEA American Eventing Championships presented by Nutrena Feeds. They’d performed solidly, good for a 36.4 and middle-of-the-pack standing in the Beginner Novice Rider championship division at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.

As competitors at the 2024 USEA Intercollegiate & Interscholastic Eventing Championships prepared for their cross-country rounds, they talked about jumps that might pose a challenge or were “scary,” said Claire Gamlin. But she wasn’t worried at all.

Kelly O’Brien has her eye on a prize. “Pretty much the rest of this season will be targeted towards getting fired up for the AEC,” says O’Brien, 54. She and B E Never Say Never, a 19-year-old Dutch Warmblood, have qualified for the 2024 USEA American Eventing Championships (AEC) presented by Nutrena Feeds already, thanks to decisively winning all three of their 2024 outings thus far.