United States Eventing Association

There is no doubt the USEA Eventing Coaches Program (ECP), formerly knowns as the USEA Instructors' Certification Program (ICP), has undergone major changes over the last two years. While all of this was going on, there were a number of conversations rumbling around inside our committee that kept resurfacing. Probably the most frequent one was: where is the next generation coming from and how do they get there? It’s not really a valid response to talk about going hunting for a number of seasons and learning to do dressage later. Nor is it really possible to set up a national center or regional one as exists in other countries. Working student options are obviously out there and, in some cases, long-term apprenticeships grow from that. However, I believe it needs to be more than that.