United States Eventing Association

Nurturing the Next Generation of Eventers: How An ECP Workshop Helped Cass Kordecki's Coaching

“Nobody in their right mind would start coaching riders again after enjoying such a nice, long career away,” said Cass Kordecki with a laugh as she helped pack her 12-year-old daughter Rachel Strong up to attend the Catalpa Corner Charity Horse Trials (Iowa City, Iowa). Kordecki, who is in her mid-50s now, began her eventing journey in the ‘80s, but life took her away from the sport for a while until her daughter showed a love for horses at a very early age.

“We never had a lot of money,” Kordecki reflected on her youth. “I had to ride horses that were a challenge for others. I was very fortunate; I had some great mentors along the way, and I was in Pony Club, which is where I got my start.”

Kordecki, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, graduated from the United States Pony Club (USPC) with her C-3 certification and began helping coach a Pony Club in Madison, Wisconsin, after graduating high school. That was her first exposure to coaching others.

“There were zero structured coaching programs back when I was a kid,” she shared. “I cringe when I think about some of the things we jumped over.” She found stability in the structure of the Pony Club environment and even continued coaching students through Graduate school. After completing her education, however, she stepped back from the coaching scene to pursue a career and her own riding goals. She purchased an off-the-track Thoroughbred and began riding through the levels in dressage. And then, life took another turn.

“I became a mother at the old age of almost 42,” she chuckled. “And I swore that I was not going to allow my kid to get into horses for obvious reasons, but coincidentally the last pony that I had as a school pony, his name was Topsy, was still alive in his late 20s or early 30s when my daughter was born. A good eventing professional in our area, Polly Hall, had taken Topsy from me when I stepped back from coaching and agreed to give him a good home if she could use him in her lesson program with all of her kids. He was still starting kids in the dressage ring at her barn even in his old age, and I made the mistake of putting my daughter on him when she was about 2, and she loved it.”

Next thing Kordecki knew, her daughter was a Pony Club member, and she found herself fully immersed in the sport again. But there was one small problem.

“One of the things that was very frustrating to me was that there were no good riding programs for my daughter as a beginner rider in Lake Geneva,” said Kordecki. “We had this great, quiet pony, and we had to drive a good hour to find quality instruction.”

She did make that drive, however, to Illinois where her daughter rode under the instruction of USEA Vice President of Education and USEA Eventing Coaches Program (ECP) Faculty Member Jennifer Howlett Rousseau. While they made the trip as often as they could, Kordecki knew she needed to set something up that would allow her daughter the opportunity to ride on a more regular basis.

She connected with a local eventing program also based in Lake Geneva and moved her ponies into the facility. There, Kordecki picked up where she left off as an instructor all those years ago. When the professional rider who previously operated the facility decided to move to Florida two years ago, Kordecki took a huge leap. She leased a facility just outside of Lake Geneva in Delavan, and the Lake Geneva Area Equestrian and Pony Club Center was born.

“Fast forward to today, and we have 18 ponies and a great group of kids,” she shared. “I made a commitment to start a decent program with really awesome ponies. I connected with Jennifer and realized that she was such an outstanding resource for many different reasons. I wanted my daughter and my students to have the best of the best. I wanted to make sure that I provided a safe program for these kids to learn the basics properly and have the skillset, the exposure, and the talent, to be able to progress in the sport however they wanted.”

So she took the first step in providing that atmosphere for her students and downloaded the ECP Standards Booklet for review.

“I thought to myself, ‘This is amazing.’ Since I am an approved and certified Pony Club Center, which has to adhere to the standards of proficiency established by the USPC, I really appreciated what the ECP had to offer. It gives outstanding outlines and guidelines to strive for with each of the kids in my program.”

Wanting to strive for excellence in her program, Kordecki earmarked an ECP Workshop as an event she wanted to attend one day. Thanks to scholarships provided by the USPC, she was able to make that goal a reality at the Jigsaw Farms ECP dressage and jumping workshop this summer in Woodstock, Illinois, which was sponsored by the USPC.

“I’ve got to admit, I was terrified when I went in to teach the first lesson,” Kordecki said. “I was very intimidated, but I was so incredibly pleased with the guidance and the help and direction that [Workshop instructor and ECP Faculty member] Mary D’Arcy provided. She was very positive, and I felt so much better about the fact that as a coach, I was seeing the right things and structuring my lessons appropriately. It was such a wonderful opportunity because she pushed me outside of my comfort zone and gave me great resources to educate myself.”

D’Arcy’s coaching inspired Kordecki to continue to pursue educational opportunities for herself as an eventing coach.

“I will definitely participate in an ECP Workshop again,” she said. “I came away feeling so very motivated, and I am going to see if I can find some additional mentoring opportunities where I can watch other coaches teach as well. At my corporate job, I have to go through training every year relearning and fine-tuning my skills—this is the same thing. It is such a wonderful opportunity to have a resource like this to help bring out the best in myself as a coach and to continue to find ways to improve. Had I had a program like this 20 or 30 years ago, I may have stayed in the business and continued to do what I was doing then.”

While some coaches dream of training the next Defender Kentucky champion, Kordecki has a different goal.

“I am never going to be a five-star trainer—I have no desire to do that. But what I want to do is to make sure that I am the best coach for these young kids and as an upstart lesson program, I am so grateful to the USPC for providing this grant so that I could attend this workshop when I otherwise would not have been able to afford to participate," she said.

She looks forward to taking what she has gleaned from this Workshop experience and continuing to build upon her own skills as a coach to mold the next generation of young eventers in the U.S.

“These kids need to be safe, they need to be horsemen, and this program helps you coach them to be just that.”

One ECP Workshop, which will take place at Twin Rivers Ranch in Paso Robles, California, remains on the 2024 calendar. The dressage workshop will take place Sept. 10-12, and the jumping workshop Sept. 24-26. Interested participants can email Nancy Knight at [email protected].

About the USEA Eventing Coaches Program (ECP)

Coaches are essential to the training of riders and horses for safe and educated participation in the sport of eventing. The USEA Eventing Coaches Program (ECP), formerly known as the Instructors’ Certification Program (ICP), was initiated in 2002 to educate all levels of eventing coaches with crucial training principles upon which they can continue to build throughout their teaching careers. ECP offers educational workshops and assessments by which both regular coaches, Level I through Level V, Young Event Horse (YEH) coaches, and Young Event Horse professional horse trainers can become ECP certified. Additional information about ECP’s goals, benefits, workshops, and assessments as well as names and contact information for current ECP certified coaches, YEH coaches, and YEH professional horse trainers are available on the USEA website. Click here to learn more about the USEA Eventing Coaches Program.

The USEA would like to thank Parker Equine Insurance, the United States Pony Clubs, and Strider for their support of the Eventing Coaches Program.