United States Eventing Association

Proof of Concept Confirmed On Final Day of the 2024-2025 EA21 National Camp

Ocala, Fla.—Jan. 4—From the classroom lecture to the riding sessions, the focus on the final day brought those final finishing touches to bear on the athletes of the 2024-2025 Emerging Athletes Under 21 (EA21) National Camp held at Sweet Dixie South.

“Without fail, everyone says they want to ride,” Rebecca Brown, EA21 Regional Coach said. “Best of luck with that!”

With no EA21 Director of Coaching, David O’Connor today, Brown was joined by EA21 Regional Coach Emily Mastervich and incoming EA21 Regional Coach Jan Byyny to run the day. The three coaches spoke about the different career paths available in the eventing world and greater equestrian industries and how to think about funding those various paths. Even if athletes choose to be amateurs with elite competition goals in the future, the need to find the income to participate in the sport remains.

Diversifying the ways income comes in is paramount. The coaches agreed that, on average, to fund an FEI campaign, athletes would need to ride 13 horses or teach 7 lessons a day with no days off. Finding creative solutions to offset the physicality cannot be overstated as, long term, that is not a sustainable practice.

“No matter what path you pick, it’s going to be hard, and it only gets harder the older you are because responsibilities grow,” Byyny explained. But she and Mastervich echoed the sentiment of Brown’s remark: “You’re going to hear a ‘no’ a million times before you hear a ‘yes,’ [but] if you are willing to work your butt off, you will be fine.”

After the lecture, athletes were asked to set and design a show jumping course that contained an oxer as the first fence, a long related distance on a straight line, and either a triple combination or a long related distance followed by a double.

Ambitions were high as the course began to take shape with a bending line as the first related distance and tight turns to different elements around the arena.

The three coaches walked the course with the athletes after it was set and explained what athletes were asking from a design perspective and why the coaches chose to move certain elements.

“It's different when you are walking up to a course and thinking about it as a rider versus walking up and thinking about it as a designer,” Brown explained. “We're always coming into this as it's a learning program. We don't expect them to know everything, so we gave them some parameters. Certainly, they've done enough to have an idea of what's involved in a standard course. We said, let her rip, and they did a great job.”

The tighter turns were softened to be more flowing, and the first related distance was turned into a straight line. Some of the fences had their angles changed while placement stayed the same to allow for different questions to be asked, whether that be softening it to be a better line of approach or increasing the difficulty by visually changing the environment before or after the fence.

Conscious of the horses’ level of energy or mental engagement, the structure of the riding lessons was about the art of the warm up before completing the course to simulate a more competition-like mind set from the athletes. Each coach took one or two of the athletes within the group for an individualized warm up based on the work they had done all week with O’Connor. They spoke to each about what they were feeling underneath them and how to best warm up for the course ahead on that horse on that day.

“We joked about it a lot because it's a bit of pressure, right? We didn't want to mess up all David's good work,” Mastervich said with a laugh. “It went really, really well, and it was nice to see them put all the pieces together. We'd all been able to watch enough of David's lessons to know what we wanted the riders to focus on and be able to keep the continuity of the week.”

Byyny herself learned new ways to teach. “[Watching] David teach the kids to ask the question what and have one answer so you keep it that simple was really great. [As a coach], I gave you the skills, but you have to ask yourself, what do I need to do? Go faster, slower, et. cetera? I don't normally do that, but it certainly makes it a lot more straightforward for myself and the person. We all have so much going on in our own heads, and keeping it simple helps.”

For the riders themselves, it was a culmination of a week of information that finally clicked.

Devon Tresan found the simplicity to make a huge difference. “Today, [Byyny] taught me that you really only need to focus on two things at once. I really was able to think about those two things that we talked about and apply it to the course. [This week] was very rewarding and just proved how much I needed to learn.”

Turning the theory into instinct proved a wonderful final touch for Kayley Batt. “[O’Connor] said we're really working on developing our strategies as riders so that we can rely on our instincts and our reactions [to] become more immediate and more effective. I worked on making sure that my reactions weren't late, so it was cool just to think about that when we were jumping around today in the arena, and I feel a lot more inspired now!”

Willow Schwartz couldn’t agree more. “[The EA21 program] lit a fire and a passion [in me]. I feel like I've grown a lot, and I’m going to lock in with it!”

Many different moving parts come together to make the EA21 program happen from facility donations to catch ride horses to coaches offering their expertise. Audrey Littlefield felt the moment poignantly. “It’s an honor to be here, and it feels great to be surrounded by so many good people. It's not an opportunity that I've had before, and it's pretty cool to be able to get so much out of it just after one week. I plan to use [the knowledge] on every horse that I sit on from here on out and be able to share that with other people around me.”

Mastervich’s parting words, that the riders who attend the camps share their knowledge with those around them to create a trickle-down system of education, couldn’t be truer.

For Emeline Gilbert, who is attending for the second time, the EA21 program with its curriculum and system building is a successful week of growth. “It always feels like a dream. The things that [O’Connor] is saying are what sticks with you for the rest of your life. This is what you'll pass on to the next generation of riders that you're hopefully teaching, and the horses you bring up.”

She isn’t the only one who feel like dreams are coming true. Brown summed up the week the best: “I'm proud of the people who have been behind this program from day 1, because we're clearly doing something right. This is one of my favorite programs. We're so lucky with the caliber of catch ride horses that were provided for this program. These kids have such great attitudes, and they're happy to be here. They want to learn, and that's all you can ask from a student. They take the advice, they put it into effect, and they execute. So, it's a dream!”

Helpful Links:

• 2024-2025 EA21 National Camp Fast Facts
• EA21 Homepage
• Event Coverage

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About the USEA Emerging Athlete U21 Program (EA21)

The purpose of the USEA Emerging Athletes U21 Program (EA21) is to identify and provide consistent quality instruction to the next generation of elite event riders. The aim is to create a pipeline for potential team riders by identifying and developing young talent, improving horsemanship and riding skills, and training and improving skills and consistency.

The USEA Emerging Athletes U21 Program was launched in 2022 with a model of five summertime regional clinics taught by selected USEA Eventing Coaches Program (ECP) coaches, leading to a winter national camp consisting of selected Young Riders from the regional clinics. Athletes who are 21 years or younger, are current members of their USEA Young Rider Area program, and are established at the Training Level or higher, are eligible to apply for the EA21 program. Click here to learn more about the USEA EA21 Program.

The USEA would like to thank ARMA, Bates Saddles, Kerrits, PulseVet, Ride iQ, Schneiders Saddlery, Sidelines Magazine, YETI and WeRideTogether for sponsoring the USEA Emerging Athletes U21 Program.