United States Eventing Association

Aspen Farms in Yelm, Washington was host to this year’s USEA Area VII Championships on September 16-18 and put on a spectacular show where 10 horse and rider pairs celebrated victory by being awarded the title of Area VII Champion in their respective divisions. Hear about each pair’s weekend below.

Get to know each United States Eventing Association (USEA) Area a little better in this new series, Meet the Areas. This month’s feature is USEA Area VII which is made up of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska and is the largest area in the USEA by land! Did you know that most of the competitions in Area VII are celebrating nearly 20 years of eventing and almost all host through the Intermediate level? Learn more fun facts and useful information about Area VII below.

The Area VII Championships were one of three Area Championships to run over the weekend of September 18-19. The Aspen Farms Horse Trials of Yelm, Washington was host to the over 150 combinations who qualified for the Area VII year-end Championships presented by Tin Men Supply. With ten Championship divisions running over the course of the weekend, the team of staff and volunteers putting on the event were quite busy ensuring that the Championship atmosphere was top-notch!

For over 20 years the USEA Instructors’ Certification Program (ICP) has been educating all levels of eventing instructors to confirm their knowledge base, both theoretical and practical, upon which they will continue to build throughout their teaching lifetime. The USEA is now shining the spotlight each month on some of the 300 ICP Certified Instructors.

Every year, the Area VII Adult Riders host the Adult Rider Team Series (ARTS), a virtual team challenge where Adult Rider program members are randomly placed on a virtual team and can complete tasks to earn points for their team. Points can be earned for entering an event, completing an event (the higher the placing, the more points you earn), and volunteering at an event.

Many years ago, a good friend, Dot Hamilton, became Area Chair for Area VII. She said, "We need an Adult Rider Coordinator – you do it!" "Ok," I said. "What should adult riders do?" "Let's have a camp," she said! So we did.