United States Eventing Association

Bethany Hutchins-Kristen headed into 2023 with hopes of earning the SmartPak USEA Stallion of the Year award for a second year in a row on her homebred Geluk HVF, and after a stellar season, including a top-10 finish at the TerraNova CCI2*-L (Myakka City, Florida), she took home the top prize with an 18-point lead.

Katie Crowley didn’t have intentions of breeding horses, but when her Hosteiner mare Travita proved to have a bit too much fire to handle, it was suggested that breeding her might settle her some.

The little gray Connemara cross gelding Delilah’s Boy has made quite a big name for himself in eventing. Since starting his eventing career in 2019, the now 13-year-old pony has celebrated 11 wins and countless top-3 finishes at the Novice and Beginner Novice levels, including a win at the U.S. Pony Club Championships in 2019 with former owner/rider Macie Sykes. It was his fabulous 2023 season, however, that earned Delilah’s Boy the title of the 2023 SmartPak USEA Pony of the Year with young rider Kendal Fansler of Clarksville, Maryland, in the irons.

It was 2017, and Christa Schmidt found herself in the market for a nice Preliminary/one-star horse to help her make some of her amateur aspirations come true when Karen O’Connor told her about a Holsteiner gelding by the name of Capitol H I M (Con Air x O-Heraldika).

The USEA Interscholastic Eventing League (IEL) introduced individual leaderboards for members of the program in 2023, and the first class of champions were crowned at the Awards Dinner during the 2023 USEA Annual Meeting & Convention in St. Louis, Missouri! The IEL was created in 2020 for 7^th through 12^th graders with the mission of bringing together junior riders with a common interest and providing a supportive community through which they can continue to pursue their riding interests. Now open to the extended age range of 5^th through 12^th graders for 2024, the program encourages team camaraderie and gives junior members a chance to compete in a team atmosphere. The USEA celebrates the first class of year-end IEL Champions!

United States Eventing Association (USEA) members from all over the country gathered on Saturday night for the 2023 USEA Annual Meeting & Convention Year End Awards Ceremony. The evening’s ceremony was led by Master of Ceremonies Jim Wolf and recognized riders, horses, and game-changers in the sport of eventing with multiple awards and grants.

Being spontaneous has paid off for Kevin Keane and Sportsfield Candy. “I bought him on a Wednesday and showed him on a Thursday,” Keane recalls about his first event with his Irish Sport Horse gelding, then 9 years old, at Plantation Field Horse Trials (Unionville, Pennsylvania) in September 2016. “I owned him for part of a day, and the next morning I showed up at a CCI and jogged him up for a two-star, and we went clean and clean and clean.”

“I love it when a plan comes together” is the phrase that could sum up the 2022 season for Lady Chatterley and Leslie Law. Although, in this case, comparing the bay mare and her British Olympic gold medalist rider to the A-Team also refers to the fact that they successfully moved up to the Advanced level and earned the title of Bates Mare of the Year on the USEA Leaderboard. Lady Chatterley, who's owned by Lesley Grant-Law and Stephen and Jackie Brown, was also the Bates Mare of the Year in 2020 and second in 2021.

Bethany Hutchins-Kristen knew Geluk HVF was special from the moment he was born. Out of her former Intermediate mare Bronte HVF and by the popular dressage stallion Jazz, “Geluk” had the bloodlines to succeed in eventing. He finished well as a 4- and 5-year-old in the U.S Eventing Association Young Event Horse East Coast Championships (Elkton, Maryland) and went on to win the U.S. Equestrian Federation CCI2*-L Eventing National Championship (Lexington, Kentucky) as a 6-year-old.

After Donna Miller lost her beloved Connemara stallion Ardceltic Art in 2013, she took her time to find her next stallion and potential upper level eventing partner. With strict criteria in place, Miller scoured the internet and finally came across Coud’Poker in 2019.