United States Eventing Association

Day one of competition at the 2015 Adequan/FEI North American Junior Young Rider Championships completed with 17-year-old Nicole Doolittle and her 14-year-old Irish Sport Horse Tops (Area III) leading the CCIYR** division. Doolittle and Tops bested her 2014 CH-Y** score by over 6 points finishing the day with a 47.7. The additional three horse and rider combinations; Class Action with Paige Pence (Area VII); Cinerescent with Diane Portwood (Area III); and Beau Voyageur with Madison Gallien earned scores of 59.6, 60.5 and 73.9 respectively. Although, there are only four riders competing in the CCI-Y** division, the general feeling among the riders was that the competition still felt like a true Young Rider CCI** championship or as Doolittle stated “It feels exactly the same, just as exciting, thrilling and fun.” However, the background story was regarding the future of the CH-Y** at the NAJYRC.

The CH-Y** Eventing division was only recently downgraded by the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) from a championship competition to a young rider CCI** due to a lack of entries from North American countries other than the United States. The competition organizer, United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) was informed two weeks before the competition by the FEI that the two-star would not be allowed to run as a team or individual championship. The leadership of the USEF in cooperation with the United States Eventing Association (USEA) worked to find a solution but the only possibility for 2015 was that the two-star division would not be run as a championship. At the same time every effort is being made to make sure that the feeling of a team championship remains intact.

The governance of the sport of Eventing is sometimes confusing for the casual onlooker, but it is fairly straight forward in the U.S. It consists of: the official association of American Eventing, the USEA, of which all people who participate in organized Eventing competitions are members; the governing body of all equestrian sports, the USEF, which assures that all equestrian competitions are held on a fair and humane playing field; and in the case of internationally recognized competitions, the FEI, which governs all sports held at the CIC and CCI levels. Each of these organizations have roles which intertwine when it comes to juniors and young riders competing at internationally recognized championships.

On Thursday evening of the 2015 NAJYRC all of the USEA Area Young Riders Coordinators, a few Canadians, a number of coaches and officials from the USEA and the USEF sat down to brainstorm how to prevent this demotion from occurring again in the future. A number of questions were posed that the USEA and USEF will investigate further, but moving forward the USEA is looking for the input of its members.

Please reach out to your local USEA Area Coordinator and tell them what you believe can be done to make the two star young rider championship more feasible.

AREA I (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont)

Carol Mayo, [email protected]

AREA II (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and North Carolina)

Megan Kepferle, [email protected]

AREA III (Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida)

Catherine Clayton, [email protected]

AREA IV (Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wisconsin)

Erica Hoffman, [email protected]

Lianne Burgess, [email protected]

AREA V (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas)

Catherine Texter Baker, [email protected]

AREA VI (California and Hawaii)

Kim Littlehale, [email protected]

AREA VII (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska)

Malcolm Hook, [email protected]

AREA VIII (Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and West Virginia)

Laura Miller, [email protected]

Cindy Strader, [email protected]

AREA IX (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and South Dakota)

Marcel Dorsey, [email protected]

Mauri Tracy, [email protected]

AREA X (Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada)

Michelle Parker, [email protected]

Tavia Wolcott, [email protected]