Earlier this week, we shared Jennarose Ortmeyer’s helmet cam from the Preliminary division at Stable View Oktoberfest. Now buckle in for a ride around the CCI3*-S track designed by Capt. Mark Phillips aboard Renkum Corsair, a 12-year-old Holsteiner gelding owned by the Corsair Syndicate and piloted by Elisa Wallace.
Elisa and Renkum Corsair are aiming for the CCI3*-L at Maryland 5 Star later this month, and an eighth place finish here sets them up nicely for a strong Long-format debut.
Next up at Stable View is the October Eventing Academy series, October 14-16. You can learn more and sign up by clicking the banner below.
At the Peterson Smith BarnStaple Educational Three Day, riders from Starter through Training will have the unique opportunity to experience each exciting aspect of a traditional three day event. Throughout the six-day event, participants will learn from international riders, USA medal winners, respected authors, FEI officials, and sought-after clinicians.
ELIGIBILITY AND APPLICATION
Applicants may be of any age, but minor applicants must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
Applicants must be willing to share their experience as part of SEE blogs, vlogs, social & print media.
Applicants must be committed to increasing access to equestrian sports for underrepresented groups.
Interested in this awesome opportunity? Click here to apply by October 10 and here to learn more about the Barnstaple USEA Educational Program and Three Day Event. For further inquiries, please contact Heather Gillette at [email protected].
Strides for Equality Equestrians is also pleased to kick of SEE Month, a two-year anniversary celebration, awareness, and fundraising drive happening all throughout October. Your support helps the SEE mission — and programs like this! — grow. Click here to learn more about SEE Month!
Did you hear?? We’ve teamed up with World Equestrian Brands, Ride iQ and Horse & Rider Books for an epic Maryland 5 Star cross country walk and giveaway spree! On the line are daily prizes from Thursday-Sunday during Maryland as well as an exclusive 5* course walk with Ride iQ coach Kyle Carter and a rider from the World Equestrian Brands roster. Sign up here — even if you aren’t attending in person, you’ll still be eligible to win a prize!
One of my favourite things about being a roving equestrian journalist is those weeks after a major competition, in which I sometimes — if I’m really lucky — find a spare second to enjoy everyone else’s content from throughout the week. Whether that’s scrolling riders’ social media, reading reports in Horse&Hound or COTH, or catching up on vlogs, it’s always great fun to see the angle others choose for their storytelling, and to experience the same week I lived from a totally different perspective.
The FEI is one of those outlets that took a completely different approach to their coverage than what Shelby Allen and I did (not least because they deal largely in video!). They recruited vloggers Lucy Robinson and Megan Elphick to gallivant around the grounds, interview riders, and enjoy la dolce vita in Italy – and it’s jolly good fun to watch.
Ayden Schain and Fernhill Hole Shot. Photo by Joan Davis/Flatlandsfoto.
The United States Eventing Association (USEA) is proud to announce the selected Young Rider athletes for the Emerging Athletes 21 Program (EA21) national camp, now that the EA21 regional clinics have concluded. Twelve riders were accepted into each of the five regional EA21 clinics, taught by USEA Eventing Coaches Program (ECP) instructors, and now riders have been selected from the regional clinics to participate in the inaugural EA21 national camp this winter.
The five EA21 regional clinics that took place were: East Coast I at Morven Park International Equestrian Center (Leesburg, Va.) on July 25-26, 2022 and coached by Shannon Lilley; East Coast II at Stable View Farm (Aiken, S.C.) on July 25-26, 2022 and coached by Emily Beshear; Central at Holly Hill Farm (Benton, La.) on August 1-2, 2022 and coached by Rebecca Braitling; West Coast I at Aspen Farms (Yelm, Wash.) on August 15-16, 2022 and coached by Rebecca Brown; West Coast II at Twin Rivers Ranch (Paso Robles, Calif.) on August 17-18, 2022, also coached by Rebecca Brown.
The USEA’s EA21 Task Force has approved 19 USEA EA21 Young Riders that were proposed by the EA21 Selection Task Force, for the inaugural EA21 national camp. Each of these Young Rider athletes were selected to participate in one of the five regional EA21 clinics, and have now been selected to attend the national camp with EA21 Director of Coaching, David O’Connor. The athletes invited to attend the national camp are listed below, in alphabetical order:
Lea Adams-Blackmore
Camryn Chung
Maya Clarkson
Julia Beauchamp Crandon
Kayla Dumler
Sarah Ertl
Jules Fanello
Madelyn Floyd
Ella Garcia
Kiersten Miller
Caitlin O’Roark
Harper Padgett
Dylan Phillipps
Maia Ramberg
Bree Robinette
Sarah Ross
Audrey Sanborn
Ayden Schain
Ashley Widmer
The EA21 national camp will take place in Ocala, Florida across January 2-6, 2023, and will be taught by David O’Connor. Special guest speakers will also be on-site for this educational camp. The venue will be announced in the coming weeks and catch ride horses may be available to riders traveling from significant distances.
All invited Young Riders will be responsible for their own travel and accommodations for the EA21 national camp, but the USEA will cover all clinic, coaching and stabling fees.
The USEA would like to thank the five venues for hosting the inaugural EA21 regional clinics (Morven Park, Stable View, Holly Hill Farm, Twin Rivers Ranch, Aspen Farms), and for their wonderful hospitality. The USEA would also like to thank the Young Rider Coordinators that stepped up to help on-site: Chris Donovan, Teresa Harcourt, Stephanie Reimers, Diane Snow, as well as the entire Stable View team led by Barry Olliff.
For questions regarding the Emerging Athlete 21 Program, please email Kate Lokey at [email protected].
We love celebrating and learning about the #supergrooms who make this sport go around — quite literally! — so we’re on a mission to interview as many grooms as we can to learn about their journeys. Catch up on the other interviews from this series here and nominate a #supergroom of your own by emailing [email protected]!
Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
Now that the (volcanic) dust has just about settled from the 2022 FEI World Championships of Eventing in Pratoni, we want to know everything about the experience from the folks who were at the heart of it. We caught up with Meredith Ferraris, travelling groom to Ariel Grald and chief caretaker to Leamore Master Plan (also known as Simon), to ask her some of our burning questions about her experience preparing for the biggest event of her rider and horse’s careers.
EN: How did you get into grooming?
MF: I was managing a barn after college and it just didn’t feel like the right fit. I wanted to move back to North Carolina to be closer to my family so I looked on Yard and Groom in early 2018. The only job in this location was working for Ariel and although I didn’t have any previous grooming experience, we both decided to take a chance and the rest is history!
EN: How did you prepare for Pratoni?
MF: I have several detailed packing lists depending on the type of horse show and time of year, so I was able to create one for Pratoni based off of those. Preparing was particularly challenging because I had to be completely packed for Europe before we left for Great Meadow. Simon and I didn’t return home before shipping overseas — I had to make sure we brought everything we would need for the following month so that definitely made it a little trickier!
Horse kisses are the best! Photo courtesy of Taylor Pence.
EN: What are some essential items to pack for a trip like this?
MF: The number one packing priority is always Mrs. Pastures cookies — we don’t go anywhere without Simon’s favorite treat! Simon is a big horse and traveling isn’t easy on his body, so I always make sure to bring therapy tools that will keep him feeling his best. For this trip I brought his Bemer blanket and boots, a handheld laser, and his nebulizer to help him recover from all the lorry and airplane rides.
EN: What’s your favorite thing about Simon?
MF: Simon has a very big personality and likes to express himself at all times, making him one of my favorites in the barn. Most of the time he’s very polite (unless he gets a little fresh!) and he’s just a lot of fun to spend time with on the ground. He’s always down for a good face hug and a cuddle in the stall.
Cuddles and hugs with Simon. Photo courtesy of Ariel Grald.
EN: What was your favorite thing about going to Pratoni?
MF: One of my favorite parts of traveling overseas is getting to know the grooms and competitors better. You end up spending a lot of time together and it usually ends up forming some very lasting friendships. Pratoni was exciting because it had the team dynamic to add to the international championship experience and everyone was rooting just as much for other U.S. riders as they were for the ones they worked for.
EN: What was challenging about the trip?
MF: It’s challenging to keep enough weight on a fit 5* horse and traveling only makes that more difficult, so helping Simon maintain weight throughout his travels and competing was my biggest priority. He’s already a very picky eater and tends to lose a little bit of weight while traveling. It was such a long trek to get over to Pratoni, but luckily I’m used to catering to his changing needs and was able to keep his weight up.
On June 1, 2021, the USEA instituted a new policy: at training level and above, a competitor who has 20 or more jump faults in the show jumping phase of an event must compulsorily retire. If you scrolled down the results of an event during the past year, every now and then you may have seen a ‘CR’ next to the final result of a competitor. Those letters describe that situation. The full rule and an explanation of its intent, as published in an April 2021 announcement, is as follows:
EV150 Penalties
During a round, penalties are incurred for:
20 show jump penalties – Compulsory Retirement
COMPULSORY RETIREMENT
A competitor incurs 20 or more jump penalties in show jumping at the Training level or higher. Enforced at the end of the round unless the competitor retires or is eliminated.
Rule Change Intent: This rule is being presented to reduce risk in the sport of eventing. The reasoning has been that in reviewing the incidence of poor riding at competitions, the performance records of those riders that have died in schooling situations, data from EquiRatings, and other indicators, the USEA Cross-Country Safety Subcommittee views it as important to highlight that poor show jumping performance should result in retirement. They believe this should be equally applied regardless of whether show jumping or cross-country occur first in the schedule of the competition. British Eventing instituted this rule for similar reasons and it would be an additional measure to lessen risk in the sport. Compulsory Retirement (CR) designation was chosen to distinguish the penalty from fall of horse (Mandatory Retirement, MR) for tracking purposes.
Thanks to the USEA providing it, we have access to data about how often, and at which level, these CRs have been occurring. We also have access to data about how often horses and riders have more than 20 jumping penalties in FEI eventing. At FEI events, there is no CR rule. A horse can have five rails, six rails, or eight rails and still be permitted to run cross country. Thus, it provides an interesting comparison to the USEA system. The data is summarized below:
US Eventing
Comp Results with Final Score of CR or
FEI Divisions with SJ Jump Pen 20+
June 1, 2021 to June 1, 2022
All Results
CR or SJ=20+
Level
Count
Count
%
CCI5-L
103
7
6.80%
CCI4-L
110
2
1.82%
CCI3-L
195
5
2.56%
CCI2-L
298
10
3.36%
CCI4-S
433
1.39%
CCI3-S
581
17
2.93%
CCI2-S
550
13
2.36%
CCI1-L
69
5
7.25%
CCI1-S
57
2
3.51%
A
348
10
2.87%
AI
113
1
0.88%
I
1426
39
2.73%
IP
105
4
3.81%
P3D
2
0
0.00%
P
4207
58
1.38%
M3D
5
0
0.00%
M
1583
16
1.01%
MT
105
3
2.86%
PT
231
14
6.06%
T3D
91
0
0.00%
T
7728
92
1.19%
There are four main takeaways from the data:
The incidence rate of CRs is very small, at any USEA level. Varying between 0.00% and 6.06%, this means that in a typical division of, for example, 16 horses and riders, there is likely to be on average at most one compulsory retirement. In other words this rule is not affecting many horses and riders.
The USEA incidence rate of CRs is highest at the IP and PT levels.
The USEA incidence rate of CRs varies by level, and there is a slight trend in the traditional levels (i.e. non-hybrid divisions, so excluding the IP/PT/MT divisions) upward as the levels of difficulty increase (i.e. bigger jumps at the higher levels do tend to correlate with more CRs).
The incidence rate of would-be CRs at FEI levels is higher (averaging 3.55%) than the actual CRs (averaging 1.90%) at national levels. The highest would-be CRs at FEI are at the CCI1-L and CCI5-L levels. (Would-be CRs are those FEI rounds with more than 20 jumping penalties.)
The purpose of compulsory retirements (‘CRs’) is to reduce risk in the sport. While there are so many factors that can contribute to dangerous falls, the USEA determined that high incidence of refusals and rails in the show jumping phase correlate with cross country falls. Accordingly, they instituted a blanket retirement rule for horses and riders with more than 20 jumping penalties at a show.
This is a ‘per se’ rule, meaning that it is a generalized rule applied without consideration for specific circumstances. The rule is simple and objective. There is no judge who reviews your equitation or your horse’s jumping form or your ability to see a distance. There is just the blanket per se rule: 20 penalties or more, and you have a CR. There are advantages and disadvantages to a per se rule.
Is a horse that can jump with fewer than five rails safer on cross country? Photo by Shelby Allen.
On the one hand, it is transparent and objective. There is no sense that subjectivity is creeping into the enforcement of the rule. Furthermore, there is no responsibility on TDs or judges to pull aside a competitor who has had five fences down in show jumping and explain to them why they shouldn’t run cross country. The rule does it for them.
On the other hand, it may be over- or under-inclusive. In the former instance, it may capture too many horses and riders who have an uncharacteristic round and tap a few rails but would still be safe out on cross country. I know a couple of horses that are careless in show jumping but have perfect cross-country records. These horses would suffer from the rule, and for them it seems to be unfair.
But a blanket rule can be under-inclusive — that is, it may also capture too few horses and riders in the sense that perhaps five rails (20 penalties) is too high of a threshold. Four rails is a lot of rails as well—and there is an argument that some of those horses, if they are jumping poorly, should not be allowed to run cross country.
It is worth noting that in the sport of straight show jumping, you rarely see riders having five fences down, and if they do, they usually retire during the round and save their horse for another day or another class. They may realize the horse is over-faced by the size of the jumps or the atmosphere of the ring. Or they may realize that they have the wrong equipment or tack for the rideability they need in the ring.
Whatever it may be, you see show jumpers retiring more often than event riders in the show jumping ring. Perhaps this is because they only have one phase, but still, a rider should be applauded for making a good choice and admitting that today is not their or their horse’s day.
More data is required to know the effect of the CR rule on safety— for example, since the rule was enacted, have there been fewer cross country falls on average?
It is impossible to do a randomized control trial with a sport like ours, but the comparison of USEA data and FEI data may offer some answers as to whether the CR rule is really reducing risk. This would inform our ability to hypothesize about “what might have happened” in terms of accidents had the riders who got CRs in the past year been allowed to continue to cross country, which is the essence of determining whether the CR rule is doing its job.
Photo by Shelby Allen.
Finally, the CR rule may be working in a different way, which we may not see in the data: some people may have been less likely to enter an event if they suspected that they may have five or more rails. This is a deterrence effect. Events are incredibly expensive, so entering and traveling to one is made less attractive if riders think there is a high chance that they will get a CR in show jumping and thus will not be allowed to run cross country.
While we do not know how behavior has changed, exactly, it is possible that these riders either stopped eventing that particular horse or chose to run the horse at a lower level, at which their chance of succeeding in the show jumping was higher.
The purpose of the CR rule — to reduce risk in the sport of eventing — is laudable. It should be everyone’s goal to reduce risk, and there are many ways to do that. Rider responsibility, good coaching, good course design, appropriate MER requirements, proper safety equipment, and MIM technology on cross country fences are all part of the equation.
Whether the CR rule is helping to reduce risk is difficult to measure because it is partly the Robert Frost problem, which means it involves considering the road not taken. But this rule may have saved lives by prohibiting certain rider and horse pairs from going cross country. This rule may have encouraged riders to work on their show jumping, including their position and technique. This rule may have improved horsemanship. This rule may have made riders and coaches realize that a horse may be suited to a lower level, even though they had hopes and dreams that it would succeed at a higher level.
All of the effects are impossible to know, and some are only ascertainable from anecdotal evidence. The CR rule’s purpose to reduce risk deserves further analysis, but on the whole, its benefits seem to outweigh its drawbacks. What do you think of the CR rule? Is it good or bad for our sport?
Writer’s note: I am not a data whiz, and I am in law school partly because I probably was not the most naturally gifted mathematician as a child. I analyzed this data using basic average and range functions in Excel, but I would welcome any readers’ input on the data and further analysis of it. Thank you for reading!
Thinking of applying for the SEE Ever So Sweet Winter 2022 award but have questions? Want to hear about the experience straight from the participants? Then you’ll want to join the live Instagram session this Sunday, October 2 at 6 p.m. EST / 3 p.m. PST (@stridesforequality on Instagram) roundtable with all three ESS awardees! They’ll be chatting about the scholarship, the equestrian industry as a whole and deciding what paths to take, and much more. The video will be made available afterward if you can’t attend in person, but you should really make the live session if you can. You can also apply for the SEE Ever So Sweet Scholarship here if you’ve got the interest!
A Craigslist find is one of our favorite storylines, and a half-broke cart horse is a good place to start. When Angela Carter brought a 4-year-old draft horse off Craigslist, she was taking a gamble that the greenbean would someday replace her retiring lesson horse. The Ohio-based trainer never would have predicted he would carry her to all three of her USDF rider medals and vault her into social media stardom. [From TikTok to Grand Prix]
As Hurricane Ian bears down on Florida, approaching Category 5 strength, the horse-centric Ocala area is in its current path. In response, World Equestrian Center—Ocala opened its doors and now is sheltering 3,000 animals—its maximum capacity—in its sturdy cement-block barns. Almost a self-contained town, between its expansive stabling and arena complex, hotel (now also at maximum capacity with people sheltering there), veterinary hospital, restaurants and other on-site amenities, the facility best known for the many shows it hosts is temporarily home to a veritable zoo ranging from horses—minis to Clydesdales, and all sizes in between—and donkeys to a tortoise named Turbo and a kangaroo named Spanky. [WEC Opens the Doors for Hurricane Evacuees]
No hoof, no horse, ain’t that the truth. Depending on what environment your horse lives in, what their breeding is, and how they are put together, managing to keep your horses hooves healthy for years can be a challenge. Management is certainly the most key factor, and having an intelligent and creative farrier on your team is just as important. Personally, I also think patience and prioritizing health over competition goals is also integral. [3 Key Tips for Healthy Hooves]
Think about it. After a hard run or workout, what do you do to recover? Maybe you take a hot bath with epsom salts or use some muscle relief gel on the sore areas. Whatever it may be, the same concept translates to our horses. Standing wraps are an excellent way to treat, protect, support, and prevent. Whether you want to use standing wraps as added protection in the stall, while traveling, or just as a supportive compressive layer, learning how to do standing wraps can be the ultimate game changer in your horse care program. [Standing Wraps: A Necessity or Not?]
Eventers are nothing if not a community, and the folks of Ocala and their horses aren’t far from any of our minds right now as Hurricane Ian continues to move across Florida’s peninsula. In the midst of preparing her farm for the storm to come, Elisa Wallace found time to make an educational, instructional video that shares how she secures her possessions and keeps her herd safe in the face of inclement weather. (Spoiler alert: it requires a fair amount of sandbags!)
Boyd Martin debriefs with Erik Duvander at Kentucky. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
Heads up, Prelim + riders! Former US chef d’equipe Erik Duvander, who’s the primary coach for many of the country’s leading riders, is doing a whistlestop tour of the country next month, and there are still some spots remaining to ride with him in private or semi-private lesson spots. The dates and locations are as follows:
October 17-18: Summit Point, WV
October 20-21: Aiken, SC
October 23-25: Monroe, WA
October 27-28: Carmel, CA
October 29-30: Temecula, CA
Each facility is fully stocked with all you’ll need to enjoy the best lesson of your October — but slots are filling up fast, so don’t delay! Email [email protected] to book your place today.
Want a bit of inspiration to get you in the mood for your Erik lesson? We loved this Roadside Chat episode with Erik on life after USEF, the importance of teaching safety across the levels, and what he’s hoping to achieve with his October tour.
