We’ve got some bragging to do about our team this morning! Our roving reporter/photographer/wearer of all hats, Tilly Berendt, received the news last week that this photo from the Paris Olympics show jumping has been tapped as a finalist in the World Sports Photography Awards for 2025! The winners will be announced soon, but you can take a gander through the finalists across sports categories here.
You can also hear from our co-Publisher and Managing Editor, Sally Spickard, who was a guest on the most recent episode of the Major League Eventing Podcast hosted by Karen and Robby Bowersox. You can listen to the interview on your favorite podcast platform, or by clicking here.
News & Reading
With the conclusion of the 2024 competition season, the standings of the USEF Eventing Developing Horse Series are now final. The series includes divisions for 6-year-old and 7-year-old horses, and the leaderboard is determined by the average of the horses’ two best finishing scores in CCIs at levels specified by age. Meet the top finishers from 2024 here.
Could riding lesson programs be made more successful and enjoyable by introducing a tiered system of leveling up? Chronicle of the Horse blogger Sarah K. Susa tested the theory with her barn’s “Ribbon Levels Program”, which provides Atomic Habits-type scaffolding for both mounted and unmounted skills with horses across six different levels. Dive into the concept here.
A social media duel between two show jumping Olympians has made waves online this week. After Noelle Floyd reshared an old blog excerpt with Karl Cook, fellow U.S. teammate Mclain Ward took to his own socials to share a different take on Karl’s thoughts on position and effective riding. Mclain’s post went viral and the story has since been picked up by multiple media outlets. Read one take here and another here.
A good dose of empathy is required when thinking of training, riding, or competing your horse. For instance, if you were asked to go run an obstacle course today, not even an “American Ninja” level one, just something equivalent to what you ask of your horse, could you do it? How much strength and agility training would you need in order to perform on an equal level of athleticism as you require from your horse every day? While there is certainly a difference between the average weekend warrior human athlete and any seriously competitive athlete, we all can agree that the better prepared one is prior to attempting their favorite sport, the better things generally tend to turn out. Gwyneth McPherson explores this further in her latest column on Horse Nation.
Video Break
Watch Elisa Wallace work with her newest mustang, Nodin, and getting him comfortable with a staple piece of horsemanship equipment – the flag: