Wrap-up Article - USEA Annual Meeting
2007
The United States Eventing Association holds an annual
meeting each year in different venues around the country.
This year, on December 5-9, Area IX hosted it in Colorado
Springs at the luxurious Broadmoor Hotel. The exquisite
site along with the thought provoking content of the meeting
made for a truly memorable weekend.
Throughout the weekend, meetings addressed deficiencies
in the sport, which need attention and praised areas of
the sport that have progressed. As always, the sport of
eventing is an extremely dangerous and the search for
safety continues. Many of the committees have been put
place to create solutions to this problem. The main solutions
discussed at the meeting were rider responsibility, the
two-track system, the ICP program and how it can be more
of a pivotal role in regulating safety.
As concept of dangerous riding becomes more prevalent,
rider responsibility is crucial. Eric Smiley gave a great
talk about this and the audio version along with the power
point presentation will be posted on the USEA website.
Basically, riders need to take more responsibility while
they are on their horses. There is not a time at which,
while mounted, we as riders are not training our horses.
Therefore, every rider is essentially a trainer who controls
speed, preparation time, quality of jump and, most importantly,
the education it takes to execute all of these things.
Additionally, the concern with safety has led the sport
to reevaluate the jump from training to preliminary. Many
members have stressed the gap between the levels is too
great suggesting that preliminary should be softer. Instead
of reinventing the wheel, the better use of the FEI star
system and the national horse trials has been proposed.
Currently, most preliminary and CIC* courses; and intermediate
and CIC** courses are similar if not the same creating
an unfair disadvantage for those green preliminary horses
and riders. The FEI is going to make the training level
half-star a one-star, which would generate a five-star
system. This could potentially yield to half steps between
training to one-star, one-star to preliminary, preliminary
to two-star, and so on. In order to make this system effective,
it will be up to course designers to follow guidelines
to make sure that each course has components pertinent
to each level without "over-building" the course.
Lastly, the Instructors Certification Program is a relatively
new program that was put in place to help standardize
the level of instruction being given in the sport. As
it grows, many additional programs are using ICP as the
qualification for instructors; for example, the developing
riders instructor has to be ICP certified - level four.
There are some ideas that the coach for Young Riders by
2010 might have to be a level four instructor as well.
Although there are many concerns about the program and
its ability to effectively evaluate how well the certified
instructors actually teach, the program continues to progress
in members and responsibility.
To conclude, the week in Colorado Springs at the snow-glistening,
five-star Broadmoor Hotel was fabulous in its setting
and stimulating in its content. Area IX produced a fantastic,
well-attended meeting. Once solved, the concepts - rider
responsibility, the two-track system, and the ICP program
- addressed at the meeting will better the sport and members
of eventing tremendously.
