Equestrian sport industry leaders and stakeholders gathered in Lexington, Kentucky, from January 23-25, 2025, for the US Equestrian Annual Meeting. Educational and informational sessions and award dinners allowed attendees to partake in activities aligning with the theme of It’s All About the Horse. Horse welfare was a central focus of the meeting as US Equestrian reviewed 2024 and looked ahead to 2025. Check out the highlights below from the 2025 US Equestrian Annual Meeting to learn from insights of David O’Connor, Beezie Madden, Katherine Bateson-Chandler and more influential voices.

Thursday, January 23

Pictures (and videos) say 1,000 words—and they all matter. Viral news, social license and the importance of communications.

Sarah Hamilton, an experienced communication professional with Avoq, presented a session focused on social license to operate and how it impacts equestrian sport. She stressed the importance of trust between the horse industry and the public, especially when it comes to the welfare of horses—living, breathing, sentient beings who are not simply a piece of sporting equipment.

“It only takes one—one video or photo of something awful—whipping a horse over their head, a horse bleeding from its mouth, a horse collapsing—for all of this (numerous happy videos and photos of horses and riders) to erode,” said Hamilton.

She cautioned that the equestrian sport could lose its social license to operate if it doesn’t act responsibly, establish rules for the safety of horses and riders and respond quickly, authentically and with humanity during crisis situations.

“You are all part of this community. You all have a stake in equestrian sport as a whole. You are audience number one when something happens,” said Hamilton. “You all are the first line of defense because you are also the first line of advocates. You are the ones within the sport.”

Hamilton said it is important to engage with the public when the raise concerns about the sport, but that organizations need to have their houses in order before adversity arises.

Biosecurity and Medications: From Pharmacology to Microchips

Katie Flynn, BVMS, US Equestrian Senior Veterinarian of Equine Health and Biosecurity, began the session by reminding attendees of the microchip rule, which requires all horses competing in USEF-licensed or -endorsed competitions to be microchipped with a 15-digit ISO compliant 11784/11785 chip, that goes into effect December 1, 2025. She also pointed out the microchips will not migrate if they properly implantated in the left nuchal ligament, but they can migrate lower down or higher up along the neck if they are implanted at an angle or subcutaneously. Flynn and her assistant performed an observational study on microchip placement and readability on 469 horses that showed 63.97% microchips are placed at a normal location in horse’s necks and 79.32% microchips were easily read.

Stephen Schumacher, DVM, PhD, US Equestrian Chief Veterinary Officer, continued the session by discussing pharmacology, the study of the mechanisms by which drugs alter the biological systems to improve health, versus toxicology, the study of mechanisms by which drugs and chemicals produce unwanted effects. He cautioned horse caregivers against exceeding recommended dosage of drugs and medications because it can lead to toxicity, which can be life-threatening in some cases. Schumacher went on to quote the Swiss physician Paracelsus, who said, “All drugs are poison, it is just a matter of dose.” He added that regulatory limits are not random and have been thoroughly determined using pharmacology and toxicology.

It’s All About the Horse: What Does Horse Welfare Mean to You?

US Equestrian Chief of Sport David O’Connor began discussions focused on the theme of the annual meeting. He reminded attendees that if the public is concerned about one aspect of equestrian sport then it can affect all of equestrian sport and that public opinion holds weight in terms of social license to operate. O’Connor pointed out that engaging with the public and not dismissing their concerns is important for the future of the sport.

“It is too easy to say that the pubic just needs to be educated. The issue is that the 90% develops their opinions based on emotive concepts rather than logical concepts,” said O’Connor. “We need to have, out in the public sphere, stories about our horses—fact-based stories that support and promote the acceptable care of our horses and demonstrate ow our interactions enhance their well-being. Stories that all breeds and disciplines have that are strong and individual.”

Next, O’Connor had a panel of top equestrians share their stories of training situations where they had to think outside the box. Beezie Madden, U.S. jumper and two-time Olympic gold medalist, shared how she used clicker training to help a young Judgement ISF deal with his fear of water jumps. She felt she was setting up the horse for success by starting out easy and using the clicker as a bridge to reward the horse in the moment when he did something correct. Judgement ISF went on to great success with Madden, competing at the 2002 FEI World Equestrian Games™, two FEI Jumping World Cup™ Finals and numerous Nations Cups.

Katherine Bateson-Chandler started riding a Grand Prix horse that had a lot of tension and would explode in the competition arena. She turned to ground work to get the mare to think differently and took over the day-to-day care of the mare to build their partnership. In time, Bateson-Chandler had a more relaxed, confident horse who competed at CHIO Rotterdam in the Netherlands, an event with an electric atmosphere.

Dana Glass, horseman and husband of U.S. dressage rider and Olympic bronze medalist Kasey Perry-Glass, started his training journey as a cowboy starting horses on ranches out west. He had a lightbulb moment after seeing a Ray Hunt Colt Starting event where the horses were treated with softness. When working with horses, Glass finds that they don’t often know how to problem solve based on previous, anxiety-inducing training they have had in the past.

“You gather a mindset about something that way, and until you actually dive in and try something new and let the horse think with you, you really limit yourself in all this,” Glass said of different ways of training horses.

O’Connor shared how a 20-minute lesson with horseman Gene Lewis changed his point of view on training with the use of ground work. Per Lewis’s suggestion, O’Connor put horses in a rope halter on a line to let them figure out jumping issues without a rider. He now jumps all horses learning how to jump or jump new fences on a line and sees horses hunting for the fences in what has a game of solving puzzles for the horses. O’Connor said he believes it makes the competitive side of the sport easier with other tools without taking away from classical way of doing things.

The panelists discussed rewarding horses for each effort made during training, consistency in how you communicate with your horse and how good training practices positively affect the sport’s social license to operate. The session ended with Keith Dane, senior director of equine protection for The Humane Society of the United States, reviewing updates to the Horse Protection Act, which mainly affect Tennessee Walking Horse and racking horse breeds.

Pegasus Awards

The evening’s festivities honored equestrians who achieved great results in competition and industry leaders who made significant contributions to the sport. The USEF Lifetime Achievement Award went to Olympian Lendon Gray, whose competitive accolades and contributions to U.S. dressage through her Dressage4Kids organization are noted in the industry. U.S. eventing Olympian Liz Halliday was named the International Equestrian of the Year, while hunter rider/trainer Nick Haness was the National Equestrian of the Year.

Friday, January 24

It’s All About the Horse: What Does Horse Welfare Mean to Our Industry?

Groups from various breed and discipline affiliates shared the steps that they have taken to address horse welfare. Actions ranged from updating horse welfare statements, having trainers-only meetings at major competitions, listening to the membership’s concerns about cheating and much more. While several groups have found their memberships to receptive to change, it has required a culture shift that is still in the works.

“When you talk about changing a culture, it is multi-faceted. There is not one way to change a culture. It does take a tremendous amount of time. The side of the responsibility from the USEF, from the rules side, there is one side of it. Talking to trainers, that is another side of it,” said O’Connor. “I think all of us who are sitting here in this room, we know that the culture is shifting.”

Some people in the group mentioned that horse welfare rules need to be in place that would make bad actors in the industry change their ways. Another comment pointed out that, unlike some other professions in the U.S., trainers aren’t required to be licensed. O’Connor concluded the session by sharing that USEF hopes to provide horse welfare tools and resources to its membership and to support affiliate organizations as they connect with their membership.

General Session

US Equestrian President Tom O’Mara and US Equestrian Chief Executive Officer Bill Moroney gave a 2024 progress report, recounted the U.S. successes at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games and shared the 2025-2028 strategic plan for US Equestrian. Additionally, U.S. Para-Dressage Coach Michel Assouline gave an overview of his seven-year plan that developed the U.S. Para-Dressage Team to finish atop the podium in Paris.

“The best rider or horse trainer cannot create success alone. They have to create success with the horse. You can’t really make the horse do exactly what you want when you want; the horse has to want to play. And they do. We need to adapt and play with them the way they want us to play,” said O’Mara. “Our industry is completely dependent on this horse. It is the reason that you are all here today and the reason that we are all drawn to this sport. It is not a basketball, it’s not a tennis racket, it’s not a golf club, it’s the horse.”

While giving the 2024 progress report, O’Mara and Moroney explained how US Equestrian worked on each of its goals for the year:

• Proactively address social license and sustainability
• Grow participation and fan engagement
• Create visibility and value through new media partnerships and products
• Maximize data insights, efficiencies and impact
• Protect and develop horse and human athletes
• Deliver excellence on the field of play

In terms of excellence on the field of play, Assouline shared his seven-year plan that revamped the U.S. para-dressage program into a powerhouse team on the world stage. The midway point was the medal success at the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games and the 2022 FEI World Championships. The strategy for Paris was four years of goal setting with both tactical plans, looking at key events to attend each year, and training plans with focused training, educational workshops and team-bonding activities. Assouline stressed the importance of team cohesion and being prepared to handle conflict management to set up everyone for success.

The General Session wrapped up with O’Mara and Moroney sharing the five goals—and associated initiatives for each one—of the 2025-2028 strategic plan:

• Strengthen operational excellence
• Sustain the framework of organized sport
• Focus on competitive excellence, sport pathways and resources to athletes
• Invest in BIG (Business Innovation Group) initiatives, new products and benefits
• Leverage the diverse stories of horses & humans

Harnessing Potential: Building Systems to Support Equestrian Coach Development & Athlete Development

Cam Kiosoglous, PhD, assistant professor at Drexel University and long-time US Rowing National Team and Olympic coach, shared the importance of developing better coaches for the betterment of any sport, including equestrian sport. He explained that harnessing potential involved:

• Bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be
• Identifying strengths and highlighting area of development
• Goal setting
• Identifying challenges and ways to overcome them
• Creating an environment of continuous learning
• Evaluating progress and adjusting strategies as needed

“Positive experiences in sport begin with quality coaching,” said Kiosoglous.

Resources are available at the United States Center for Coaching Excellence, which is a national non-profit organization dedicated to elevating and enhancing the professions of sport coaching, coach education and coach development. Kiosoglous noted that better coaching development systems lead to better coaches, which lead to better athlete experiences and outcomes. He explained that coach learning needs to consider adult learning principles, which involve the individual being problem-oriented, internally motivated, ready to learn and self-directed have experience, internally motivated, ready to learn self-directed and have experience.

Measuring Media Success from Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games

Carly Weilminster, US Equestrian Senior Director of Sport Communications and Social Media, and Hallye Griffin, US Equestrian Director of FEI Sports, shared the media content and successes that came out of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Weilminster and her staff did pre-games coverage and created original content to build the hype for the US equestrian teams in the lead-up to Paris. Onsite, they were able to get behind-the-scenes access to share the sport with social media followers and maximizing medal moments with unique coverage and graphics packages.

“This year we had a real focus on graphics that emulate what we see in the NBA, NFL, and NHL when you have people who are scoring goals or breaking records,” said Weilminster. “I think it is important that we start to take ourselves a little bit more seriously in that aspect of finding what other sports are doing and integrating that in how we present our sport.”

The most notable moment for equestrian sport came from Snopp Dogg and Martha Stewart’s visit to Versailles to watch dressage and meet U.S. equestrian team riders and horses. It was a large undertaking with production, security and access considerations, but it turned out be a positive, mainstream spotlight on equestrian sport.

“We attended the FEI General Assembly back in November of 2024, and one of the highlights that they gave from Paris showing the media coverage was there were two times when engagement soared,” said Griffin. “The first time was around the Charlotte Dujardin video that came out, and it was a very high engagement but, obviously, very negative for the sport. The next time was the Snoop Dogg-Martha Stewart visit to the venue, which, obviously, had very positive engagement, and we hope helped cancel out the negative.”

Additionally, US Equestrian was able to engage new audiences, have unprecedented collaboration with numerous news outlets and tally impressive social media analytics across their platforms.

Saturday, January 25, 2025

US Equestrian Board of Directors Meeting

The board of directors started the meeting by hearing from EquiRatings and Black Horse One GmbH about their products that use data and analytics with the aim of helping grow the sport. US Equestrian staff reviewed internal projects: EZ Entry System powered by USEF and US Equestrian app. EZ Entry System powered by USEF is a competition entry and management software that will have a free base software available to USEF-licensed competitions starting in the 2026 competition year. The US Equestrian app is a rebrand and combination of the USEF Wallet and USEF Rulebook apps with expanded features to start rolling out in March 2025.

The other business that the board of directors covered during the meeting ranged from the financial report to proposed rule changes. US Equestrian had a strong fiscal year in 2024, being in a good place financially and with their investments. The board amended the organization’s bylaws to make clear its stance on horse welfare and approved several proposed rule changes addressing the safety of both horses and riders. Arguably the most notable rule change is GR 414.8, which prohibits to use and/or possession of a list of questionable substances on competition grounds, including injectable formaldehyde and injectable pentobarbital (with the exception of veterinarian for the purpose of euthanasia).

SmartPak/USEF Horse of the Year Awards

The annual meeting closed out with the SmartPak/USEF Horse of the Year Awards to honor US Equestrian members and their achievements with their horses during the 2024 competition year. The evening also recognizes Horses of Honor, who were nominated and voted on to receive the night’s biggest awards. Caracole de la Roque, U.S. jumping team horse for Karl Cook at the Paris Olympic Games, was crowned the International Horse of the Year. McQueen, the winner of numerous performance hunter and amateur owner hunter classes in 2024, was named the National Horse of the Year.