VideoAs the show season is winding down, educational opportunities are picking up for riders to hone their skills during the fall and winter months. From Nov. 5-8, two educational events were hosted by the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association in the heart of the Bluegrass at Midway University in Midway, Kentucky.
The 2026 MZ Farms/USHJA Emerging Athletes Program (EAP) National Training Session was led by riding clinician Joe Fargis and stable management clinicians Colleen Reed and Jennifer Fessler. In addition to observing riding abilities throughout the week, the USHJA EAP Committee also assessed the participants’ horsemanship, sportsmanship, stable management, professionalism, and interactions with the horses.
“The Emerging Athletes program was developed to open eyes and open doors,” said Amy Center, chair of the USHJA EAP Committee. “The goal is to spread the classical seat education, forward seat riding, as well as maintain the importance of stable management and proper horse care and get that out to the youth and keep that going—that tradition going, that education going.”
At the conclusion of the weekend, Reese Dorsey of Zone 3 took home the champion title, joining a list of past champions that includes Jacob Pope, Cathleen Driscoll and many more.
Run in conjunction with the EAP National Training Session, the 2026 USHJA Horsemanship Quiz Challenge Nationals presented by East West Equine Sports Medicine tested the horsemanship knowledge of participants from across the country. A written exam, a horsemastership/identification exam, and a final practicum were used to determine the placings, and Taya Wykert of Zone 10 was ultimately named the champion.
Practical Horseman got a chance to follow along for a day at the EAP National Training Session. We soaked up some insights while experts shared their knowledge with the next generation of equestrians.
5 Things We Learned
1. Start and Finish Your Ride the Same Way—With a Calm, Relaxed Horse
Participants had the opportunity to ride with two-time Olympic gold medalist Joe Fargis in daily riding sessions. In the first session, Fargis encouraged the riders to start and finish their rides with a calm, relaxed horse. To start off, he had the pairs walk through a “tunnel” of four sets of poles placed along the quarter line on one side of the arena. Riders were instructed to walk their horses through the poles on a loose rein.
“Let the horses start loose and end loose, before they work and after they work,” Fargis said. “You want them to be totally comfortable with what we do.”
After going through the poles on a loose rein a few times each direction, riders picked up contact and worked walk-trot then trot-canter transitions at different points along the tunnel as they went back and forth through the exercise.
Next, participants went through a grid at a walk to allow their horses to become familiar with the setup. The grid was gradually built to consist of three trot poles, a bounce, a one-stride combination, and a two-stride combination. As the session was coming to an end, Fargis deconstructed the exercise to be only the trot poles and bounce then down to simply poles on the ground. The riders again walked their horses through the grid to finish with calm, relaxed horses.
“Pet the horses, walk over the rails and say, ‘thank you’ [to the horses],” Fargis said.
2. Don’t Worry About a Mistake
As participants were going through the grid with their mounts—unfamiliar, borrowed horses for the weekend—during their riding session with Joe Fargis, there were occasional rails or refusals. But Fargis wasn’t concerned about less-than-ideal moments.
“Don’t worry about the mistake; just try again, alright? It’s not a big deal. Just breath,” Fargis said. “You worked it out. Don’t feel bad if you make a mistake; we’ve all made mistakes.”
He had the riders simply come through the grid again with their horses, making whatever minor adjustment was needed for a smoother ride. Without a fuss or a big correction, the pairs always seemed to sail back through the exercise after the momentary blip.
3. Be Smart When It Comes to Feeding Ulcer-Prone Horses
The EAP participants had a chance to review their stable management knowledge with stable management clinicians Colleen Reed and Jennifer Fessler. Reed was a longtime groom with Beacon Hill Show Stables as well as Emerson Burr and Leslie Burr Howard, while Fessler is a professional trainer who emphasizes horsemanship with her students.
During one stable management session, Reed and Fessler walked participants through the equine digestive tract and the problems that can develop along it. Among the issues the group covered were gastric ulcers, which Reed noted the horse industry understands far better today than in the past, when clinical signs could have been mistaken for behavioral issues.
“If you have a horse that is behavioral due to ulcers, and you take them out there to the ring on an empty stomach, and all those juices are sloshing around, you’re getting the behavior because they’re ticked off from the ulcers,” Reed said.
Reed encouraged participants to be smart and feed accordingly to help horses who are prone to gastric ulcers.
“Something to think about that when you’re planning your day with your horse, if your horse has ulcers or is prone to ulcers, keep them with constant access to water and roughage,” Reed said. “You don’t bulk them up with grains [before you ride] because that’s too much. If you eat a piece of cheesecake and then go out and try to run a marathon, you’re going to feel gross, you know?”
4. Fitting a Loose-Ring Snaffle Versus Fixed-Cheek Bits
Michelle Ryan-Schwartz of Herm Sprenger gave a Bit Fit 101 presentation to participants, and she made a point of discussing the difference between fitting a loose-ring snaffle versus any other kind of fixed-cheek bit. For loose-ring snaffles only, the horse’s lips shouldn’t be touching the sides of the bit to avoid pinching.
“When you measure a loose-ring bit, you should be measuring from the hole where the ring goes through, closest to the horse’s mouth to the other side. Not from ring to ring, but from edge of the hole to the edge of the hole,” Ryan-Schwartz said. “You should roughly have a pinky’s width between your horse’s lip and that ring.”
Conversely, bits with a fixed cheek should be flush against the horse’s lips. Measurement for these bits differs as well.
“When you measure anything that’s a fixed cheek, you truly measure from where the bend is in a bit to where the bend is in the bit,” Ryan-Schwartz said. “You measure from inside edge to inside edge, and the horse’s cheek should sit comfortably against it.”
5. You Can Check out a Mini EAP Clinic
While participating in an EAP National or Regional Training Session is a great thing to strive for, you can get your feet wet by checking out a Mini EAP Clinic. You may be able to find a clinic in your area or host one at your barn by purchasing a clinic kit.
“There’s a teacher’s guide that comes with it so that this education is continuing to get spread around the country, both in the barn and in the ring. The vocabulary words, the riding theories, all of it will be right there in front of the instructor as well as the kids,” Center said. “It’s done in a way that you can keep it for the short-stirrup kids or bump it up for the big kids or the adult amateurs. It’s a lot of fun, and education is important. We’re always, always learning.”
For More:
Find out more about the Emerging Athletes Program here and the Horsemanship Quiz Challenge here.
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