USEA Instructor Certification Program

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

This has sort of been a pet peeve of mine for a while and the news of the latest certified instructor just really annoyed me. Several years ago USEA started their Instructor Certification Program. In this program (for a large fee) instructors can take a three hour course and become certified by USEA. There are several different levels that you can be certified to teach the different levels of eventing.

  • Instructors of riders through Novice
  • - Instructors of riders through Training
  • Instructors of riders through Preliminary, CIC*, Training Level Three-Day Event Test, CCI*
  • - Instructors of riders through Intermediate, CIC**, CCI**
  • - Instructors of riders through Advanced, CIC***, CCI***
  • - Instructors of riders through CCI****
Now here's the thing I have knowledge of some of the people getting this certification and based upon their own riding they should not be certified to teach anyone! There is one who was recently certified as Level I/Training. Well looking back at this individual's competition record he's not qualified to compete let alone teach someone else.
  • Beginner Novice-Eliminated on cross-country
  • Preliminary-Eliminated in stadium
  • Preliminary-Several rails and time penalties in stadium
  • Preliminary-Rider fall in stadium
  • Preliminary-Rails in stadium and time penalties on cross country
  • CCI1*-Rails in stadium and a 66.4 dressage score
  • Beginner Novice-80 penalty points on cross country
  • Intermediate-20 penalty points in stadium
  • Novice-Several rails in stadium and a refusal on cross country
  • CIC2*-Eliminated on cross country
  • Intermediate-Dressage score of 68.8, several rails in stadium and a refusal on cross country
Several eliminations and rider falls, he's lucky if he get a clean stadium round. And actually he doesn't just pull rails in stadium he crashes through fences and brings the whole thing down. That's the kind of riding that the USEA think should be teaching others?

Another ICP certified instructor from my area has a several prelim horses that she has been competing for years and she consistently has refusals on cross country. I have seen her on several occasions running horse that are lame. That's not the kind of instructor I want to be looking up to. And she's a level III instructor.

Another level IV instructor from my area. Her competition record is filled with cross country penalties, eliminations, and 2 rider falls with 2 months. Another level IV instructor has a record filled with eliminations, mandatory retirements, cross country penalties and rider falls. 3 rider falls within 6 months. Seriously people wonder why there are so many safety issues in eventing right now. Well look at the people who the governing board is certifying as good instructors! When they can't stay on horses they have been competing for years and you wonder why their students have so many falls. Wake up! This is what needs to be changed. Only the people that can afford to pay the fees can become certified. And quite frankly they are not the best examples of the instructors that are available out there. But the USEA is promoting them.

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Brief Winter Thaw

So we had a brief winter thaw, which was kinda nice. I at least was able to get some riding in. Gotta say going three weeks without riding just kills me! I started riding Miss a little bit again. She is just doing so well. Since Christmas really she has just improved dramatically. She's putting on weight (she should be considering that she's getting like 6 big cans of grain a day), her hips don't stick out so much anymore, her ribs are actually covered and she's starting to pick up those muscles across her back. And the biggest thing is she's Miss again. She's acting like herself, she's perked up and enjoying life again. We turn her out with Kaye and Naughtie and she just runs circles around them. I rode her again on Saturday. Jumped her a little bit and even tried to canter her. That part wasn't so great, but that was my fault. I've always had a hard time cantering Miss.

Rode Naughtie on Saturday as well. Tammy was going to ride her, and Bonnie had me get on first to warm her up while Tammy was working with her friend that came with her. Well Naughtie was feeling good. Had a nice little spook right off the bat where she tried to bolt and was doing some airs above the ground. She was getting very pissy with my leg, and not wanting to bend or flex. Tammy decided she was just going to ride Kaye, that she wasn't quite up to dealing with Naughtie's shenanigans. So I ended up jumping her a bit with Tammy. She was being a complete retard. Bolting after the fence and stupid stuff like that. Then Cosimo decided he wanted to be part of the jump. I yelled at him and of course he didn't move, so I just aimed her at the fence anyway. Well he got scared when we were in mid-air and took off. Spooked Naughtie and she landed bucking and tried to bolt. The good thing about all this is that I am getting a very secure seat. I even lost my stirrup when she did that, but I just sat up and didn't even let her bother me at all. My position never changed. Pretty cool.

After I finished with Naughtie I had to head home. The ICHA banquet was that night and I had to be at Nikki's a 4:20 so we could all ride together. Kelly was meeting us there also and we were all riding together in her Blazer, plus picking up Nikki's other friend Monique. Well of course nothing can ever be easy and we had some adventures just getting there. Nikki got confused about where we were picking up Monique. We ended up getting on 60 and had to do an illegal u-turn. It was fun adventures though. The banquet was fun. It was nice to see everyone. Nikki didn't end up doing enough Inter-County shows to really win anything this year. She did win the Adult Western Seat Equitation and was Reserve in the Arabian Western Pleasure. Looks like I'll be joining ICHA this year. Tom wants to see Dalal's name up there in High Point Awards.

Sunday of course I was back out to the barn. Rachel came out in the morning and I had a lesson on Miss with her and Kaye. I really am so pleased with how she's doing. Bonnie set up some cavalettis for us. They were too short for Miss! She even spread them out a bit and they were still too short. But because of Kaye we couldn't spread them anymore. We did the cavalettis for a bit and then Bonnie set up a cross-bar for us. Miss was really using herself over the fences, rounding through her back and using her head and neck. Finally the last fence Bonnie added a back rail to make it into an oxer. Miss just felt amazing over it! So proud of her!

Taryn came out later in the afternoon and we had a lesson on Bugs and Naughtie. Naughtie was much better than she had been the day before, not nearly so worked up. We did a bit of jumping. And I took her through two bounces for the first time. Pretty sure that was the first time she's ever done bounces. She wasn't real sure about it and she kept sneaking in a tiny extra stride, but she didn't hesitate and she jumped. So we were pretty pleased with her there.

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