The Rating Nobody Requires: Equestrian Helmet Safety
In 2023, the FEI's own Helmet Working Group found that every accepted helmet standard tests the wrong kind of force. Three years and a tightened certification list later, not one...
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The Pressure Point: What Girth Resistance Really Means
New biomechanics research shows a tighter girth shifts saddle pressure toward a horse's shoulder, and a UC Davis retrospective found gastric ulcers behind most cases of chronic girth resistance investigated...
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USEF's Safety Stirrup Rule: The Grace Period Ends
In twelve weeks, U.S. Equestrian moves from warning riders about noncompliant stirrups to penalizing them. The rule an advocate proposed in writing back in 2024 is now close to full...
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No Stamp of Approval: FEI's New Tack Rule System
Beginning February 1, 2027, the rules governing tack and equipment in FEI show jumping leave the printed rulebook for a database the federation updates monthly. The same system already runs...
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Nine a Week: The FEI's New Blood Rule, Six Months In
In November 2025, FEI member nations voted to stop eliminating show jumpers automatically for blood on the horse and start issuing warnings instead. Six months of the federation's own numbers...
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The Company Line: Equestrian Media Consolidation
One company has spent the past year acquiring the two most-cited English-language outlets covering international show jumping — and it also organizes FEI competitions of its own. What that concentration...
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The Headcount: America's Equine Data Gap
The USDA just launched its first equine population study in eleven years. What it reveals about how America tracks its own horse industry — and what a $177 billion economy...
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The 28 Markers: Warmblood Genomics and Sport Horse Aptitude
A 2026 study from University College Dublin identifies 28 genetic markers that predict whether a warmblood is built for jumping or dressage with 80 percent accuracy. The sport horse world's...
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Losing the Room: The Data Behind Equestrian Sport's Eroding Support
Nearly one in four members of the British public now says they do not support horse sport under any circumstances -- a figure that has risen steadily since polling began...
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Numb: Why the FEI's Neurectomy Vote Should Matter to Every Sport Horse Owner
The FEI will vote in December on whether to explicitly ban neurectomized horses from international competition. The science on palmar digital neurectomy is clear -- and the gap between what's...
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The Unmonitored Horse: What Sensors See That Feel Cannot
Racing's landmark AAEP study proved that wearable sensors can predict musculoskeletal injuries before they happen. The technology is commercially available, USEF permits it in competition, and a study of elite...
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The Price of Entry: Show Costs and the Consolidation of the Sport
In 2026, USEF raised federation fees by an average of 44 percent. New tariffs landed on imported tack and leather goods. Regional shows are folding. The price of entry is...
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Built to Break: What Two Decades of Cross-Country Safety Research Has Solved
Two riders died in cross-country accidents on the same day in July. What two decades of safety research shows about the risks that engineering has reduced, and the ones it...
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The Missing Scan: Cardiac Screening in Sport Horses
New research reveals that cardiac arrhythmias are present in one-third of sport-horse workouts -- and that a sixty-second ECG during warm-up could identify horses at risk of sudden death. The...
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The Red Line: Blood Rules and the Standard We Set
At the World Championships in Aachen, two dressage combinations were eliminated under the blood rule. Days later, at the same venue, the show jumping competition operated under a new graduated-warning...
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The Blind Spot: The Equine Industry's 11 Year Data Gap
The USDA's NAHMS Equine 2026 Study -- the first comprehensive national assessment of equine health and management in eleven years -- is now under way across all fifty states. For...
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The Silent Strain: The Sport Horse's Most Vulnerable Structure
The suspensory ligament is the sport horse's most common career-threatening soft-tissue structure -- and a 2025 review from the Royal Veterinary College calls it "injury prone yet understudied." A 2020...
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The Long Game: Five Rounds, Eight Years, One World Title
Steve Guerdat and Dynamix de Belheme's five faultless rounds at the 2026 World Championship in Aachen are not just a result. They are an argument -- for patience, for partnership,...
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Who Answers the Call: The Equine Veterinary Shortage
The equine veterinary profession is losing its people faster than it can replace them. Two new studies -- one American, one British -- document why. For sport horse owners, the...
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The Handy Round: What the Hunter Derby Reveals About Partnership
The USHJA International Hunter Derby Championship just crowned its 2026 winner. The real story is what the format asks of horses -- and what the rest of the ring still...
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The Same Ground: Four Women in the Top Ten at Aachen
Four women occupy the individual top ten at the FEI Jumping World Championship in Aachen -- the same ground where Gail Greenough became the first female champion forty years ago....
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The Other Engine: Gut Microbiome and Sport Horse Performance
Your sport horse's hindgut contains billions of bacteria that produce as much as seventy percent of its energy. New research published in the Nature portfolio has identified a direct link...
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The Cooling Problem: Heat Stress Science for Sport Horses
Most of what riders practise at the wash rack after a hot-weather class is wrong. The scraping myth, the cold-water fear, the electrolyte afterthought -- all of it contradicted by...
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The Proving Ground: US Show Jumping at Aachen 2026
The US show jumping team arrives at Aachen for the 2026 World Championships ranked first in the world, already qualified for LA28, and facing a defending champion. The ranking says...
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Fit to Compete: The FEI's Pergolide Question
The FEI will vote this December on whether horses with Cushing's disease can compete on pergolide -- the only approved treatment for the most common endocrine disorder in aging horses....
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Sport Horse Aftercare: Why the Show World Has No Safety Net
Racing built an entire aftercare industry under public pressure. The show world, facing the same scrutiny, built almost nothing. For the hunter or jumper who ages out of the ring,...
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What the Radiograph Cannot Promise: The Snapshot and the Verdict
The pre-purchase examination was designed as a clinical snapshot. The sport horse market has turned it into a verdict - and the science shows why that distinction matters.
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Below the Brim: What Helmets Don't Fix
The equestrian industry has spent a decade marketing helmet technology as the answer to rider concussion risk. A 2025 study of 357 collegiate riders found no significant difference in head...
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The Nerve in Question: Inside the FEI's Veterinary Rules Overhaul
The FEI is rewriting its veterinary rulebook. At the centre of the revision are proposals on neurectomy, pergolide, and ice before inspections -- each asking the same question the sport...
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Beyond the Morning Syringe: Equine Ulcer Treatment Is Finally Changing
In 2026, two developments began to reshape a treatment landscape that has not changed in nearly three decades: the first FDA-approved generic omeprazole for horses, and a UC Davis study...
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What to Wear to a Horse Show: The Complete Hunter/Jumper Attire Guide
The seven pieces of a correct show turnout, broken down ring by ring — from breeches and coat to boots, helmet, and everything in between.
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One Sport, Two Standards: Inside the FEI's Blood Rule Divide
At the same General Assembly, the FEI tightened blood rules in dressage and loosened them in show jumping. Seven months in, the consequences are still unfolding -- and the sport's...
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One Rail: The Aga Khan Nations Cup at 100
The Aga Khan Nations Cup turned 100 in Dublin. Cian O'Connor's four faults in the final round handed the centenary trophy to the United States. But the real story is...
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Fifty-Nine Out of Sixty: The Suspensory Ligament Gap
A 2020 study found subclinical suspensory ligament abnormalities in 59 of 60 elite showjumping warmbloods. A 2025 review from the Royal Veterinary College calls the structure "injury prone yet understudied."...
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Eleven Years of Silence: The NAHMS Equine 2026 Study
The USDA just launched the first national equine health study in eleven years. The data it collects will shape veterinary policy, biosecurity guidelines, and competition regulations for a decade. If...
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Three Percent: Where Your Show Fees Actually Go
USEF raised its membership fees for the first time in eight years. The debate that followed missed the point entirely. The real cost crisis in hunter/jumper competition has nothing to...
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Seven Slots: Aachen 2026 and the Road to LA 2028
On 11 August, fifty-nine nations will send their show-jumping teams to Aachen for the FEI World Championships -- the first and largest qualifying event for the LA 2028 Olympics. Seven...
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The Three-Hundred-Million-Dollar Bet: The PJL and Show Jumping
On 30 March 2026, a consortium backed by Frank McCourt announced the Premier Jumping League -- a global show-jumping series guaranteeing three hundred million dollars in prize money across its...
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The Threshold No One Set: Heat and the American Show Ring
When the AAEP heat index exceeds 180 -- the level at which a horse's evaporative cooling can no longer keep pace -- US Equestrian recommends cancellation but requires nothing. The...
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One in Four: The Survey the Sport Cannot Ignore
One in four UK adults now opposes the involvement of horses in sport under any circumstances -- the highest figure in the five-year history of the World Horse Welfare annual...
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The Line Just Moved: USEF Cetirizine and Drug Rule Changes
US Equestrian reclassified cetirizine -- the common equine antihistamine sold as Zyrtec -- from prohibited to permitted, effective immediately. In the same regulatory season, the federation's new horse suspension rule...
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The Ground Beneath the Jump: What Footing Research Found
The hunter/jumper industry treats arena footing as a purchasing decision -- dirt versus synthetic, sand versus wax-coated fibre. The most rigorous footing research programme in equine sport, at the University...
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Two Rules for Blood: The FEI's Welfare Contradiction
At the FEI General Assembly in November 2025, the governing body voted to loosen blood rules in show jumping and tighten them in dressage -- in the same rules cycle....
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The Horse That Stayed: What Vermento's Third Gold Cup Says
On Saturday at Hickstead, a thirteen-year-old homebred stallion won the King George V Gold Cup for the third time -- something no horse had done since 1953. What Vermento's achievement...
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FEI Neurectomy Rule: What It Means for Your Navicular Horse
The FEI is preparing to close the loopholes in its neurectomy rule before the November General Assembly vote. For the owner of a warmblood just diagnosed with navicular syndrome, the...
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Equine Overuse: Why the Sport Still Won't Set a Limit
A year after US Equestrian defined equine overuse, the sport still hasn't attached a number to it. The 2026 rule cycle is where that finally gets tested — and the load science on tendons and training has already made the case.
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New World Screwworm: What It Means for Show Horses Now
For the first time in nearly sixty years, screwworm is back on American soil, and US Equestrian now inspects horses for wounds before they reach the stabling aisle. The show...
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Wearable Sensors: What Racing Proved, Sport Horses Bought
Racing just ran the first rigorous test of whether a wearable sensor can see an injury coming — and the answer, in Thoroughbreds, is genuinely yes. The same devices are already on jumpers' boots, sold on that borrowed proof. The distance between the two is the whole story.
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The Twenty-Three-Hour Horse: What Confinement Costs
The competition horse works for an hour and stands for the other twenty-three. We treat that as normal because it is universal. The research now available asks whether universal and...
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The Chromatic Fund: What $200K Actually Buys
In 2026, USEF and a bootmaker funded the second round of a research program named for a horse who died after a team veterinarian medicated him without asking anyone who knew him. What that money actually studies, and the harder question it was never built to answer.
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