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INTRODUCTION For more than 50 years, our equestrian athletes have represented the United States in international competition. They have distinguished themselves by winning 38 Olympic However, dedication, hard work and dreams alone, will not bring home medals. The costs to field our international teams are enormous. Training, coaching and transporting our human and equine athletes around the world, where they must go to compete against the sport's best athletes, is a daunting undertaking requiring a huge commitment of time and money. Transportation is one of our biggest logistical and financial challenges. While most of the international teams against whom we compete need only travel a few hundred miles from country to country and competition to competition, our athletes, their horses and equipment must travel thousands of miles to compete abroad. In a typical year, transportation costs can exceed $1 million for the 3 Olympic disciplines of Dressage, Eventing and Show Jumping, as well as the 4 other international disciplines of Driving, Endurance, Reining and Vaulting. The USET was founded in 1950 to fill the void created by the dissolution of the U.S. Cavalry, which had always been responsible for sending our teams into international competition. In the early days, there were only a handful of borrowed horses, ridden by a small group of riders The growth in American equestrian sports over the past 50 years has been extraordinary, and we are now poised on the threshold of new and greater accomplishments. In 2003 a historic agreement was signed between the USET and US Equestrian (formerly AHSA) creating the United States Equestrian Team Foundation and the United States Equestrian Federation - our new National Governing Body for equestrian sport. Now, instead of its historical functions of funding, training and fielding our international competitors, the USET Foundation's main role is to raise critical funds needed to assure United States competitive triumphs in the international arena. Unlike other countries, the United States does not offer any government subsidies to its equestrian teams. Funds for our athletes to participate in international equestrian competition come primarily from individuals whose love of equestrian sport motivates them to make generous charitable contributions.
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without the necessary resources to pursue success at the highest levels of our sport. Those early pioneers, whose vision launched the USET, shared a profound belief in the value of our international participation; they backed their convictions with time, energy and funds.
