The U.S. Equestrian Federation’s top honor is the Lifetime Achievement Award, and no one epitomizes the meaning of that phrase more than Sally Ike. The Tewksbury resident, who has been a steward, judge and course designer, also served equestrian sport in so many more ways after she stopped eventing at the top level.
Starting with being district commissioner of the Somerset Hills Pony Club, then working as the director of show jumping, eventing and vaulting for the U.S. Equestrian Team, she went on to be managing director of show jumping for the USEF, where she eventually held the post of managing director of licensed officials and education. Although she retired from the USEF in September, she continues working with the organization on compliance matters. To read more about Sally, click on this link .
Her trophy will be presented during a virtual awards ceremony on Jan. 16. Other awards to be announced then include International Equestrian of the Year, International Horse of the Year, National Horse of the Year and National Equestrian of the Year. Members can vote for their choices in several categories, but not for International Equestrian of the Year, because the name of show jumper Kent Farrington was the only one submitted. While he’s certainly worthy, why aren’t there any other candidates from the Olympic disciplines?
Kent Farrington and Gazelle. (Photo © 2020 by Nancy Jaffer)
“Nominees for the William C. Steinkraus Trophy are put forward by each of the discipline affiliates and Kent was the only nomination we received this year,” a USEF spokesperson said.
The announcement of nominees came out Dec. 16, and voting continues through Jan. 2.
Liz Halliday-Sharp, the first woman to become U.S. Eventing’s Rider of the Year since 1981, would seem a possibility in that discipline. Ditto Boyd Martin, who took the 4-star-Long national championship on Tsetserleg in Tryon, N.C.
But as USEA CEO Rob Burk explained, “Unfortunately, the USEF requires all nominations for the Equestrian of Honor or the Horse of the Year to be submitted by November 9. The USEA Rider of the Year came down to the very last event of the year from a points perspective and our season ends on November 30th. Our season was still quite active as of November. When the USEF reached out to us in October, we were not yet prepared to submit an annual Horse or Rider nomination; however we indicated that we were interested in submitting nominees for those awards once the season was closer to a conclusion. Once the Tryon CCI-4*L (November 11-15) was completed, we reached out again to the USEF but they indicated that the nominations were closed at that time. So unfortunately for us, the timing of the USEF award prevented submissions.
Another international discipline, dressage, saw limited FEI competition between March and the end of the season, but Adequan®/USDF Grand Prix Horse of the Year Suppenkasper was undefeated in 15 starts this year, under the guidance of Steffen Peters. His final victory came Nov. 22 in the Thermal Desert Dressage CDI3* Grand Prix Special.
USDF President Lisa Gorretta said USEF’s timeline on nominations was “earlier than we were prepared for” and therefore no name was submitted.
The USEF spokesperson said the organization is aware of the situation. It’s too late now to do anything about it for 2020, she explained, but noted, “we’ve discussed this internally with our team and it is something we plan to address with the affiliates for the 2021 awards nominations process, since it’s the first time we’ve heard that feedback from them. We want as many athletes represented as possible, so we will try to improve this process next year to be sure everyone has enough time to submit nominees, particularly on the international side.”
For details about the lineup of awards contenders on which members can vote, go to this link
(Updated December 23, 2020)