The 2020 Adequan®/USDF FEI-Level Trainers Conference will be held January 20-21 at High Meadow Farm in Loxahatchee, FL. The conference will feature Anne Gribbons, FEI 5* Judge, Ashley Holzer, Olympian, Lars Petersen, Olympian, and Gary Rockwell, FEI 5* Judge. We take this opportunity to look back on a conference from 8 years ago.
The German master, Christoph Hess conducted the 2012 USDF FEI-Level Trainers Conference. Approximately 200 trainers, instructors, judges, riders, and other eligible attendees traveled to Mary Anne and Walter McPhail’s High Meadow Farm in Loxahatchee, FL, for the January 16-17 event.
Photos by Jennifer O. Bryant
Christoph Hess looks on as Jennifer Baumert rides shoulder-in aboard DeWert 
Olympian Lendon Gray (right) taught Olympian Courtney King Dye (left). Both are carefully scrutinizing Dye’s assistant trainer Jennifer Marchand, herself a student of both women, on Atomic. 
Pat and Linda Parelli with Walter and Heide Zettl 
By riding the six-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding Atomic with increased impulsion, especially into and out of transitions, Hess said, rider Jennifer Marchand made the horse more beautiful 
In a jumping saddle with shorter stirrups, Endel Ots gets out of Exodus’s way 
Caroline Roffman explains how she asks Sanskara to make a down transition to walk with just her seat aids (heavier seat, resist the following motion, engage abs for pelvic tuck) 
Patient basics encouraged Heather Bender’s mount, the Lusitano stallion Zairo Interagro, to elongate his topline and stretch to the bit 
Hess had high praise for Sharon McCusker and her Dutch Warmblood gelding, Wrigley 
Christoph Hess addresses USDF-certified instructors while certification examiner Ann Guptill looks on 
Kathie Robertson (right) presents gift bags to moderator Lendon Gray, clinician Christoph Hess, facility owner Mary Anne McPhail, and Succeed representative Lyndsey White
