Gladstone, NJ—February 10, 2004— U.S. Equestrian will host 16 of the nation’s best vaulters at a training camp to be held at Riekes Center for Human Enhancement in Menlo Park, CA on February 14 and at Garrod Farms in Saratoga, CA on February 15.

This training camp is the vaulters’ last chance before the Selection Trials for the 2004 World Championships to focus on maximizing performance through specific instruction on vaulting technique. The vaulters will also be working with the strength and conditioning coaches at the Riekes Center. This is their third visit this season to the Riekes Center to work with their expert coaches. Vaulters will receive private lessons on choreography, kur content, and performance presentation. Auditors are welcome.

The vaulters selected for this camp come from as far as Tennessee. Local vaulters include Pam Geisler of Woodside, CA; Mari Inouye of Palo Alto, CA; Megan Benjamin of Saratoga, CA; Alexis Garrod of Saratoga, CA; Samantha Smith of Saratoga, CA; and Devon Maitozo of Palo Alto, CA, who won the individual Bronze Medal in the Men’s Division of the 2002 World Equestrian Games in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain.

The clinicians for the training camps will include such leaders of the sport as J. Ashton Moore, Adrienne Stang, Karen Hutton, Kerith Lemon, and Isabelle Bibbler Parker.

U.S. Equestrian, as the National Equestrian Federation of the U.S., is the regulatory body for the Olympic and World Championship sports of dressage, driving, endurance, eventing, reining, show jumping, and vaulting, as well as 19 other breeds and disciplines of equestrian competition. As the country’s largest multi-breed organization, the Federation has over 80,000 members and recognizes more than 2,800 competitions nationwide each year. It governs all aspects of competition, including educating and licensing all judges, stewards, and technical delegates who officiate at these shows.

The vision of U.S. Equestrian is to provide leadership for equestrian sport in the United States of America, promoting the pursuit of excellence from the grass roots to the Olympic Games, based on a foundation of fair, safe competition and the welfare of its horses, and embracing this vision, to be the best national equestrian federation in the world.

For more information about the Vaulting Training Camps, please contact Sara Ike as sara.ike@usef.org. For more information about vaulting, please visit www.americanvaulting.org.

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