USA seeks new dressage coach

USEF Dressage Coach Klaus Balkenhol, 68, resigned as American team trainer towards the end of last year.  According to the U.S. Equestrian Federation, it was a mutual decision that Balkenhol's contract would not be renewed on its expiry at the end of 2008.

Balkenhol coached the US team to great success during the past eight years, including Gold at both the 2003 and 2007 Pan American Games, Silver at the 2002 World Equestrian Games and Bronze at the 2004 Olympic Games and 2006 World Equestrian Games.

He is currently training the British Olympic team rider Laura Bechtolsheimer and rumours have it that he might coach Nadine Capellmann again. "Already in Hong Kong, I was approached by various people with the question if I would train Nadine again," Balkenhol said. "We have met since then, but nothing has been decided yet."

So now the search in on for a new coach for the period leading up to the 2012 Olympic Games.

The USEF has undertaken the task of outlining and redefining the role that the next US Dressage Chef d’Equipe/National Coach will play in the US Dressage program. With input from a variety of stakeholders, the job description has been finalized.

The High Performance dressage athletes played a major role in defining this position and their recommendations were sent to the USEF High Performance Dressage Eligible Athlete committee and the High Performance Dressage committee. This input was considered and utilized by these committees when they drafted the job description. The job description was then finalized by the search committee.

The search committee is composed of:

Capt. Mark Phillips: Eventing Chef d’Equipe
George Morris: Show Jumping Chef d’Equipe
John Madden: Show Jumping representative
Karen O’Connor: Eventing representative
Mary Anne McPhail: High Performance Dressage Committee
Susan Blinks: High Performance Dressage Eligible Athlete
Guenter Seidel: High Performance Dressage Eligible Athlete

The USEF will accept applications for this position up to May 15. The search committee will review the applications and determine which applicants should be interviewed based on their fulfillment of the position requirements. Interviews will be conducted jointly by the chair of the search committee (still to be determined), members of the USEF High Performance Dressage Eligible Athlete committee, and USEF staff. The Eligible Athlete committee will then put forward their recommendation to the search committee.

A link to the job description can be found on the USEF home page at: www.usef.org