Darren Chiacchia Named USET Athlete of the Month for October

Gladstone, NJ—November 3, 2003—Darren Chiacchia of Springville, NY, was named the United States Equestrian Team (USET) Athlete of the Month for October after he won the individual Gold Medal in the Pan American Eventing Championship at the 2003 Fair Hill International Festival in the Country.

Chiacchia clinched the Gold with a penalty-free show jumping round to finish with a three-phase score of 52.4 penalties on Windfall 2. Karen O’Connor of The Plains, VA won the individual Silver with a score of 59.0 on Joker’s Wild and Jan Thompson of Purcellville, VA won the Bronze with a score of 62.4 on Shared Dreams.

“I have a great horse and a lot of confidence in his ability to do well,” said Chiacchia who won the USET Eventing Spring Championship at Foxhall last April. “He has continued to develop and get stronger in all three phases. I’m thrilled with what he did here.”

No eventing competition was held at the Pan American Games in Santo Domingo earlier this year and the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) decided to hold the Pan American Eventing Championship in conjunction with the Fair Hill International CCI***.

U.S. Equestrian was formed through the combination of USA Equestrian and the United States Equestrian Team. 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