10/07/2026
The goal: producing the next generation for the horse industry!!
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Catch Riding With a Purpose: How an IHSA Idea Helped Inspire the YEDA Generation ✨
Building on the story told in The Equine Chronicle's “Saddles, Success and Scholarships,” the history of catch riding reaches back nearly six decades and to one man whose idea changed collegiate equestrian competition forever.
The September/October 2026 issue of The Equine Chronicle featured YEDA in Megan Arszman’s article, “Saddles, Success and Scholarships.” The story captured much of what the Youth Equestrian Development Association has become during its first decade: an organization where young riders can compete, develop horsemanship, earn scholarships and prepare for opportunities in college and throughout the equine industry.
But there is another important part of the YEDA story worth telling.
To understand why YEDA competitors walk into an arena aboard horses they may never have ridden before, we have to go back much farther than YEDA’s founding in 2015.
We have to go back to 1967 and Robert “Bob” Cacchione.
Where the Catch-Riding Idea Began
As an 18-year-old student at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, Cacchione faced a problem familiar to many young equestrians: college and horses were both expensive.
Rather than give up riding, he began organizing students and teaching riding. Eventually, Fairleigh Dickinson provided $200 to hold a horse show.
Cacchione had a different idea about how that competition should work.
When he invited riders from another Fairleigh Dickinson campus, he told them not to bring horses. The horses would be supplied at the competition and riders would draw their mounts. The first competition included beginner, intermediate and advanced riders.
That simple idea became the foundation of the Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association, or IHSA.
It was revolutionary because it removed one of the largest barriers in equestrian sport: the necessity of owning—or having access to—a competitive horse.
Cacchione’s philosophy centered on creating a level playing field. His concept opened collegiate competition to riders of different financial backgrounds and experience levels and ultimately changed the landscape of college riding.
Today, hundreds of thousands of riders have participated in IHSA since its creation.
That philosophy is an important part of YEDA’s DNA.
From College Riders to the Next Generation
When Debbie Arnold, Ric Weitzel and Laura Smith Arnold founded YEDA in 2015, the goal was not simply to create another horse-show organization. They wanted to prepare young riders for what came next.
The founders were already familiar with team-based equestrian competition and recognized the enormous value of putting a rider on an unfamiliar horse and asking that rider to demonstrate what he or she had actually learned. The concept had been proven for decades by IHSA.
Other organizations, including IEA, subsequently adapted the IHSA-style competition concept for younger riders. IEA’s own historical account acknowledges that its early competition was modeled after IHSA and that Bob Cacchione assisted its organizers.
YEDA would take that basic catch-riding philosophy in its own direction, particularly for the Western rider.
The result was an organization designed not simply around showing horses, but around developing horsemen and horsewomen.
The Horse Is the Equalizer
Traditional horse showing frequently rewards the combination of an accomplished rider and an accomplished horse.
Catch riding asks a different question: What can the rider do with the horse he or she is given?
YEDA competitors draw their mounts and enter the arena without months or years of preparation with that particular horse. They must quickly evaluate the horse beneath them, make adjustments and demonstrate the horsemanship skills they have developed at home.
Sometimes the draw is perfect.
Sometimes it isn’t.
And that is part of the education.
A rider learns that horsemanship is more than memorizing a pattern or learning how to ride one familiar horse. It requires adaptability, feel, patience, decision-making and the ability to communicate with many different horses.
Those lessons translate directly into collegiate equestrian competition.
Preparing Riders for College
This is where the connection between YEDA and IHSA becomes particularly important.
YEDA isn’t intended to be the final destination for its student riders. For many, it is the preparation for what comes next.
A young rider can begin competing through YEDA without purchasing an expensive show horse. That rider can develop catch-riding skills, learn to compete as part of a team and gain experience riding different horses.
Then, after high school, that same student can potentially continue competing through collegiate equestrian programs—including IHSA.
It creates a pathway:
Learn. Compete. Catch ride. Develop. Graduate. Ride in college.
That pathway also explains why college coaches have become such an important presence at YEDA events.
YEDA isn’t simply producing competitors. It is developing the type of adaptable riders collegiate programs need.
More Than Winning Ribbons
The Equine Chronicle article correctly captured another important part of YEDA’s development: the organization has grown far beyond the competition arena.
During its first decade, YEDA developed scholarship programs, educational opportunities, community-service initiatives and partnerships throughout the equine industry.
Students earn recognition not simply because they win classes but because of academics, leadership, volunteerism, sportsmanship and commitment to their communities.
That matters because relatively few young equestrians will make their living solely by showing horses.
But many can become trainers, veterinarians, educators, farm managers, equine business professionals, association leaders, coaches and lifelong participants in the horse industry.
The objective is therefore bigger than producing the next champion. It is producing the next generation of the horse industry.
No Horse? No Problem.
Perhaps the most powerful connection between Cacchione’s original idea and YEDA today can be expressed in four words: You don’t need a horse.
That principle changed collegiate equestrian competition nearly 60 years ago.
It remains just as important today.
Horse ownership is increasingly expensive. Purchase prices, boarding, veterinary care, hauling, training and showing can make traditional competition inaccessible to many families.
Catch riding changes the equation.
A talented young rider can walk into a YEDA barn without owning a $25,000, $50,000 or $100,000 show horse and still have an opportunity to compete.
What matters is what that student has learned.
That is the level playing field Bob Cacchione envisioned in 1967, and it remains one of the most powerful ideas in equestrian competition.
Nearly 60 Years Later, the Ride Continues
The organizations are different. Their ages are different. Their programs are different. But there is a philosophical line connecting them.
IHSA demonstrated that equestrian competition could become a team sport without requiring competitors to own their horses.
YEDA brought that opportunity to another generation of young riders and built education, scholarships, horsemanship and college preparation around it.
Bob Cacchione’s idea started with a handful of college students and horses drawn from a hat.
Nearly six decades later, young riders across the country are still benefiting from that idea.
They may not know which horse they will draw. They may not know exactly where horses will take them. But they know they have an opportunity to get in the arena.
And that leaves only one question: Can You Catch a Ride? 🔹
