The Jill Hassler-Scoop Memorial Dancing Horse Challenge

Enjoy equestrian entertainment at its best while supporting breast cancer research!

The Jill Hassler-Scoop Memorial Dancing Horse Challenge on Saturday evening features equestrian entertainment by some of the country's top riders including musical freestyles, demonstrations, and tributes from various disciplines.

Join fellow spectators, including Ride for Life competitors and notable equestrians, as you "bribe the judge" to put your favorite performance at the top of the standings.

Nicole Uphoff-Selke, 1988 and 1992 Olympic German individual dressage Gold Medalist, will be a celebrity judge at the Dancing Horse Challenge!

The Dancing Horse Challenge will feature dressage exhibitions by a number of talented FEI riders including Christopher Hickey, the 2007 Pan Am Games Gold Medalist, and Dr. Cesar Parra, a former Olympic and Pan Am Games participant; in addition to various other entertaining exhibitions, such as Megan Benjamin, the World Equestrian Games Gold Medal vaulter; live musical entertainment; Western reiners; quadrille drill teams and others.

For the Dancing Horse Challenge, there is a minimum $15 per person entrance donation, all of which will be provided to the Johns Hopkins Breast Cancer Center. A form to provide a donation for the tickets will soon be available. Additionally, donations may be provided at the door. See you there!

We are thrilled to have another fantastic Dancing Horse Challenge poster (seen at the right) created by artist Robert Bevans. Mr. Bevans has generously donated a design to our cause for a second year in a row and we greatly appreciate his time and talent which adds excitement and an extra touch of class to the Ride for Life. These posters are suitable for framing and will be available for sale at the Ride for Life along with a limited number of posters signed by the artist -- a true collectible! Thank you Robert Bevans!

Nicole Uphoff-Selke

The PVDA Ride for Life^TM committee is very pleased to host Nicole Uphoff-Selke as both the Gala Dinner speaker and as a special judge for the Dancing Horse Challenge.

Nicole is gold medalist from two Olympics (1988 in Soeul and 1992 in Barcelona). She began her love of horses at age nine and received her first horse for her tenth birthday. When she was thirteen, her father discovered the gelding Askan, then six years old, and the three-year old gelding Rembrandt, a brown Westphalian son of Romadour II. Nicole rode and trained both horses with the assistance of her trainer. As they say, the rest is history…

Nicole is based near Duisburg, Germany, where she trains the next Olympic hopefuls and enjoys family life. Click here to visit her web site.

Thank you Nicole for your kindness and generosity by participating in the PVDA Ride for Life^TM.

Christopher Hickey

Christopher Hickey joined the team at Hilltop Farm, Colora, Maryland, in January 2007. Chris’ road to Hilltop has been a very impressive one. A native of Westhampton, Massachusetts, Chris rode in the 1988 and 1989 North American Young Rider Championships on the Region 8 Dressage Team. He qualified for the 1994 Olympic Festival and the selection trials for the 1995 Pan American Games. Chris has shown several horses successfully at the FEI levels, both in the United States and in Germany, often earning scores in excess of 70%. He has ridden three different horses to places on the USEF Dressage Horse training list.

During the 2007 season Chris continued to build on his long and successful competitive career, earning the U.S. Intermediaire I Championship, as well as the Pan American Games Dressage team and individual gold medals with Brenna Kucinski’s Regent, a horse he has trained since it was imported as a four year old. He has also been collecting numerous national titles at the FEI five year old level, and earning a trip to the World Breeders Championships for Young Horses in Verden, Germany, with Hilltop Farm’s Cabana Boy.

During the 2007-2008 winter season, Chris has successfully moved Regent up to the Grand Prix level with scores of 70% in his first two outings at Grand Prix. He has also formed successful partnerships with Bugatti Hilltop, who he is showing at the Prix St. Georges and Intermediaire I levels, and Greengate Farm’s Donarweiss GGF, who just made his debut at Prix St. Georges.

Chris’ students have been successful this season as well, with Rita Brown being the fourth of Chris’ students to earn her USDF Gold medal and several successful outings for students competing through the Grand Prix level. Two of his students qualified for the U.S. Intermediaire I Championships last summer.

Megan Benjamin, 2006 WEG Women’s World Vaulting Champion

The PVDA Ride for Life^TM committee is very pleased to announce that Megan Benjamin will provide a vaulting demonstration during the Dancing Horse Challenge. Megan was the first female US vaulter to win gold at the World Championships, and the first vaulter worldwide to medal in two separate events at the same World Equestrian Games.

The 2006 World Equestrian Games Women’s World Vaulting Champion and a silver medalist for Team USA at those same Games, Megan is also a USEF/AVA three-time Women’s Gold National Champion, three times a member of the USEF/AVA National Championship “A” Team, and the American Vaulting Association’s National Gold High Point Women’s Champion for three years.

A junior at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, Megan now travels the world teaching vaulting clinics and evangelizing the sport best known as “gymnastics and dance in harmony with a cantering horse.” She is one of only eight worldwide members of the FEI Athlete’s Council, the vaulting representative for the USEF Youth Council, and a member of the American Vaulting Association Board of Directors. Click here to read more about Megan and international vaulting. Click here to read an interview with Megan.

The Ride for Life committee sincerely thanks Megan for participating in the Dancing Horse Challenge.

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Jill Hassler-Scoop

The Ride for Life Committee has lovingly named the Dancing Horse Challenge after Jill Hassler-Scoop, who was a friend, mentor, and great contributor to the horse world. Jill died of breast cancer in October 2006.

According to Barbara Strawson, one of her students, “Jill's passion was horses. Her mission in life was educating riders to improve the lives of horses. By doing this, not only did she improve the lives of the horses she loved, but she had a dramatic impact on the lives of the riders she taught.” In her memorial to Jill, Lendon Gray stated "For me her greatest of the many contributions she made to the horse world is her marvelous work in educating riding instructors how to be better teachers."

Jill was a graduate “B” of the United States Pony Clubs, Inc., with a background in hunters, equitation, dressage and eventing (even a little western!). She served on the USPC Board of Governors, as a director of the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association, founder and District Commissioner for the Lanchester and Sunny Hills Pony Clubs, and from 1971 until 1990 offered a Riding for the Handicapped program with the Easter Seal Society of Lancaster County. From 1963 to 1991, Jill owned, managed and taught from Hidden Acres Farm in Quarryville, Pennsylvania. From 1979 – 1991 Jill worked as an international educational consultant. During this same period Jill had a live-in program for teenagers who loved horses but were dealing with a life challenge. From 1991- 2001, Jill managed Hilltop Farm in Colora, Maryland.

Jill taught many students through their United States Pony Club ratings, as well as National Awards in the American Horse Shows Association, United States Dressage Federation, and the United States Combined Training Association.

Jill Hassler-Scoop demonstrating her love of horses and her skill as an equestrian.

Barbara Strawson

2007 Tribute to Jill Hassler-Scoop