Sally O'Connor, Virginia

Sally O'Connor has been involved with horses all her life. She grew up in England and participated in Pony Club. She is still an active dressage rider and trainer. She Evented extensively on the east coast in the early days of combined training in the United States.

Her son David was the individual Gold Medal winner in the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and was also a Bronze and Silver Team Medalist in Atlanta and Sydney.

In the l960s she became a founding member of the Potomac Valley Dressage Association and organized and participated in some of the earliest Dressage competitions held in the Maryland, Virginia area. She served as President of PVDA for 3 years and won scholarships to the American Dressage Institute held in Saratoga, New York. She helped initiate the preliminary meetings of existing Dressage organizations leading up to the historic meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska that saw the foundation of the United States Dressage Association.

She studied with Rochawansky and Bengt Ljundquist and was privileged to be a student of Nuno Oliviera for 15 years. Under the guidance of Bengt Ljungquist she helped organize the first learner judges program hosted by PVDA for the AHSA and has instructed judges programs for the New England Dressage Association, the Midwest Dressage Association, PVDA the Virginia Dressage Association and the New Zealand Horse Society. She has served as an examiner for the AHSA Judges program.

She has been closely involved in combined training as an organizer, trainer, course designer and official. In l995 she was awarded the Wofford Cup given to the individual who has contributed most to the sport of Eventing. Sally has also been appointed FEI Steward General for Eventing in the United States. She has six books to her credit.