Menu

Stay in Touch
Sign up for ENews
Subscribe Now

Unlimited access >

Menu

USDF Medals by State and Population

Dressage
#1

So I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m pretty worn out with talking coronavirus (and other topics that pop up on here and other equestrian social media), so I thought I would share some info I put together. I got bored at work before the holidays last December and started to wonder what states are most “represented” in dressage. I mean, California and Florida, of course, but they’re also big states.

Being a serious data nerd, I downloaded and sorted USDF’s listing for bronze, silver and gold medalists, which also lists their ‘home’ state (I recognize of course that some of these people may go elsewhere for the Winter, but we’ll ignore that for now). Then I ranked them both by number of medals in each category then by medals per 1 million people in the states population (as collected by Wikipedia), which I called the “Popularity Score” (because I’m not a namer of things, ok?). I recognize that gives a bit of an advantage to less populated states, but it was the best way I could think to even the playing field. The results were pretty interesting, so let’s dive in. I’m just going to give the top 5, but if you want your state, go ahead and comment.

Bronze/Silver/Gold medal - Top 5 by count (they’re the same ranking)

  1. California (1385/865/284)
  2. Florida (841/597/270)
  3. Texas (544/300/70)
  4. Washington (463/237/67)
  5. North Carolina (409/225/58)

So you can sort of get the picture - large population + some major show venue = high ranking in medal count. But…

Bronze medal - Top 10 in Popularity Score

  1. Vermont (164/mil ppl)
  2. New Hampshire (90/mil ppl)
  3. Maine (69/mil ppl)
  4. Washington (61/mil ppl)
  5. Colorado (59/mil ppl)
  6. Oregon (54/mil ppl)
  7. Maryland (45/mil ppl)
  8. Massachusetts (44/mil ppl)
  9. Virginia (42/mil ppl)
  10. Montana (41/mil ppl)

Silver medal - Top 5 by Popularity Score

  1. Vermont (85)
  2. Maine (46)
  3. New Hampshire (43)
  4. Washington (31)
  5. Florida (28)
  6. Colorado (27)
  7. Oregon (26)
  8. Maryland (22)
  9. California (21.8)
  10. North Carolina (21.6)

Gold medal - Top 5 by Popularity Score

  1. Vermont (21)
  2. Florida (13)
  3. Maine (11)
  4. Washington (8.89)
  5. New Hampshire (8.84)
  6. Colorado (8.25)
  7. Montana (7.53)
  8. California (7.14)
  9. Maryland (6.3)
  10. Virginia (6.1)

So next time someone asks “where can I live that has good trainers and a dressage community?”, the data might be able to help.

VT Dressage scene
#2

Very neat info! thanks for the welcome distraction :slight_smile:

1 Like
#3

Another question, which are the least by both total and popularity score (maybe only bronze, since that should be the most populous)? Maybe the 10 lowest? So where not to go? ahahaha

3 Likes
#4

Wow. Interesting. It appears Vermont is the place to live.

1 Like
#5

Great question! For bronze medals, the bottom states (because there’s a couple in Canada, but I’m not going to include those) are: (Delaware also gets a special star* because it has no Gold medalists)

  1. New York (14.0) - I can hear the NYers from here reminding me that NYC throws off the population stat :wink:
  2. South Dakota (13.6)
  3. Nebraska (12.9)
  4. Iowa (12.4)
  5. Louisiana (9.0)
  6. Arkansas (8.29)
  7. Delaware* (8.27) - even with a population below 1M, Delaware has a very low dressage population
  8. West Virginia (6.7)
  9. Mississippi (4.4)
  10. North Dakota (3.9)

Just for the heck of it, I’m going to do Silver and Gold too :slight_smile:

Silver:

  1. Alaska (6.8) - way to go Alaska!
  2. Indiana (6.6)
  3. Louisiana (6.2)
  4. Iowa (5.4)
  5. Nebraska (4.7)
  6. Arkansas (4.3)
  7. Delaware* (4.1)
  8. Mississippi (3.3)
  9. West Virginia (2.8)
  10. North Dakota (1.3)

Gold (Popularity score/#of gold medalists since these numbers are very low):

  1. Alaska (1.4/1)
  2. Oklahoma (1.268/5)
  3. Louisiana (1.0732/5)
  4. Nebraska (1.04/2)
  5. Mississippi (1.00/3)
  6. Missouri (0.979/6)
  7. Iowa (0.951/3)
  8. Rhode Island (0.946/1)
  9. West Virginia (0.55/1)
  10. Arkansas (0.33/1)

Also, fun stat, Hawaii has 3 Gold medalists!

3 Likes
#6

I was really amazed to find that too! Laura Graves is originally from there (though her stat now counts for Florida), which made more sense to me once I looked at the data. Also, not a dressage rider, but eventer Denny Emerson is of course from that area and I’ve heard he is situated in prime horse country.

1 Like
#7

Sorry, I know it’s kind of lame to keep responding to my own thread, but another fun stat:
For Gold medals, North Dakota actually has a higher popularity score than Texas. North Dakota has 2 Gold Medalists, which makes a score of 2.63, while Texas has 70 Gold medalists, which makes a score of 2.40.

3 Likes
#8

Very cool! GMHA in Vermont has a great show series, and people in southern Vermont and New Hampshire are not particularly far from all of the events NEDA puts on in the Boston area.

2 Likes
#9

Well you answered my question about Mississippi! We are most definitely a dressage wasteland, although one of my friends is on a mission to change that. She’s trying to host more recognized shows in Mississippi! Lucky for us, we have one coming up in June in Starkville, and another one she’s trying to have down on the coast (most likely next spring). But for those of us on the coast, we’re not that far from the Louisiana shows or Pensacola, FL shows.

I am curious about the overall medal totals for MS, just out of sheer curiosity. All I need are my 3rd level scores and I can add to that total!

#10

I would not call Mississippi a dressage wasteland. They are the top 10 on all the lists. There are forty other states that did worse than Mississippi.

#11

Now I’m curious about AZ! Especially for silvers, as I was at a show last summer where I think 4 people got theirs. I’m not sure they were all from AZ.

#12

Mississippi is in the BOTTOM 5 in the “per population” list.

They are not in the top 10 in ANY of the lists.

1 Like
#13

You can look up USDF GMO memberships. Last May 2019, I tallied the numbers and at that time, the USDF seems to have had ~16,000 GM members

#14

I have a friend from MS who is riding in a dressage show this weekend! Missippi has 13 Bronze medals, 10 Silver Medals, and 3 Gold Medals.

1 Like
#15

Arizona has quite a lot! 228 Bronze medals (19th in Popularity Score), 121 Silver medals (21st in Popularity Score), and 42 Gold medals (14th in Popularity Score).

#16

not sure what this has to do with the topic at hand… please enlighten me!!

#17

Well, OP was tallying up medals…I had tallied up GM members.

That’s all.

Maybe my brain was making some synaptic connections thinking of the new USDF competition category for the “Over the Hill Gang”

#18

This is really really cool. Thank you so much for sharing! I’m really impressed by the number of states that were top 10s with 4 distinct seasons. Even with indoors, winters in many of these states are no fun at all. Kudos to all of those riders who are hustling year-round while down here in the south I’m wondering if 40 degrees is justification to give the pony a day off.

#19

The First Dance?

4 out of the 5 gold medalists in LA all come from the same area, and 3 of those 4 trained with the 4th gold medalist at some point. The 5th comes from the farthest opposite corner of the state.

ETA-Hoping to add 1 or 2 gold medalists to LA’s count soon!

3 Likes
#20

OP, where does Georgia fall on the list?

1 Like

Get your Digital Subscription here - only $21.95 / year

Subscribe here
See gift options

Sign up to our monthly newsletter!

By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.

Copyright © 2023 The Chronicle of the Horse