Christian Steiner Appointed New Technical Advisor Dressage at Austrian Federation

Dressage

Austria

Shortly after Dr. Uschi Barth's resignation as Technical Advisor for dressage at the Austrian Equestrian Federation (OEPS), the brand new board has appointed her successor: Christian Steiner.

OEPS announced the news on its official website, shortly after Eqwo broke the news.

Steiner Takes Over

"I am grateful for the trust placed in me by the new OEPS Directorate and for the positive feedback I have already received from many dressage riders. I stand for transparency and direct, honest communication, and I look forward to working with everyone involved!”

OEPS described the new appointee as "an independent expert with experience as a rider, organizer, and judge."

Key Objectives

Steiner and the Austrian NF set the following key objectives to work on:

Transparent, open and direct exchange with riders, trainers, state representatives , horse owners, organizers and judges.
The goal is to send a team to the international championships in all age groups.
Participation in Nations Cups allows our riders to compete against the best in the world and for the horses to become accustomed to the tournament conditions of major events.
Tournament participation is based on clear, uniform criteria and a transparent decision-making process.
Promotion and support of young talent
The Austrian Championships and Austrian National Championships are to be held in the spring so that participation becomes attractive again and they can also be used for selection for the respective championships.
Year-round selection at CDN-A tournaments (as already exists for the small and medium tours) after prior registration/voting instead of holding expensive selection tournaments.

Experience

Steiner is a familiar face on the Austrian equestrian scene.

Steiner is a former international eventing rider, having competed internationally between 2002 and 2008 at CCI 2* level. He is also an FEI level 4 Eventing judge, steward and technical delegate.

He served as OEPS sports director under Elisabeth Max-Theurer from November 2020 to September 2021.

He worked as managing director of the Amadeus Horse Indoors CDI Salzburg as of 2024 when Gestüt Bartlgut's Wenzel Schmidt took on the commercial responsibility for Austria's largest horse festival. Eqwo wrote that Steiner "is also believed to have already resigned from his current position as managing director of Amadeus Horse Indoors GmbH."

The 62-year old Steiner is married to Austrian dressage judge Claudia Thaler.