McDonald served as US Equestrian’s Dressage Development Coach before taking on the Technical Advisor role. She has spent over a decade advancing athlete-and-horse combinations through the U.S. dressage pipeline. Her success has proved contagious as a personal coach having guided three of her athletes and their horses to the Olympics, including 2012 London participants Adrienne Lyle and Wizard and Rio 2016 team bronze medalists Laura Graves and Verdades and Kasey Perry-Glass and Gorklintgaards Dublet. As an athlete, McDonald heavily contributed to U.S. Dressage’s early accomplishments due to her impressive achievements with the chestnut Hanoverian mare Brentina. Their string of accolades included a 1999 Pan American Games team and individual gold medal, an Athens 2004 Olympic team bronze medal, a WEG 2002 team silver and 2006 team bronze medal, and was the first American to win a FEI World Cup Dressage Final in 2003.

Laura Roberts began working for US Equestrian in 2018 as the Director of Dressage Performance and Event Support and also serves as the Para-Equestrian Centers of Excellence Coordinator. She has been involved with the Olympic movement since 2013, working for USA Karate and then U.S. Figure Skating. Roberts served as the Team USA Coordinator for the U.S. Figure Skating Team at the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Games. In her current role at US Equestrian, Roberts is responsible for assisting the Managing Director of Dressage with logistics in regards to high performance competitions, provides logistical support to owners and support to competition management and liaises to multiple working groups of the Dressage Sport Committee. In Lima, Roberts will be responsible for the day-to-day coordination of the team leading up to and during the Pan American Games. Roberts is an accomplished equestrian in her own right, competing in the eventing discipline through the CCI3*-L level. In 2009, Roberts competed at the North American Youth Championships in eventing and claimed team and individual gold. She graduated from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs with a dual emphasis in Sport Management & Marketing and a Masters of Business Administration.

By the time she turned 21, Nora Batchelder had already earned her United States Dressage Federation (USDF) Bronze, Silver, and Gold medals on horses she trained herself. She also has her USDF Gold Freestyle Bar. Based out of Williston, Fla., she is a Grand Prix trainer with her parents, Verne Batchelder and Jeanie Hahn, at River House Hanoverians, which she owns and operates with her family. Batchelder has qualified numerous horses at a multitude of levels for the US Dressage Finals, U.S. Dressage Festival of Champions, Young and Developing Horse National Championships, and more. She competed at the North American Youth Championships and the USEF Young Adult “Brentina Cup” Young Adult National Championships. By 2018, Batchelder successfully debuted Faro SQF and Fifi MLW, her 10-year-old Hanoverian mare, in the CDI Small Tour in Wellington, Fla., where they earned several top-three finishes. She and Faro SQF have consistently placed in the top 10 at the FEI and national levels, winning their last four classes ahead of the Lima 2019 Pan American Games. This will be Batchelder’s first continental championship.

Sarah Tubman is a United States Dressage Federation Bronze, Silver, and Gold medalist based at Donato Farms in Wellington, Fla. Tubman grew up in northern Nevada, always riding. She participated in the United States Pony Club and began her FEI career in 2003 in the eventing discipline, finishing third at her first CCI2*-L at 15 years old. Tubman competed at her first CDI1* in 2013. Since then, Tubman has consistently placed in the top 15 at the FEI and national level. She has a particular passion for developing young horses and producing them to their full potential in the sport of dressage.

Tubman began working with First Apple in 2018 and had an instant connection with him. In 2019, the pair had numerous wins. Tubman and First Apple made their international competition debut at Dressage Affair, winning the CDI1* FEI Prix St. Georges and FEI Intermediate I. Soon after, they competed at the Adequan^® West Coast Dressage Festival, sweeping the Small Tour classes. Tubman and First Apple made their senior team debut at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games a memorable one by helping the U.S. collect team silver and earning individual gold. 

In 2020, Tubman and First Apple stepped up to the Big Tour, highlighted by winning the CDI3* FEI Grand Prix Special at the Palm Beach Dressage Derby. The following year, the duo continued to develop into solid competitors at the top level of the sport.

In 2022, Tubman and First Apple finished in the top five over several weeks at the Adequan^® Global Dressage Festival (AGDF) to start the season. They headed to Europe for the summer, competing in Achleiten, Austria; Aachen, Germany; and Kronberg, Germany; with finishes in the top 15 and a second-place finish in the Achleiten CDI4* FEI Grand Prix Test being their top placing. Tubman and First Apple returned to the U.S. and won all but one class, where they finished second, during the fall.

In 2023, the pair were in the top eight throughout the AGDF to begin the year. Tubman and First Apple headed to Germany for the summer to compete, earning a third-place finish in the CDI3* FEI Grand Prix Special in Hagen, Germany. They were named to The Dutta Corp. U.S. Dressage Team for the FEI Dressage Nations Cup CDIO5* at CHIO Aachen World Equestrian Festival, where the team finished eighth in a world-class field.