PrintMany of us have wanted to encourage and promote the development of hunters in this country for a long time. Show managers have presented some bonus classes for young horses and tried to answer many of our questions. Breeders have contributed with programs to try to get things going with young horses, and hunter committees have developed some positive contributions for progress.
We still haven’t been able to put together the perfect program that successfully ties together all of the investors in our sport to ensure consistency, strength and longevity in a specific hunter program. But recently the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association’s Pre-Green Hunter Task Force, formed by the USHJA’s Open Hunter Task Force, has been working to change all that.
My husband, Tim, and I have been involved in the reining horse industry for more than 30 years, and that experience has taught me how to build programs based on nominations, enrollments and add-back entry fee formulas. That experience was part of my contribution to the USHJA Task Force working on this concept.
Twelve years ago a small group of breeders developed the National Reining Breeders Classic, a championship competition that paid out more than $1.3 million this year in one class, to enrolled 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds. Tim and I were a part of that group and that competition, which has brought together breeders, owners, trainers and show management to revolutionize the sport. It’s financed largely by reasonable enrollment fees and add-back entry fees. While there are differences between reining and hunters, I believe many lessons from what we’ve done there apply to the hunter world.
The sport of reining also features the National Reining Horse Futurity, founded by the National Reining Horse Association. That program has helped to develop and improve the sport, as well as reining breeding programs. This annual event for 3-year-olds features a purse that tops $1 million and will soon exceed $2 million. This money comes from enrollment fees and add-back entry fees. It’s open to any 3-year-old with no breed restriction; the horses only have to be enrolled in the program.
This futurity and the NRBC program have encouraged owners to invest in young horses. Now we have some top granddaughters and grandsons winning and proving the results of these programs. By looking at the winners in the divisions, seeing how they were bred and building on those bloodlines, we’ve been able to foster the right breeding programs in this country for reining horses as well as promote our sport.
This means that yearling and 2-year-old sales can be profitable to breeders. When you are dealing with young horses, people are “buying the dream” and will gamble on young horses. The best yearlings will sell from $30,000 to upwards of $125,000. Quality, well-started 2-year-olds from reputable programs can go for up to $130,000, and the sale-topper this last year was $175,000. Sure, this is the top end; of course not all of the reining breeding industry colts bring in numbers like that. But there’s no doubt that the futurity program created the possibility of selling yearlings and 2-year-olds for the breeders. Coupled with the NRBC for 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds, the industry now has the solid base we’re hoping to establish in the hunter industry.
