Our columnist believes that the completion of our country’s pipeline for horses age 4 up to Grand Prix is imperative for getting our international results back on par with the world’s dressage superpowers.

The “three Ps” normally associated with Grand Prix—piaffe, passage and pirouettes—could easily be replaced by different ones when summing up the current state of dressage in the United States: practice, patience and perseverance.

Today we have numerous programs in dressage, and we have one big audacious goal, which is to become a world leader in dressage. Over the years we’ve put our pipeline together piecemeal, which is why our programs are now at various stages of maturity. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s out there.

The Youth Of The Nation
Our young rider program is one of our most mature structures. I first became involved with the North American Young Rider Championships in 1985, when I performed the “guinea pig” ride for the eventers. Interestingly, our current U.S. Equestrian Federation National Young Horse Coach, Scott Hassler, rode on the bronze-medal team that same year.

The championships took place at Tempel Farms (Ill.) that year, and the program was truly in its infancy. I rode a Lipizzan through the test, and although he was more refined than most, the judges took great delight in pointing out that he neither looked nor moved like an event horse.

The first Continental Young Riders Championships were held in 1974. Dressage was added in 1981, and they had been held at various venues until finally all three Olympic disciplines were together in 1982.

Over the next decade, Linda Dreher and Howard Simpson nurtured the competition and helped it grow into the major competition it has become today. The children of those early competitors are now of an age where they too could compete at the NAJYRC, and some may have already aged out. It’s hard to believe that a whole generation of riders have grown up never knowing of a time before Young Riders.

A number of the riders have gone on to do great things with horses and their riding. The 2009 Pan American Games (Brazil) team was made up almost entirely of former young riders. Former NAYRC competitor Courtney King also rode in Hong Kong at the 2008 Olympics. And this year a number of young rider graduates earned invitations to the USEF Selection Trials for the Pan Am Games, as well as to the Grand Prix National Championships.

Todd Flettrich, an NAYRC gold medalist, rode for the United States at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games (Ky.) last year. Other past gold medalists include USEF National Youth Coach Jeremy Steinberg, and Susanne Hassler, who along with her husband Scott runs Hassler Dressage. There is no doubt we are seeing results from this program.

This program has been so successful because of the team competition aspect, with squads from each of the nine U.S. Dressage Federation regions participating. This allows up to 45 U.S. riders to compete each year and makes it inclusive to any young rider, regardless of where they may live in the country. In an effort to reach and encourage more FEI Junior riders, that division was added to the championships in 2006, after which it came to be known as the NAJYRC.

The Junior National Championship had been started several years prior thanks to the guidance and sheer determination of our current USEF Technical Advisor, aka National Dressage Coach, Anne Gribbons. Along with this change, the Young Rider and Junior National Championships were added to the USEF High Performance Championships for Grand Prix and Intermediaire I at the Festival of Champions.

The idea was for our best juniors and young riders to be able to mix and mingle with our top international riders. Sometimes we hear complaints that there isn’t the depth of quality in the juniors that we now see in the young riders, but we have to keep in mind that their program has been around for only about a third of the time of young riders. They truly are still in their junior years.

Preventing Falling Through Cracks

This year the FEI Pony Riders have also been added to the National Championships/Festival of Champions. Lendon Gray has advocated for the FEI ponies for a number of years, and we’ve adopted her “build it, and they will come” attitude. I think she’s right, it will take a few years, but someday we’ll look back and wonder why there was ever any question about the need for such a championship.

That same “build it, and they will come” attitude is what got us started on the Brentina Cup. For quite a while, we listened to Linda Zang speak enthusiastically about the Piaffe Cup, which is held in Germany for young adults at the Grand Prix level. And in 2006 we finally bit the bullet and added the Brentina Cup to the Festival of Champions as well.

Due to the demands of the level, this is a championship where we do not expect to see high numbers of participants. But on the international front, the idea of introducing young adults to Grand Prix has continued to evolve. The FEI recently introduced the Under 25 Grand Prix, and the Aachen CHIO (Germany) offered it for the first time in 2011.

This, in turn, has forced us to continuously define the age bracket for our Brentina Cup. Our first winner of the Brentina Cup, Elisabeth Austin and her wonderful stallion, Olivier, have gone on to represent the United States at the World Dressage Masters CDI***** (Fla.). So although the Brentina Cup program targets a small group, I believe its impact will be huge over time.

We have already seen several of the riders in the USEF Dressage Seat Medal Finals move on to juniors and young riders. This year the Finals were once again held in conjunction with the Markel/USEF National Young Horse Dressage Championships and the USEF National Developing Horse Dressage Championships (Ill.).

The Dressage Seat Medal program has tremendous potential for reaching out to our youth—it can introduce, inspire and create interest in dressage—but it’s having difficulty meeting its potential. The Finals always prove to be exciting and competitive, but I had hoped to see masses of youth at the qualifying competitions by now. This is one area we need to continue to improve.

Equine Talent Spotting

There aren’t many things that make me feel old, but the Young Horse Championships always do. It may simply be, as my wife pointed out, that as I walked around the arena on my young horse waiting for the awards ceremony with Willy Arts, the only other silver haired competitor there, that the two of us represented more than 100 years of experience.

Or perhaps it may be that you just see so many younger riders competing. That, in fact, is one of the most exciting aspects of this whole program. There are so many young faces from all over the country that you can’t help but believe that dressage is alive and well.

The rider of the winning 6-year-old, Emily Wagner, is a former NAYRC competitor. And Caroline Roffman, who took reserve in an unprecedented three of the four divisions, competed at NAJYRC as a junior and a young rider. U.S. dressage enthusiasts can also get excited about that fact that this year the leading 6-year-old was one bred right here on our home soil.

This program has been around for close to 10 years, and it’s maturing nicely. Scott Hassler has been a driving force, and this is a great example of patience and perseverance paying off. The quality of the horses, and the riding, improves with every year.

The inaugural Developing Horse Championship was held at the Kentucky Horse Park in 2007. This competition is open to horses 7 to 9 years of age at the Prix St. Georges level and is a stepping stone between what are referred to as the Developing Programs and the High Performance Programs. One of our past winners was Guenter Seidel with U II; together they went on to Grand Prix successes in Europe this year at Fritzens (Austria) and Hamburg (Germany).

In 2012, a Developing Horse Championship for up-and-coming Grand Prix horses ages 8 to 10 will be offered for the first time. Like all of these programs, it’ll take time to see the results of our efforts.

The Young Horse and Developing Horse Championships are a wonderful opportunity to see the full range of upcoming talent in this country. With the addition of the DH Grand Prix next year, we’ll be able to see the full range from 4-year-olds to horses starting Grand Prix.

So much of this is possible because we have so many great owners in this country, and I hope this competition will encourage owners to stick with their horses through to the Grand Prix. As these terrific young horses start hitting the High Performance ranks, we too may enjoy the results the Germans, Dutch and now the British have seen.

With luck, these “three Ps”—patience, perseverance and practice—will one day provide far greater depth at the FEI levels in our country. At the committee level, we often discuss how to reach all of the promising combinations out there, and I have to say, I question just how many there are.

Yes, there are several, but not enough, despite all of our programs. We’ve gotten where we are today thanks to the efforts of the individ-uals mentioned above, the support of our generous sponsors and the tireless work of countless individuals that I haven’t mentioned. But we need even more top riders, and they in turn need more top horses.

If we want to be a powerhouse in the world of dressage, we need to continue to build greater depth in our horse and rider combinations.

George Williams is the president of the U.S. Dressage Federation and has served on and chaired numerous committees for the USDF and the U.S. Equestrian Federation. A rider, trainer and coach, training for Havensafe Farm in Middlefield, Ohio, and Wellington, Fla., Williams earned national and international fame with several Grand Prix mounts, including the Chronicle’s 2003 Dressage Horse of the Year, Rocher. He began writing Between Rounds columns in 2010.