The interest in the training and progression of our young horses has increased tremendously ever since the Federation Equestre Internationale created dressage tests for 5- and 6-year-old horses and the Young Horse Championships.

In Europe, there has always been a showcase available for horses almost as of the day they’re foaled. Each country and most breed registries arrange inspections and auctions for all ages and these have become a tradition for every horseman to attend and follow. Almost every weekend all over Europe, but especially in Germany, you can enjoy anything from foal sales to stud farm exhibits to stallion approvals.

But our Amer-ican breeders have few such advantages, and consequently the new FEI tests for young horses are a welcome addition for breeders and owners of good young stock. The problem is that, since the Young Horse Championships are open to imports, there is no real platform that allows our dressage horse breeders to boast about their homebred stock. Until now.

For several years, the breeders of jumping horses have benefited from the International Jumper Futurity, which not only brings their young horses into the public arena, but can also deliver a sizeable amount of cash back to the owner, breeder and stallion owner. And it’s open exclusively for horses foaled in the United States and Canada.

The International Jumper Futurity is a very successful program for young jumpers age 4 to 8, and the Futurity Committee decided late last year to expand their program to include young dressage horses. Scott Hassler and I were invited to serve on a steering committee, and we had our first conference call in March to map out an initial effort to bring dressage into the fold.

A new feature adds 4-year-old horses into the futurity program. The competitive requirements for the 4-year-olds will be quite mild, and nothing is going to be asked from these babies that will stress them physically or mentally.

The point of having a futurity for horses so young is to encourage breeders to “get them off the farm,” to let the colts and fillies learn some basic skills a show horse has to know, and to create a system where people who want to buy young horses can view them all together.

It’s certainly an advantage for us to be able to join this existing and successful program–and the beauty of it all is that this is an all-North American deal. Owners who nominate their stallions will enjoy a considerable amount of attention paid to their stallions as their get make their way through the ranks. Stallions who are already nominated can now add their dressage-oriented offspring to the program.

Everyone wins with this system: The young horses get started in a timely fashion, people looking for a good young horse have a place to find them, and the owners and breeders stand a chance to make quite bit of money for all their efforts.

For more, go to www.breedersfuturity.com.

Another advantage the Europeans have over us is the never-ending supply of well-trained young riders who are capable of breaking and starting young stock. We’re way behind here, especially since so few of all of the riders out there showing have a clue about the right way to train horses “from scratch.”

Scott and I–and others too–have come to realize that we’re badly in need of a system to develop and encourage competent riders who can and want to concentrate on starting and bringing along the “raw” horse material we have in this country. To get the ball rolling, Hilltop Farm (where Scott is the director of training) hosted a seminar for just that purpose last April.

In their first Young Dressage Horse Trainers Symposium, Hilltop Farm and Harmony Sporthorses created and completely sponsored a three-day educational program for 40 young professionals selected from more than 200 applicants. Scott, along with Dr. Ulf Moeller and Ingo Pape from Germany, led the seminar.

The participants learned about solving problems and about the importance of communicating and cooperating with the horses’ owners and with other trainers.

One of the participants, Sharon Jerdeman from Florida, told me that the part she appreciated most was getting advice about when to move on with the training of a particular horse. It’s always far from self-explanatory when the next step ought to be introduced, since each animal has his own pace of physical growth and mental development.

Sharon said she arrived home feeling “braver” about trying new things on horses who appear to be able to absorb the information. She also really enjoyed meeting and working closely with people her own age.

Continuing during the summer, Hilltop will be offering three short courses designed to detail the training and development of the young horse to a public audience. The courses will be designed to progress from dealing with the 2- and 3-year-old horse to preparing the 7-year-old for FEI competition.

Next year, the Hilltop crew is planning to repeat their wildly successful Young Dressage Horse Trainers Symposium, and I’ve been invited to be one of the people involved. I’m really looking forward to that!

So, there is light at the end of the tunnel for the Ameri-can sport horse breeders. They have the futurity programs that will showcase the stallions and mares and their American-bred progeny and that will get their youngsters out of the barn. And they’ll have a possibility of being able to select riders for their horses who will be educated and motivated, and who are making this their life’s work.

And they can finally compete with the Europeans because the strong Euro has made it financially disadvantageous to import horses from Europe. Not only are the overseas horses 30 percent more expensive than they used to be, but the ever-increasing shipping fee is also adding an additional $5,000 to $8,000, which certainly doesn’t enhance the quality of a horse one iota.

We have good horses being foaled and raised right here in this country. What they need now is to be trained and noticed!