United States Eventing Association

This year, the USEA was proud to offer two end-of-year educational seminars for the Young Event and Future Event Horse Programs, with one on the east coast at High Point Hanoverians in Chestertown, Maryland on November 16-17, 2013. The second, held on the west coast, was at DG Bar Ranch in Hanford, California on December 14-15. YEH and FEH judge and Task Force member, Faith Fessenden, was kind enough to write a wrap-up of the seminar at DG Bar Ranch.

From Faith: A HUGE THANKS to Willy Arts and the DG Bar Ranch team for providing a super locale for our west coast FEH & YEH education for the year.

Located in the geographic center of California, attendees flew in from the East coast, Midwest, and Pacific Northwest or drove in from the length and breadth of California. Their purpose in fitting yet one more activity into the holiday season was to sit, watch, learn and soak up the information (morning sessions) and demonstrations (afternoon sessions) designed by the Future Event Horse Task Force team of Susan Graham White, Robin Walker and Faith Fessenden.

Friday evening was devoted to the Future Event Horse Series and began with a welcome and commentary on behalf of Marilyn Payne, YEH Chair, who was unable to attend.

The discussion was a review of videos from the East and West coast YEH Championships (Fair Hill, MD, and Galway Downs, CA). These were used to dissect the components - and importance of - the YEH score sheets and how the directives and comments applied to the horses featured. Several side-by-side videos were shown for study of the differences in types, movements, abilities and development at this time in the lives of these young talents and their education.

Saturday morning’s PowerPoint and discussion was on the Future Event Horse Program's strengths and challenges and how it can be beneficially employed by owners and breeders. Attending and prospective judges were schooled on maintaining a consistency for type/conformation/walk/trot and general impression. The goal of the Task Force is to provide continued education for standardized scoring and comments for designated FEH judges.

The afternoon sessions at 'the ranch' began with a prayer for thanks of safe travel, the opportunity of community, and the blessings of the food in front of us. The delicious food and patriarch Tony de Groot's baked goods - with fresh whipped unpasteurized cream straight from the cow at the De Groot Dairies - left us sated, but with enough oomph to perambulate to our chairs lining the covered arena.

Robyn Fisher-Nash, who has produced two YEH Champions, brought Caddillac, (purchased from DG Bar Ranch, as was her prior champion Artesian) and three more demo horses. Each of the four horses (one was a race horse rescue) were superlative examples of differences in event horse type in frame and structure. To then see the standing/jogging youngster go free in the jumping chute completed the circle of understanding of what works, what doesn't, how it works, how it doesn't, and how to use the poles/jumps/distances to evaluate not just the talent but the mind-set of each young horse - all of this under the direction of 'Loose Schooling' master Robin Walker.

The day concluded with the cocktail hour and hors d'oeuvres in Tony's Cafe overlooking the arena while a running commentary was given on the youngsters working before us. These were DG Bar's young dressage-bred horses which included current top FEI Young Horses and offspring of prior FEI Young Dressage Horse champions. The breeding stallions Idocus (KWPN) at 24 yrs old, hale and hearty, AND CLEAN LEGGED, piaffed and passaged for us while Devon Heir (Hanoverian) flying-changed his way around the arena. All underscored DG Bar’s dedication within their breeding and training program of horses that are strong and quick from behind, in balance with correct rhythm, and are expressive and impressive in their movement.

Sunday’s morning session was dedicated to the ‘production’ of a youngster, from foaling to under-saddle and loose schooling. Robin Walker took great time discussing the in’s and out’s and challenges of each of these phases and emphasized that one must never advance a youngster with ‘holes in any level of its foundations’ left untended. He also emphasized the evaluation of the mind of a youngster and that there ARE those who have everything ‘right’ but just won’t fulfill their promise. Robin’s phrase of the morning that had all nodding and writing was “Don’t let their fitness get ahead of their education.”

The afternoon session brought out the young horses for the group to judge per the Future Event Horse score sheet. Willy Arts provided yearlings through three-year-olds for the triangle evaluation, inserting several not-event-types for differentiation and examples of what we are NOT seeking.

With final fare-thee-wells all around, participants headed off to their respective airports and destinations - chock full of things to mull over and utilize as we evaluate our own horses and any standing in front of us in the future. We hope they will never look at legs and feet casually again!

The dynamic of camaraderie and sharing within this educational opportunity, the wonderful horses, the excellent teamwork with those horses and the blessings of the De Groot family sent us on our way.

Happy Holidays to all! See you in 2014 for more EDUCATION!