United States Eventing Association

It was an honor to have William Micklem (IRL) judge both the east and west coast USEA Young Event Horse Championships. William is an international coach, Fellow of the British Horse Society, and author of the DK Complete Horse Riding Manual. He is responsible for finding Olympic medalists Custom Made, Biko and Giltedge for Karen and David O'Connor, and bred Karen O'Connor's Olympic horse Mandiba and Zara Phillips' High Kingdom. He gave us his thoughts on the Young Event Horse Championships and offers a bit of advice:

"It was a real pleasure to judge your Young Event Horse Championships and see the interest and support there is for this class. It is vital for the success of the USA team in future championships that elite horses are bred and produced in the USA as well as found abroad. However, breeding is never easy and it would be wise to concentrate on the families that have proven that they have the wide ranging qualities of a high level event horse. This must include the right mental qualities. The courage, character and brain that separates the champions from those that are merely physically talented. This is an area that is often neglected in competitions of this nature but is something that every high level trainer treats as a priority when deciding between horses.

It was the mental qualities of Custom Made and Giltedge that first attracted my interest, and it is both the mental qualities and the physical qualities that makes my home bred High Kingdom and all this family so extraordinary. Watching High Kingdom jump out of his paddock as a young horse made me delighted, as did his willingness and desire to go forwards from the beginning. We do nothing but increase the chances of expensive failure with breeding programmes if we are led astray by magnificent beauty and ignore fundamental mental defects. On a racecourse it is obvious which TB families show a greater tendency to put their nose in front on the finish line. Equally in eventing it is obvious that the 'brain' of a Connemara pony for example, or Irish Draught, or indeed any breeding stock proven in competition is hugely desirable.

As the marks show, we had an excellent group of horses at the top in both the 4-year-old and 5-year-old classes. Certainly, there was a group of about 15 horses in total, from both classes on both east and west coasts, that would be comparable with the prize winners in the equivalent championship young event horses classes in Ireland and the UK. This is truly exciting. If these horses can continue to be developed with excellent training and remain healthy they have the potential to represent the USA in championship teams in the future. I have little doubt that this will happen with some of these horses, but the aim should be to have 20 horses of this caliber next year and 30 the following year as interest builds.

It was particularly pleasing to see that the majority of these young horses were bred specifically for eventing. The added value of successful event horse breeding programmes will be a positive effect on all USA breeding programmes for all equine disciplines, because a good event horse is also the supreme pleasure riding horse, sound, durable, physically efficient and rideable, being willing and sensible with bags of 'brain'. Arguably specialist breeding programmes for one discipline usually fail to do this."

Four-year-old overall Championship results.

Five-year-old overall Championship results.