Dressage4Kids Shaping Young Breeders of Tomorrow Young Breeders Sport Horse Educational Program

Bedford, NY – Less than 12 months since its launch, the Young Breeders Sport Horse Educational program is making strides to groom equine enthusiasts for the exciting world of sport horses. Backed by the well respected and renowned Dressage4Kids (D4K) organization, the "Young Breeders Sport Horse Educational Program" is bringing young breeders together across breeding associations, countries, and languages. The participants are quickly forming a network that will facilitate the exchange of ideas and information to assist them in creating the ideal Sport Horse of tomorrow.

The program’s 2010 debut event was held at Ten Broeck Farm in Pepperell, MA where clinicians Britta Johnston and Phil Silva shared a wealth of knowledge about breeding care, presenting horses in-hand, free jumping and judging conformation. D4K welcomed Britta and Phil at the Ninth Annual Weekend Equestrian Educational Program (WEP) in January 2011. The program featured a full day of sessions to spotlight the Young Breeders initiative. Contributors also included Marie Banks, Chris Kropf, Alice Peterson, Jen Vanover and Liz Webb. The next stop for the Young Breeders Program was Calverton, NY on February 5th where Britta and Phil combined classroom theory featuring conformation and anatomy with a clinic that focused on judging as well showing in-hand.

These wonderful events pave the way to four fabulous days with Christian Schacht, DVM and Phil Silva beginning February 18 at Ten Broeck Farm (www.tenbroeckfarm.net). This clinic will teach working on the triangle, conformation, and free jumping with an informative classroom session. Dr. Schacht will judge a Free Jumping Competition with cash prizes and offer an opportunity for clinic participants to apply their evaluation skills and compare their scores to the official results. He will then hold a day-long Dressage Clinic on Monday to bring the event to a close.

And, for the first time, the 2011 Youth Dressage Festival includes a Sport Horse Handling and Judging competition. Eligibility for the Festival requires participants to have attended at least one clinic. Opportunities to compete will continue to expand with several classes added at select Breed Shows throughout the season.

Lendon Gray’s Dressage4Kids spearheaded this program to nurture a community of well informed, competent and educated youth ideally groomed for selection by a WBFSH member Breed Registry who would like to form a team to represent the United States in the International Young Breeders World Championships. "The WBFSH World Championships for Young Breeders” are held on a two- year cycle. Six people may be selected to represent the United States at the championships to be held July 22nd-24th 2011 in Chazey sur Ain, France. There will be two age groups in the international competition: 16 to 19 and 20 to 25. The Young Breeders program not only supports the development of teams for this competition, but also the potential for significant contributions to their breeding programs as well.

Anyone interested in participating either as young breeder participants, adults to teach, or stables to host training, please contact Lendon Gray at graydressage@optonline.net, Phil Silva at Tenbroeckfarm@gmail.com or Marie Banks at bnks19@optonline.net

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