Learn to Identify Event Horse Potential at USEA Young Horse Symposium

Demo horse Prophet (Tatendrang x Pennant's Valentine), owned and bred by Anissa Cottongim, and his handler Andrew Palmer at the 2015 USEA Young Horse Symposium. Photo by Leslie Threlkeld. Demo horse Prophet (Tatendrang x Pennant's Valentine), owned and bred by Anissa Cottongim, and his handler Andrew Palmer at the 2015 USEA Young Horse Symposium. Photo by Leslie Threlkeld.

The USEA’s Evaluation of a Young Event Horse Prospect Symposium is a must for anyone interested in breeding, owning or producing young event horses. Yesterday, the USEA announced the panelists for this year’s symposium, which will take place February 22-23 in Ocala, Florida.

The Germans are renowned for their young horse programs, and the USEA invited German team rider Kai-Steffen Meier as a guest speaker and rider. He who has competed multiple times at the World Championships for young horses at Le Lion d’Angers and was a winner at the Bundeschampionat.

Future Event Horse/Young Event Horse Committee members Robin Walker, Susan Graham-White and Marilyn Payne will be on hand as instructors. Olympic gold medalist and Developing Rider Coach Leslie Law will return this year as well as both a guest speaker and rider. Professional handler Phil Silva and Dr. Gary Spurlock and Dr. Shauna Spurlock at Spurlock Equine Associates are also among the speakers.

It’s great to see a variety of speakers invited to the symposium each year, and having attended last year as both a reporter and young horse enthusiast, I was impressed by the volume of information and practical demonstrations offered. We watched videos of horses competing at the Bundeschampionat and compared our own evaluations to the judge’s comments. There were multiple live horse demos with both unstarted and going youngsters and informative pedigree discussions. Even David O’Connor made a special appearance to talk about developing young horses into team horses.

You can catch up on our coverage here to get a feel for what it’s all about. Being relatively early in the season (not to mention held in sunny Florida), it’s a great way to kick off the year and enjoy all Ocala horse country has to offer.

Classroom sessions will take place at the clubhouse of the Ocala Jockey Club’s, and live horse demonstrations and evaluations will be hosted at Longwood Farm South. Registration forms are available here and you can find out more about the panelists here.