POINT OF VIEW “Maybe the very top riders don’t want to ride the babies,”
Anne says. “DiAnn’s idea is to start producing young horses with top young riders—and then the horse may go on to the Beezies [Madden] or the McLains [Ward].” Young horse training is a viable career option for young
riders. DiAnn reminds riders that not everyone’s going to the Olympics or World Championships. “There are only four on a team, so it may not happen to them. I say, ‘Who are you and what do you want to be?’ I say, ‘teach the youngsters: there is a career there.’” She sees this specialty as an area of expertise to develop
and promote, with recognition and awards. “We need to make them as important to us as our five-star riders. Let’s get kids thinking they want to do young horse training, and that there is money there to train and sell hors- es. We can make these rider skills just as important as the Grand Prix.” She has a list of almost 300 devel- oping riders, and invites the top ris- ing stars to clinics. “My clinics work through invitations to riders who have expressed interest in moving up the pipeline.” Christine also supports promot- ing this career to young riders. She encourages those with the desire and those who have demonstrated talent for youngsters. “Our younger professionals—or a talented ju- nior—not having a sponsor right away that gives them a Grand Prix horse, want to know, ‘How can I en- ter this area in the sport, develop- ing the young horses and doing it well?’ I have seen those riders in clinics. You see they have a great feel for the horse’s body, a great feel for having the horse develop under them.” DiAnn defines the skill set, with patience as the keyword.
“The trainer is willing to ask the same question without los- ing her temper, over and over until she gets that answer. When she gets that answer, the feeling she experiences—it’s just like winning a Grand Prix.” She notes that the communication can be slow to ma-
terialize, and that some horses simply take longer. “As you evolve as a young horse rider, you get experience and you put it in your tool chest. Then when another horse comes along with that issue, you know what to do. When you go out in the morning and look at that horse, you get a sense of how he’s feeling that day. It’s a special rapport with a young horse, to know what he needs and to get him to click.” A good start affects the horse’s rideability and career.
“Sometimes you buy a horse and say, ‘I wish I’d had him as a five-year-old.’ Getting a horse with a professional or a good
66 November/December 2015
trainer is very important,” Anne says. “And it takes time and it takes money.” “The riders of young horses are famous because they
do an exquisite job,” Christine says about European trainers. “Riding young horses takes a special skill. It takes, feel, coor- dination, elasticity, and a little bit of guts, too, that you really know how to bring a young horse along, put it in balance, putting it on the aids and developing the gaits,” she adds. In dressage, Jayne’s seeing riders emerge who specialize
in young horse training, to break them and school them to start competing. She agrees that our star riders don’t have time to ride the youngsters, and advises breeders and own- ers to attend USDF seminars in young horse training. “Look at the riders to see who is riding the four, five and six-year- olds, to see who is doing a good job. You see good riders riding those, who are a step down from those who claim the trophies.” “This [young horse training] is
Hannah Heidegger is a rider on the US Develop- ment Team for the 2015 Nations Cup series, with DiAnn Langer the chef d’equipe. Hannah rode the Zangersheide mare Geledimar (Grosso Z x Lord Z) in the HITS Thermal Desert Circuit earlier in 2015.
a strong part of the puzzle in Ger- many, the Netherlands and Swe- den, where it’s a well-established part of the horse world,” she says. “Here it’s been a mystery. If I was still breeding, my eyes would be wide open to look at the riders at the young horse seminars, look- ing for the right people to send my young horses.”
The Finish Line “I think we can do it in the U.S. We can work as a team: the breeders,
riders, trainers, owners, to pull it all together,” Candace says. “We have to keep working on it all together. I’m passionate about this. I think we can succeed. I don’t think we’re far off. It’s not so much how we breed, it’s once they hit the ground, and how we bring them along.” “We have to have the ambition, the breeding, the riding,
guidance of coaches, and showing so we can create a sup- ply—a pipeline—here in America of good horses that move up to be a team horse for a championship,” Christine says. “I think in the future all the people who deal with young horses will come together,” DiAnn says, stressing the need for consistency, a team approach, even across the disciplines. “A young horse has to be started in the same manner. This is what we do. This is our sport, this is what we love. We have to take care of it, from the bottom to the top—not from the top to the bottom.” Anne praises the concept of pipelines, saying, “There is
a big future for young horses. The horse show business is growing. We’ll breed a Pegasus here!”
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