The British Equestrian Federation Futurity Evaluation series is the fastest growing young horse evaluation programme in the UK and 2011 is set to be the busiest year yet. With capacity for well over 900 evaluations, the BEF Futurity aims to identify British bred
young potential sport horses and ponies destined for careers in dressage, eventing, show-jumping or endurance, and may even find the Olympic Champions of the future.
The BEF Futurity Evaluations are held at 15 venues throughout the UK and young horses go home with a BEF Premium (grade) and a detailed, informative score sheet. Entries open online on the 1st June and some venues fill up within 48 hours so breeders need to respond quickly to be sure of a place. Entry fees remain unchanged for 2011. The online entry system has been upgraded, so that if you have previously entered a horse, the information will appear automatically and you just have to check and approve the data already held on the entry pages. A waiting list management system will also make it easier to invite last minute entries in the event of a cancellation. All results are published on the fully searchable Futurity website, and those horses’ performance records are put on NED, the National Equine Database.
Horses and ponies are entered for the discipline they are bred to perform in, with age groups for foals, yearlings, two and three year olds. Each horse is evaluated in hand and loose in an indoor school as well as undergoing a vet’s assessment. Breeders have also commended the series as it allows them to get their youngstock out in public in a safe environment. Dominick Atkinson, breeder of a Futurity top scorer in 2010 said “we will be bringing as many youngstock as we can in 2011. We entered for the first time last year and were pleasantly surprised that it was not a beauty parade, nor did it matter we weren’t “known names”, the Futurity assessment got down to the detail of whether our horses had potential or not, which is exactly what we need”.
The BEF’s Head of Equine Development Jan Rogers commented on the positive feedback they have had from the series. “The Futurity is showing itself to be an assessment system which British breeders value, because it enables them to demonstrate, long before a horse is able to compete, that it has performance potential. It is serving as a valuable marketing tool for British breeders and we are delighted that so many people want to be part of it”.
For more information, visit www.bef.co.uk.
- 12-Jul - Tue - Writtle College Esse
- 14-Jul - Thu - The Grange Devon
- 19-Jul - Tue - Myerscough College Lancashire
- 21-Jul - Thu - Hartpury College Glos
- 26-Jul - Tue - Plumpton College East Sussex
- 28-Jul - Thu - Arena UK Lincolnshire
- 02-Aug - Tue - Southview NEW Cheshire
- 04-Aug - Thu - Crofton Manor NEW Hampshire
- 09-Aug - Tue - Richmond EC Yorkshire
- 11-Aug - Thu - Solihull 1 West Midlands
- 12-Aug - Fri - Solihull 2 West Midlands
- 16-Aug - Tue - Catherston Stud Hampshire
- 18-Aug - Thu - SNEC NEW West Lothian
- 23-Aug - Tue - Tall Trees Cornwall
- 25-Aug - Thu - College EC Bedfordshire
Photo © Craig Payne
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