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The View From The Rail: Youth Nationals 2006
by Russ Vento

Let me start by saying that our young riders are unbelievable. They’re just off the charts. People say that our industry is in trouble, but that is hard to believe when we have 50 and 60 walk/trotters in nearly every division at our Youth Nationals. And these kids are fearless! They’re going for it—they practice, they work hard, they try their best. The strength of our industry is our young riders, and they just blew me away.

As a measure of growth, before the inception of Youth Nationals in 13 years ago, the highest number of junior competitors we had at the U.S. Nationals was approximately 200. There were about a dozen classes, and in some of the divisions, children had to compete in regular amateur against adults, because there were no age splits—let alone the distinction of Junior Owner to Ride and Junior To Ride. Compare that to this year: In 2006, we had one of the biggest Youth Nationals ever, with more than 1,150 horses.

Albuquerque, New Mexico, is an ideal setting for Youth Nationals for a number of reasons. The fairgrounds, while not pristine, are pretty, and offer not only a friendly atmosphere but also plenty of room for riders to work horses. It is possible for everyone to get his or her work done and still have a good night’s sleep. On top of that, it may be 90 or 95 during the day, but there is a comfortable breeze and most afternoons offer five or 10 minutes of rain to keep things pleasant.

As I said, I could not help but be impressed by how focused our young riders are. They were practicing, watching their videos, taking their lessons—it made for some hot competition in the ring. Another thing I couldn’t miss was the network of support in many of the barns. When the riders were in the ring, the trainers, of course, were on the rail with technical advice such as “you need a little more of this or that.” But friends—fellow riders—and family were there too, with positive comments like “you look great, go for it.” At Youth Nationals, when a champion and reserve are selected, their whole extended family is welcome to come into the ring for the picture—and some of the groups were huge! The camaraderie was apparent.

Another hard to miss feature of the show was the western horses. They were just beautiful. There was a time when our western horses were in a box and not going anywhere, but that wasn’t the case here. The young riders have done a really good job in keeping their horses soft, ground-covering, and going forward. Also, it was really good to see that in western and hunter, there were at least half a dozen reigning national champions or past national champions, all standing their ground after five or 10 years of performing.

And speaking of impressive horses, I found the Country classes absolutely breathtaking in all ages, across the board.

Special Commendation

Not surprisingly, the innovation of having competitions for both Junior Owner and Junior To Ride, with separate sets of judges, carried on with great success. Many horses continued on to win both championships in their divisions, but many did not. Sometimes the national champion got the gate, or sometimes he or she was top ten rather than champion. I think there was one class where four top ten winners from the first competition, including the national champion and reserve, actually made it in the second class with a different set of judges. The bottom line was that everybody got a chance to show under a judge that liked their type of horse.

Since many people who show in Junior Owner also show in Junior To Ride, I was struck once again by how much more fair this system is, with its second set of judges for the second round of competition. The truth is—and I say this as a judge—that if a horse is national champion on Tuesday, and you see it again on Friday, you’re going to give it an extra look. That’s just human nature; you know it’s the reigning national champion. Most officials try to wipe the slate clean in their minds and start over, but it’s a lot easier for everyone if there is just an entirely new panel of judges.

As for the judging overall, I heard a certain amount of “we’ve got to get back to the judges cards again,” meaning that how can one judge put a horse first that another uses tenth? At Youth Nationals, I was more impressed to see that the judges saw the type of horse that they liked and they stuck with it. Sometimes they all liked the same horse, but what was more important to me was that they got the right 10 horses in the finals while still holding their own opinions.

Food For Thought

In a show with as much going on as Youth Nationals, of course I saw a few points that I think deserve discussion for the future. Here is what I noticed.

More Age Splits? It seems to me that we’re at a time when we need to create another age segment in some of our youth divisions. Many of our hunter horses are going through five sections and then to an A-B-C, so they’re just having to go too many times to get to the 16 for the final. A different system of age splits could cut down on that. What about if we broke the qualifiers into age groups of 11-12, 13-14, 15-17, or something like that? This would give the younger riders a better chance, while recognizing that the older juniors should have the knowledge and the skill to manage the numbers better. Also, adding an age split would give each horse fewer cuts.

English Pleasure: Too Much Razzmatazz For Our Own Good? To me, the atmosphere in English Pleasure—not country; just English—is very upsetting. Both purebred and Half-Arabian, they are out of control. It is like a rock concert in excitement and intensity level; as the horses come through the gate, the music is blaring, and the immediate result is that the horses go wild and the riders override. The judges call for a lineup, and no one lines up. Even though the judges are not watching (I checked specifically; the judges were looking at their cards every time), the riders are going every which-a-way, having wrecks, losing shoes, horses breaking off their gait. With 20 to 24 horses in some classes, that makes a chaotic situation downright dangerous.

English Pleasure is supposed to be soft and beautiful. It is supposed to be like hunter pleasure and western pleasure, just in a different body frame. When we can watch park classes, both purebred and Half-Arabian, and see horses moving with more control than our English classes, I think we have to look at our English division and get a handle on it.

I don’t want to trash the riders, the judges or anybody, but we have got to get some control here, because as a parent (my daughter may be 19 now, but I still know how it feels to be a parent), I’d be terrified to have my child in there.

In addition to the aspect of danger in a ring full of horses going like that, there is also the fact that it is very difficult to judge that sort of a class, from inside or outside of the ring. For judges in the ring, it is extremely distracting to feel that you are at physical risk while you’re trying to score the class. You are not able to watch the whole class because you’re worried about getting run over. The subliminal temptation is to judge the class on the potential of the horses—what they would look like if there weren’t such madness going on, as if it were a junior class, where your best horse may blow a lead or get fussy in the bridle or knock into someone else. In fact, the judges made a lot of horses national champions with mistakes, and I can’t blame it on their judging or anything else other than that in some classes it was just too chaotic for them to see.

We have phenomenal horses and riders, and at the Youth Nationals, nine times out of 10, the judges were able to get the right 10 horses in the final. But there might have been 10 others that could have had a shot had there been more control of the class. And almost certainly, in that kind of confusion, we did not see the top-of-the-line national champion performances of which the winners were capable.

One reason that this situation worries me is that it is getting worse. Three years ago I watched my daughter Skyler ride Magalad in English Pleasure and park. He is a powerful horse and she was 85 pounds soaking wet, but at that time, manners were paramount (at least, they were with Bob and with most of the trainers I know). The classes weren’t about speed. They were about form and athletic ability and showing your horse. That was just three years ago. Where will we be in another three years? I’m afraid that the mood has changed so much that our young riders are unable to really show their horses. They have to go out there and just go for it.

Who is to blame? No one in particular, really. All of us, maybe, for getting too much into the excitement of competition. The loud music is responsible for some of it, because you don’t see this sort of craziness going on in the warm-up arena. Out there, everyone is going for it, but they are under control. It isn’t until they go through the gate that the intensity level spikes. Then the announcer is shouting “Are you ready? That’s not good enough! Are you ready?” and things speed up and the music whips everyone up into a frenzy. It is one thing to do that in a Saturday night class of trainers, but another in a full class of young riders.

This kind of atmosphere makes it hard for our youth. They’re excited, they’re motivated, they go in there and they’re feeling these horses between their hands and legs that they’ve never felt before. Some of them keep it together and some of them don’t, and some of the ones who don’t crash into those who do. At the end of the class, they make their own interminable passes before coming to the line-up, just as adults do (we know where they learned it, and their last passes aren’t any safer than ours are).

I’m not sure what the answer is. My best thought is that this is a situation where a workout would be helpful. As we have said in past articles, if the riders are going to have their own workouts at the end of a class, then we need to allow them to have a legitimate workout. So let’s channel all this craziness into someplace where it would fit. A workout of four or five horses, trotting like steam engines and backed by loud music and screaming fans, would be a reward for the top riders in the ring.

What Is Happening In Equitation? I think our equitation needs to be looked at. Five or six years ago, there were 75 to 90 girls and boys in the English equitation classes. Now we’re down to 25. Is that because we now have a purebred equitation, a UPHA Challenge Cup, and a regular Half-Arabian Saddle Seat Equitation? My guess is that it is either because we now have three different equitation venues, or because more young riders want to show not only in equitation but also in Country and English, and it winds up being just too many cuts for their horses. To do equitation real justice requires a horse dedicated primarily to that discipline, and maybe using the horses in multiple divisions, with multiple cuts, makes it too hard to keep their form up.

Or maybe I’m just sensing a change in the passion of it. I don’t know why that is, because we have beautiful riders. But somehow, for me, equitation seems to have lost a little bit of its spark.

Out Of The Saddle

A great feature of Youth Nationals was the ways children who weren’t riding (and many who were) could stay involved. Two of my favorites were the judging teams and the hippology contest, which was great because the kids got to test their knowledge. In the hippology contest, I’m not sure of the actual numbers, but there were let’s say 13 and under, 14-17, and then the adults, and the kids actually got better scores than the adults. That was great, because you could see that they were learning and studying and figuring out things.

Another highlight of the show was the stall decorations. We had castles, pirate ships, black pearls, moats—you name it. With adults, everything is decorated for elegance; well, this was all for fun. Then they had the parade of allegiance, where the kids dressed up their golf carts. Pirate ships were the most popular motif. It was like carnival week. You walked in the fair and you knew it was Youth Nationals.

Albuquerque V. Tulsa

When we arrived at Youth Nationals this year, there was a plan to move the show to Tulsa, Okla., where the U.S. Nationals will be held as of 2008. Correspondingly, a group of horsemen and women mounted an effort to keep the show in Albuquerque. The thought pattern was that when we were in Oklahoma, the blistering summer temperatures were costly. We lost horses and riders to heat exhaustion (90 degrees in Oklahoma is not the same as 90 in Albuquerque, with the difference in humidity and altitude, and the influence of the heat index).

A petition was circulated at the horse show which racked up signatures equaling more than half the horses at the show, and New Mexico’s Governor Bill Richardson pledged $1 million to augment the show over the final two years of our contract there. In the end, both the horsemen and the state officials went to bat to keep the show in Albuquerque. The unity and enthusiasm were great.

And Finally

I enjoyed nearly every part of our Youth Nationals this year. The only part I have a hard time handling—and it breaks my heart—is the tears. I hate to see kids cry. It’s part of competition, I know; everyone works so hard, and when they don’t hear their number called, some cry. I don’t think I can ever get used to that, and I want to go up to every single one of them and say, “You know you can do it again—you can do it next time.”

Sometimes the tears come right before a happy ending. One instance I especially remember from this year came while the riders were in the warm-up ring getting ready for a final. A trainer went over to a girl who was not his client, and whatever he said had her in tears. She sat there alone for a moment, just crying, pretty psyched out right before a class she’d been working toward all year. Then another trainer came up to her—again, not her own trainer—and said, “You know, what he said really doesn’t matter. You’ve done your job and you’ve worked hard for this. The tears are just emotions.” He gave her quite a pep talk—and she went in there and actually became national champion! She wrote him a note about it later, which made it very special for him.

So—all in all, this year’s Youth Nationals was a great experience. I left there feeling very positive. I can’t say enough how impressed I am with our young riders. They were just fearless. If they were nervous, they sure didn’t show it. They looked like they had done their homework and they had a good time.

Russell Vento Jr. has been involved in the Arabian industry for 25 years, and since 1989 has been a partner in Battaglia Farms. He was honored twice with APAHA Amateur Horseman Awards. To date, he has owned or shown 30 U.S., Canadian and National Show Horse national champions, and he now enjoys watching his daughter Skyler win on many of the horses with whom he was successful. He has been a Large R USAE/AHA judge since 1996.