Exciting young horses also get lottery funding in the UK and access to some of the top trainers in the country through the talent path.
They have to meet very specific criteria and results at each level and as each year goes on they get weeded out as many fall short of what is required.
British Eventing has young horse classes from yearlings to 9 years old. Yearlings, 2yo and 3yo its through vet, movement and if a 3yo loose jumping. They qualify throughout the country at something called the BEF futurity and then the finals are held at Osberton along with the 4/5/6/7yo championships. The 4/5yo competitions are usually dressage competitions as the standard is so high. But the 6/7yos go round proper championship level 1* and 2* courses.
The age classes are big business for a lot of producers in the UK.
The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.
I also calculated the % Blood of the winners from 2004-2011. The YEH % Blood is 54.8%, the average % Blood for all 4* horses in the last 3 years (the "modern" event horse) is 75.8%. I think NCRider hit the nail on the head.
The average of 75.8%, is that ALL 4* horses? Is there anyway to know what that percentage would be if we excluded the TB's and looked only at the (possibly purpose bred) eventing crosses?
Just curious - and on iPhone so please excuse typos...
I find it fascinating how the % of blood can vary even within "heavier" warmbloods.
Or how modern and refined a WB can look with low %. There are some
"refining" stallions with pretty low percentage of blood who consistently stamp their offspring with more refining traits. And there are some WB stallions with a high percentage of blood...who while they themselves are refined....really don't pass that trait along. That's why IMO with the WBs you really need to know the whole family not just the percentages.
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