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Burghley Dubarry Young Event Horse Series

The Burghley Dubarry Young Event Horse Series has been a popular element of Burghley Horse Trials for over 20 years. The brainchild of Bill Henson during his term as Director, it is still acknowledged as the shop window to view potential ‘four star’ horses at an early age.

Open to four and five year old horses, the aim of the series is to encourage breeders and trainers to produce and present the type of young horse which will be considered to be the best material to make a world class three day event horse.

The judges look for an athletic, loose moving horse with a promising jumping technique which, with correct training and production, will develop physically and mentally into a strong three day eventer.

The winner is that with the highest overall marks from four sections:

Dressage: each horse performs a simple dressage test to show its paces and to demonstrate that it is obedient, supple and has correct, elastic and regular gaits. Marks are not awarded for individual movements.

Jumping: this follows immediately after the dressage. Judges are looking for a bold athletic horse with good technique. A horse with these qualities should not necessarily be penalised for knocking down one fence (or even a four year old having one refusal), providing he learns from his mistake.

Conformation and type: horses are assessed in hand by the conformation judge. Their build and type should enable them to withstand the demands of the sport in terms of soundness, speed and stamina.

Suitability and Potential: only the top ten highest scoring horses from section the previous three sections are required to come forward to show their paces and they are assessed on presence or ‘star quality’. The horses are brought into line in the order that the judge sees their potential. Ten marks will be awarded to the horse placed first, 9 to the second, 8 to the third down to one mark for the tenth horse. These marks will then be added to the scores from the previous 3 sections to find the winner.