If you didn’t follow the inaugural US Event Horse Futurity on facebook in 2019, you really missed out. The training vlogs were fantastic, and it was so educational to see how different trainers approach different issues, and how the horses progressed throughout the year. I developed a bit of a fangirl crush on Maya Black, someone I didn’t know a whole lot about before the Futurity.

You see some of these upper level people running around the big stuff with older experienced horses, but it’s such a different ballgame to see them with young horses and get a front row seat to watch how they train. It’s an entirely separate skillset. Some of the trainers were exceptionally good at knowing when to take the pressure away and just hack out or give time off, and knowing just how much they had to prepare without pushing the 4yo brain. It’s an art form that’s fascinating to me (and extremely applicable to real life), and the Futurity brought it to the public eye in a way that is rarely so accessible.

Anyway, if you missed it, the winner of the 2019 Futurity and the second place horse at the YEH Championships overall was Double Diamond C, by Diacontinus. Y’all might remember Diacontinus because I was stalking him a little in Germany in 2017 at Bundeschampionate, plus his sire is Diarado, who is also the sire of one of Presto’s half brothers (Manny).

This week the Futurity posted the 2020 entrants – 11 new baby event horses throwing their hats into the ring to be crowned the next winner. It’s an interesting group, with a couple stallions, a few trakehners, a variety of warmbloods, some tb x wb crosses, a little 15h guy, and even a few dressage-bred horses. It’s a whole new collection of rider/trainers too, so we’ll get to see even more insight into how different people approach the process.

It’s a little too early for me to pick a favorite, since the Futurity has just starting posting pictures and videos of the horses on their facebook page, but if we’re going by pedigree I’m particularly interested to see how Galway, Protego, and Exmoor Xena come along.

Anyone else been following along and looking at the new entries yet? Who’s your early favorite? Did you glean anything useful from the 2019 vlogs?