Oklahoma City will host the 2010 Youth World Cup July 3-11, and the American Quarter Horse Association is calling on volunteers – two-legged and four-legged – to make the event a success.
Each Youth World Cup team consists of five American Quarter Horse Youth Association members plus a coach. The youth take part in eight days of educational seminars, riding and showmanship clinics, leadership training and competition. Alternate members of the teams attend the educational and leadership seminars. Each team draws a pool of six volunteered horses to use throughout the two-day competition. Each horse is ridden at least once in each class.
Competing team members do not show their own horses. The host country provides each team’s horses for clinics and competition, and AQHA relies on horse owners to supply this event with the best American Quarter Horses around. American Quarter Horses are needed for cutting, reining, showmanship, trail, western pleasure, horsemanship, western riding, hunter under saddle and hunt seat equitation. Click here for the horse volunteer form, and your horse might be an international star in July.
Human volunteers are also needed to help feed the horses, assist with team meals, work the gate, set trail obstacles, work as ring stewards and assist in other areas at the event. AQHA members are the heart and soul of the event and help is needed with all the behind-the-scenes work so the AQHYA members can shine in the arena. If you would like to meet some great AQHYA members from around the world while volunteering at the 2010 Youth World Cup, click here to learn more.
“To make the event a success, we are calling on AQHA members to provide American Quarter Horses for our AQHYA members to ride at the 2010 Youth World Cup,” said David Avery, AQHA director of international programs. “We are also looking for volunteers to assist with and be part of the excitement of this international event. Many of the AQHYA members have dreamed of competing at the Youth World Cup, and we want to make this an experience of a lifetime that they will never forget.”
Team rosters are due to AQHA by March 31. Team USA has announced the names of the AQHYA members that will represent the host country in 2010.
Team USA Riders:
Peyton Bivins – Amarillo, Texas
Alison Ceresani – Tuckerton, New Jersey
Katie Krshka – Yukon, Oklahoma
Reed Kyle – Whitesboro, Texas
Nick Murphy – Jackson, Missouri
Team USA Leadership:
Taylor Duncanson – Raymond, Maine
Lauren Halvorson (and rider alternate) – Guthrie, Oklahoma
Jocelyn Tanner – Webster, New Hampshire
Leah Thomas – South Royalton, Vermont
Kaitlyn Wadman – Haverhill, Massachusetts
For the latest information on the 2010 Youth World Cup, click here. Forms for volunteers and horses can be downloaded at the site.
That sounds really cool.
Oh, if only I lived in OK! What a wonderful opportunity.
Sounds like a lot of fun. Too bad you need a quarter horse.
To be honest, as it stands today I can’t get excited about anything having to do with promoting the AQHA and it’s breed shows. There is far too much abuse tolerated within this organization, from riding long-yearlings in curb bits and draw reins to prep them for the 2 y/o classes, to tail nerve blocking, to tying heads up, down, or to the side – it’s endemic to the association. I think that the AQHA should focus their money, human, and equine resources on fixing the problems within the association or spending time and money on tackling the unwanted horse problem (quarter horses are the most populous horse breed in the world) before they start another youth program (they already have several).
It’s admittedly cliche but children are indeed our future, and how they are educated now will affect how they behave as adults. But I also think it’s far better to fix the substantial problems with the AQHA and set that up as an example of responsible horsecare and leadership than to have an event like the one discussed in the article.
Samantha has a good point – thank you for contributing! I still think, though, that by making this an international event, that musch spotlight on the event will make abuse impossible. Perhaps more events of this kind would help clean up AQHA…
Gesa – I agree with you that there is very little chance of abusive practices being utilized during the AQHA youth event, but my concern is for the day-to-day care and training of stock-bred show horses. In the past decade or so, general awareness of the plight of the “Big lick” TWH horses and OTTBs have entered the public consciousness, as have the challenges facing the unwanted/unadopted wild mustangs and burros. But the stock-bred breeding and show industry is a multi-billion dollar a year business, and people are involved in the stock-bred associations at all levels, with the lower levels under quite a bit of pressure to have horses the look and perform like the horses of the Big Name Trainers. It’s what goes on day in and day out “behind the scenes” and on the local and regional levels that really concerns me.
The AQHA has historically been slow to address problems and almost never takes a firm stand when it comes to enforcing rules and punishing offenders as per the association’s own rules.