THREE West Devon horse breeders recently saw success in a highly-regarded evaluation event aimed at seeking out the equine stars of the future.

Stephen Hutchins, Amana Coleshill and Pat Lindsay, entered their young horses in the Baileys Horse Feeds/British Equestrian Federation (BEF) Futurity Evaluation, held at The Grange near Okehampton.

The event was one of a series of evaluations helping to identify British bred, young potential sport horses that are destined for careers as dressage horses, eventers, show jumpers, endurance horses and sports ponies, and could discover potential sports horses and ponies that become future Olympic or British team stars.

Stephen Hutchins entered his three-year-old chestnut gelding, Jumbo's Dream and earned a first premium. Jumbo's Dream is out of Genna's Dream, a mare Stephen bought when she was five years old. He decided to event her and brought her through the ranks, taking her to advanced level eventing at 1, 2 and 3*. He retired her at 15 with a view to breed from her and he put her to the stallion, Jumbo, who she used to compete against. Due to Stephen's work he is unable to do horses justice and produce them to the level he would like to see them reach – he has three offspring from the dam and they are all for sale.

He hopes that Jumbo's Dream will follow a career in eventing.

Amanda Coleshill's two-year-old gelding Furneaux earned a very good first premium in the eventing section.

Furnaux's dam, Gina, is a Hannoverian mare that Amanda bought five years ago. Bred for show jumping, Gina had been competing at advanced medium dressage in Germany and Amanda continued to ride her and school her for a year before putting her in foal to the stallion, Fontainebleu. Amanda bred another foal out of the same dam and sire, called Fibi.

Pat Lindsay bred her sports pony, Tuell Remember Lucy, also known as 'Annie'. Her dam was a special pony to the family and was a graded sports pony mare. Annie's sire is a Hannoverian sports pony.

'Annie' went to the evaluations as a foal and a two year old and got first premiums. She will be back in September and they hope that she will become a sports pony in the future. Annie's two year old half brother by the same dam also has two first premiums.

With entries limited to 60 at each evaluation venue, places are keenly sought after. Entries are categorised by discipline with age groups for foals, yearlings, two and three year olds and each horse is evaluated in hand and loose in a safe indoor environment as well as undergoing a vet's assessment.

BEF's head of equine development, Jan Rogers, was delighted with the results. She said: 'The futurity's support has exceeded all expectations this year and the standard at The Grange was excellent.

'The Futurity is showing itself to be an assessment system which British breeders value, because it enables them to demonstrate, long before a horse is able to compete, that it has performance potential. It is serving as a valuable marketing tool for British breeders and we are delighted that so many people want to be part of it.'

The BEF Futurity Evaluations are held at 12 venues throughout the UK.