Before the first Augusta Futurity, show chairman W.S. Morris III handed Pete May a yellow pad. Critique the show, Morris told his show manager.

At the conclusion of the three-day event, May wrote down a list of 12 potential changes. Twenty-five years later, No. 12 still sticks out in May's mind.

"I said move the show to Raleigh (N.C.)," he said with a laugh.

The Augusta Futurity begins its silver anniversary show at 8 a.m. Thursday. The 10-day event features more than 600 competitors and $1 million in total money.

Not bad considering in 1979 a group of 15 cutters, including Morris, met in an Atlanta airport to discuss the possibility of establishing a cutting horse futurity in the East. For East Coast cutters, the closest futurity was in Fort Worth, Texas.

"At that time, there was nothing in the East," Morris said.

Less than two months after the meeting, the Atlantic Coast Cutting Horse Association was created. The group decided to hold their first futurity the following year, and with the new Augusta-Richmond County Civic Center available, Morris persuaded ACCHA members to hold the inaugural show in Augusta. The cutters agreed, and the event was set for Feb. 7-9, 1980.

Everything didn't go so smoothly, though, in the formative years. Transporting dirt to and from the arena wasn't an easy chore. And futurity officials were not prepared to receive cutters in the wee hours of the morning.

The main problem, however, was horse stalls. The inexperienced crew put some stalls in the civic center's exhibition hall and the rest in the parking lot - making it difficult for patrons to find a parking space.

The stalls themselves were of such poor quality that May remarked in the first Augusta Futurity yearbook that, "some of them would hold a horse about as well as a screen door holding back a hurricane."

Cutters were quick to complain about the futurity's organization.

"The first year or two or three, it was tough," said Morris, whose Cowboy Publishing Group publishes equine magazines such as Western Horseman and Quarter Horse News. Morris Communications also runs one of the nation's top horse Web sites, horsecity.com.

"We didn't know what we were doing. We had a lot of learning to do."

After that initial show, May wanted to move the futurity to Raleigh where there was a horse facility. Morris declined, first wanting to call cutters and gauge their opinions of returning to a second Augusta show.

"What they were impressed with was the local hospitality," May said. "They thought it was phenomenal how the people of Augusta just wanted them to be here."

Hospitality helped strengthen the Augusta Futurity and turn it into one of the premier shows on the cutting horse circuit. Consider this: the inaugural futurity featured two events, the Futurity Open and Futurity Non-Pro competitions, had a $64,489 purse and 140 entries. In two short years, the futurity nearly tripled its total money ($158,576) as well as entries (408).

Also in 1982, the show adopted a five-judge system and a new scoring computer. The computer system allowed spectators to see a competitor's score within seconds of the cutter's run.

The computer system and judging system are still in place today, but now there are eight official events along with a $250,000 Western Horseman Cup finals.

There's no way the futurity could have grown this large, May said, without the construction of the Hippodrome in North Augusta. During the third futurity, the civic center parking lot across Seventh Street was flooded with 600 horse stalls under a tent.

"We had to have a new stalling facility," May said. "Without that, we would not have had the large show."

With the Hippodrome in place, rapid expansion occurred. In 1985, the futurity added the Classic Open and Classic Non-Pro events. With four divisions, the prize money ballooned to $317,504.

The first amateur event was added in 1989. Now, with four amateur competitions, the show has expanded from a handful of days to more than a week.

Now, with 25 years of the Augusta Futurity under his belt buckle, Morris thinks the show will go on another 25 years and beyond. First, though, he said a new arena is needed.

"A new building is very important to us," Morris said. "If we can get a new coliseum, we can do some other things.

"I see it continuing to grow in purse, prize money. We want it to be a quality event, a very high quality event."

Reach Chris Gay at (706) 868-1222, ext. 114.