PrintHorse management scores clinch the win for this Pony Club team.
In true Pony Club fashion, the training level eventing results came down to horse management at the U.S. Pony Club Championships, held July 24-27 in Lexington, Va.
The team from Delmarva region captured the win on the combined strength of their riding and strong stable skills.
“We knew we were in first after dressage,” said Annelise Gress, a 15-year-old HB from Lancaster, Pa. “We told ourselves, ‘There’s no reason we can’t go clean cross-country—we’ve done it before.’ Then Chase and I both had two poles in show jumping.”
Chase Beach is a 13-year-old C-2 from Lewis, Del., and the only boy on the team.
But they had no time faults in show jumping, and in the end, the team’s horse management score put them over the top.
“I was freaking out after formals when we got 3 points off,” said Georgina Waldman, a 16-year-old C-3, also from Lancaster, who was the team’s stable manager. Fortunately, the team lost no more horse management points after that and finished with the second-best score in their division.
The other team members were the captain, Cordielyn Goodrich, a 15-year-old C-2 also from Lewis, and Bethany Myers, a 16-year-old C-2 from Laurel, Del. The team members joked about doing things in matched pairs, with two gray mares and two bay geldings, and the “two brunettes riding the mares,” said Gress.
This was Myers’ first year riding at Championships; she’d been to the competition for the past three years, but for quiz, which doesn’t have a riding component. She and her horse, A Midday Star, only started competing at training level this year.
“My horse has probably jumped [for] two or three years,” she said. “She’s a lot greener than we thought she was—we’ve been learning as we go.”
Gress and her mount, Toro Toro Taxi, went to six training level events this year, starting in Aiken, S.C., in February. “I got hardcore this year,” she said. This show also featured the pair’s best dressage score yet.
Her horse was the most experienced of the team’s mounts, having evented at intermediate level, but the 12-year-old has restricted airways and must be carefully managed. “He’ll come off cross-country kind of huffing and puffing,” she said, but he recovers quickly.
The other horses on the team were new at training level. Beach’s mount, Lucky Bucky, is an ex-race horse. And Goodrich said her mother took her mare, English Mist, up to unrecognized novice before she took over the ride.
A Mixed Bag
The novice level eventing winners, the Eastern Pennsylvania team, made the most of their differences, with ages ranging from 13 to 18, and the “biggest horse height range,” said captain Shannon Pitt, a C-3 from Brandywine Hounds Pony Club. The win “was really a team effort,” she said.
In true Pony Club fashion, the training level eventing results came down to horse management at the U.S. Pony Club Championships, held July 24-27 in Lexington, Va.
The team from Delmarva region captured the win on the combined strength of their riding and strong stable skills.
“We knew we were in first after dressage,” said Annelise Gress, a 15-year-old HB from Lancaster, Pa. “We told ourselves, ‘There’s no reason we can’t go clean cross-country—we’ve done it before.’ Then Chase and I both had two poles in show jumping.”
Chase Beach is a 13-year-old C-2 from Lewis, Del., and the only boy on the team.But they had no time faults in show jumping, and in the end, the team’s horse management score put them over the top.
“I was freaking out after formals when we got 3 points off,” said Georgina Waldman, a 16-year-old C-3, also from Lancaster, who was the team’s stable manager. Fortunately, the team lost no more horse management points after that and finished with the second-best score in their division.
The other team members were the captain, Cordielyn Goodrich, a 15-year-old C-2 also from Lewis, and Bethany Myers, a 16-year-old C-2 from Laurel, Del. The team members joked about doing things in matched pairs, with two gray mares and two bay geldings, and the “two brunettes riding the mares,” said Gress.
This was Myers’ first year riding at Championships; she’d been to the competition for the past three years, but for quiz, which doesn’t have a riding component. She and her horse, A Midday Star, only started competing at training level this year.
“My horse has probably jumped [for] two or three years,” she said. “She’s a lot greener than we thought she was—we’ve been learning as we go.”
Gress and her mount, Toro Toro Taxi, went to six training level events this year, starting in Aiken, S.C., in February. “I got hardcore this year,” she said. This show also featured the pair’s best dressage score yet.
Her horse was the most experienced of the team’s mounts, having evented at intermediate level, but the 12-year-old has restricted airways and must be carefully managed. “He’ll come off cross-country kind of huffing and puffing,” she said, but he recovers quickly.
The other horses on the team were new at training level. Beach’s mount, Lucky Bucky, is an ex-race horse. And Goodrich said her mother took her mare, English Mist, up to unrecognized novice before she took over the ride.
A Mixed Bag
The novice level eventing winners, the Eastern Pennsylvania team, made the most of their differences, with ages ranging from 13 to 18, and the “biggest horse height range,” said captain Shannon Pitt, a C-3 from Brandywine Hounds Pony Club. The win “was really a team effort,” she said.
| USPC Championships Tidbits |
