PrintThe amateur rider wins with her homebred.
Mary Messinger of Hillsboro, N.C., epitomized the happy amateur rider as she sat in the barn on a bale of hay, excitedly calling friends and family.
Messinger was broadcasting the news that she’d won the Region 1 adult amateur training level championship, one of the largest classes at the Great American/USDF Region 1 Championships, Oct. 25-28 in Lexington, Va.
“I bred him, I broke him, and nobody else has ever ridden him,” Messinger said about Full Scoop, her 5-year-old, Hanoverian gelding.
“It was the perfect test. I haven’t had a perfect test all season. There has always been a bobble here or there—a break in the canter or the stretch wasn’t there. It all came together today,” she continued.
She and Full Scoop scored a 70.40 percent for the win.
Messinger’s voice cracked with emotion as she talked about her horse. She bought Full Scoop’s dam as a weanling, despite starting out to look for a more mature horse that she could already ride and compete.
The mare, Faure (by Waldorf) won her Hanoverian testing program. “Then I got pregnant, and misery loves company,” Messinger said. “So she had to get pregnant too.”
The result was Full Scoop.
Then life took one of those unexpected turns and Messinger’s husband lost his job. Messinger put Full Scoop on the market but couldn’t go through with selling him.
“He’s sensitive, and he can be hot, but he’s very trusting of me,” Messinger said of the 17-hand gelding.
Despite his size, Messinger said the horse is very light on his feet.
Messinger and Full Scoop also won an open first level, test 1, class in the VADA Fall show run concurrently with the Region 1 Championships. This was Full Scoop’s seventh show in just his first year of showing.
“He gives you a wonderful feeling of having the power underneath, but he also listens and comes back with this wonderful light contact,” Messinger said. “His attitude has always been, ‘What’s next?’ I never ride with whips or spurs. He’s got lots of go and, at the same time, has the whoa.”
Messinger calls her 10-horse barn a “one-woman operation.” She fits riding in around a full-time job as a database administrator and taking care of her two children and cheering them on at athletic events. “If you really want to do it, you’ll make it happen,” she said.
Marnix Dances And Wins
George Williams swept a double-header, winning both the Region 1 Championships Grand Prix and Grand Prix freestyle classes.
Marnix, a 15-year-old Dutch Warmblood, appeared to be listening to and dancing along with the pulsating bass of “The Beat Goes On” in his piaffe on the centerline during the freestyle.
“I was very happy with my ride last night,” Williams said. “It was one of those moments that we all work very hard for. And hope that they may actually happen. He was on and right with me the whole time.”
Mary Messinger of Hillsboro, N.C., epitomized the happy amateur rider as she sat in the barn on a bale of hay, excitedly calling friends and family.
Messinger was broadcasting the news that she’d won the Region 1 adult amateur training level championship, one of the largest classes at the Great American/USDF Region 1 Championships, Oct. 25-28 in Lexington, Va.
“I bred him, I broke him, and nobody else has ever ridden him,” Messinger said about Full Scoop, her 5-year-old, Hanoverian gelding.“It was the perfect test. I haven’t had a perfect test all season. There has always been a bobble here or there—a break in the canter or the stretch wasn’t there. It all came together today,” she continued.
She and Full Scoop scored a 70.40 percent for the win.
Messinger’s voice cracked with emotion as she talked about her horse. She bought Full Scoop’s dam as a weanling, despite starting out to look for a more mature horse that she could already ride and compete.
The mare, Faure (by Waldorf) won her Hanoverian testing program. “Then I got pregnant, and misery loves company,” Messinger said. “So she had to get pregnant too.”
The result was Full Scoop.
Then life took one of those unexpected turns and Messinger’s husband lost his job. Messinger put Full Scoop on the market but couldn’t go through with selling him.
“He’s sensitive, and he can be hot, but he’s very trusting of me,” Messinger said of the 17-hand gelding.
Despite his size, Messinger said the horse is very light on his feet.
Messinger and Full Scoop also won an open first level, test 1, class in the VADA Fall show run concurrently with the Region 1 Championships. This was Full Scoop’s seventh show in just his first year of showing.
“He gives you a wonderful feeling of having the power underneath, but he also listens and comes back with this wonderful light contact,” Messinger said. “His attitude has always been, ‘What’s next?’ I never ride with whips or spurs. He’s got lots of go and, at the same time, has the whoa.”
Messinger calls her 10-horse barn a “one-woman operation.” She fits riding in around a full-time job as a database administrator and taking care of her two children and cheering them on at athletic events. “If you really want to do it, you’ll make it happen,” she said.
Marnix Dances And Wins
George Williams swept a double-header, winning both the Region 1 Championships Grand Prix and Grand Prix freestyle classes.
Marnix, a 15-year-old Dutch Warmblood, appeared to be listening to and dancing along with the pulsating bass of “The Beat Goes On” in his piaffe on the centerline during the freestyle.
“I was very happy with my ride last night,” Williams said. “It was one of those moments that we all work very hard for. And hope that they may actually happen. He was on and right with me the whole time.”
