Designer clothes, perfect make-up and a diva-esque singing voice sounds more like a candidate on “American Idol” than an up-and-coming young rider.

But Laine Ashker is out to win more than best-dressed at the jog-up.

Her determination and grit are becoming as well-known as her fashion sense as this gutsy 21-year-old elbows her way into the elite ranks of eventing on Eight St. James Place, an $1,800 off-the-track Thoroughbred.

In 2004 she rode Eight St. James Place to sixth at the Fair Hill CCI*** (Md.) and third place on the U.S. Eventing Association’s list of leading young riders. And last July she rode Frodo Baggins to the silver medal in the CCI** at the Maui Jim North American Young Riders Championships.

“I’m very serious about this. I’m going to the Olympics,” Ashker declared to her trainer, Marcia Carabell, after a riding lesson in April.

“I thought, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ ” admitted Carabell. “But I soon realized that she wasn’t joking and she has all the skills to make it.”

Originally from California, Ashker is a natural optimist who lives her life full speed ahead, but 2005 was a year of some hard knocks and valuable lessons. A painful go in her first four-star at the Rolex Kentucky CCI in April aboard “Jamie” forced Ashker to take a break and re-examine her priorities.

Jamie bounced The Footbridge (fence 18), an enormous oxer before the Head of the Lake, and catapulted Ashker from the tack, actually breaking her c-6 and c-7 vertebrae and the bottom of her skull. Still, she remounted and finished the course, but she couldn’t show jump the next day and had to spend the next two months on the ground.

“I think I let the pressure get to me,” said Ashker of her fall. “Cross-country is my best phase, and it’s my horse’s best phase, so it was natural to think we could do well.”

Buck Davidson kept her horses fit while Ashker recuperated, and he also gave her a way to turn her fall into a learning experience. He suggested that she might’ve been a bit too bold on cross-country before her crash.

“It took this fall to make me smarter,” said Ashker. “I’ve never been suicidal, running-away bold, but I’ve always thought I was immortal. I have so much faith in my horse. It was a blessing in disguise.”

This positive attitude is typical of Ashker. “I’ve never heard a negative thing come out of her mouth,” said Carabell. “At times I’ve been negative about things that have been going on, and she’s said, ‘Oh no, we can find something good in this situation.’ “

Still, she had to deal with her nerves after the fall. “After I got hurt, I went through a terrible time where I was not riding, and I lost tons of confidence in myself as a rider,” said Ashker.

She only had four days back in the tack before her first event after the injury, Groton House Farm (Mass.) in June.

“I called Buck from Groton House and said, ‘Buck I’m kind of nervous,’ ” admitted Ashker. He reassured her, explaining that all top eventers had to go through this experience at some point.

But it wasn’t until her ride at the NAYRC that Ashker really started to feel her old confidence returning.

“I was still a bit hesitant and wasn’t believing in myself, but I gained it over the show,” she said. “Going down the centerline of my dressage test I felt great.

“After dressage I felt like I was riding better,” she continued.

“I felt like I’d reached the point of being a professional. Everything in my test was planned out, very correct. And then on cross-country, I felt even better.”

Ashker ended up with the silver individual medal in the two-star aboard Frodo Baggins, and that helped make up for another disappointment: being left off the Area II team.

“It was a learning experience,” said Ashker. “Instead of pouting about it, and letting that affect my rides for the rest of the weekend, I decided I wasn’t going to let anyone down except myself, so I could go ahead and ride for the gold.”

Born Riding
Ashker’s focus and determination about her riding started early. “I rode until I was 7 months pregnant,” said her mother, Valerie. “She rode with me in an Indian backpack until she was 2 or 3, and then there was a pony waiting for her. She’s really been doing this since she was born.”

Laine participated in the Sierra Gold Pony Club (Calif.) until Valerie bought a 2-year-old Thoroughbred from the track for her 8-year-old daughter.

“Fishbones” was her first real horse. “I got bucked off a lot,” laughed Laine, “but the attitude was there. He took me to my first one-star.”

“She learned through hard knocks,” confirmed Valerie. “But that’s the way I like it. If you’re going to be in this sport and put that much dedication, responsibility, time and money into it, you’ve got to love it, and the only way to really know it is to go from the dirt up.”

The partnership between mother and daughter is a huge factor in Laine’s equine involvement. “My mom’s been my best teacher,” said Laine. “She knows my horses the most.”

Valerie is there to cheer for Laine at every event, running after her around the cross-country course. “I jog from one viewing area to the next, and everyone knows Laine’s on course when they see me go by,” said Valerie.

“As long as she needs me and as long as she wants me there, you better believe I’m going to be there. We’ve been a long way together, and I’m not going to let anything jeopardize that,” she continued.

Laine and Valerie moved to Crozier, Va., and started Crow’s Ear Farm when Laine was 14. She continued competing “Fish” until a bowed tendon forced her to look for another mount.

Valerie was working with Jamie at that time.

“We thought we had sold him three times, but he came back,” said Laine. “He was stopping at everything, so my mom took him all the way back and started over again. She ended up taking him preliminary and to his first one-star.”

But when injury struck Fish, Valerie offered her horse to Laine. “At the time I didn’t really like him,” admitted Laine. “We’re very different. He doesn’t like to be loved on, but I didn’t have a choice because it was the only horse I had.”

The pair moved up the ranks as their relationship developed. Laine rode him in the one-star at the NAYRC in 2000 and then in the two-star in 2001. She took him advanced when she turned 18 in 2002, finishing her season at Fair Hill. After jumping faultlessly around the cross-country course, she had to withdraw before show jumping.

Injury forced Jamie to take the next year off, so Laine pressed forward with a new mount. Her grandmother helped her purchase Frodo Baggins.

“Frodo,” a New Zealand-bred Thoroughbred, has his own interesting story. Laine said he was used in The Lord Of The Rings movies as the main Dark Rider’s horse.

Now Laine has three horses with her at the University of Virginia, where she’s a junior. In addition to Frodo and Jamie, she has a 6-year-old Thoroughbred named Anthony Patch.

“Alex was going to go for dog meat,” said Laine. “He got a bad rap as far as being a little bit roguey, but he just needed a regimen.”

Laine specializes in horses off the track that others might find a bit difficult. “She’s smart enough not to fight with them,” explained Carabell. “She’s in control of her emotions enough that she can make it work. She doesn’t get frustrated. She’ll work through whatever she has to work through, whereas other kids get frustrated, get angry, and allow their emotions to take over their ability to train. I’ve never seen her lose her temper with a horse.”

One Year To Go
Laine’s ability to manage her time is another factor that separates her from other young riders. Although her mother and father, Michael, help out, Laine teaches lessons on the weekends and works with her mother to run the horse business to fund her riding.

And then she also has plan around school. That can be especially difficult in the winter months when she tries to fit in traveling to Florida to work with Davidson.

“She works very hard when she’s at home making everything better,” said Davidson. “We work on one thing when she comes down for a week, and then she goes home, and when she comes back we don’t have to work on that anymore.”

Laine also has Carabell and Jim Wofford help her when she’s in Virginia.

“I have one more year of school, and I’m so torn,” she said. “People are telling me that I should take next semester off because I’ve got such a serious schedule for the horses. But I’m worried that if I take next semester off, I won’t graduate until 2007, and I just want to get out of school so I can really focus on the horses.”

As a foreign affairs major, Laine speaks Spanish and Arabic. She’s adamant about finishing college because she wants to have options for her career. “I want horses to always be fun for me,” she said.

But with plans to ride her horses in a four-star, a three-star and a one-star this spring, it will be tough for Laine to maintain her classwork.

“If I’m going to Rolex, I want to come back 300 percent ready,” she said. “The first-time jitters are out of the way for Kentucky, but I want to really be competitive because I have the confidence in my horse. I’m very focused because of the fall. It’s not games anymore, it’s serious.”

It’s Not Just Horses They Share
Laine Ashker and her mother, Valerie, share more than just horses. Valerie dabbled in a professional singing career and often sings “The Star-Spangled Banner” at professional sporting events.

“She brought me into it,” explained Laine. “Now we both sing the anthem for the NFL and also at big horse shows.”

The Ashkers sang at Groton House Horse Trials (Mass.) and at the Fair Hill CCI in 2004.

They also enjoy riding motorcycles together. “This is what life’s all about,” said Valerie. “Being able to share with someone that you love. It means nothing if you can’t talk about it with someone that you love and they know exactly how you feel. Sometimes we don’t see eye-to-eye, but it’s been a really good thing. Everything we do, we do together.”

Laine calls her mom her best friend. “My mom is way more positive than I am,” she said. “She always picks me up.”

And their bond and joy in life is obvious to everyone around them.

“The one thing about Laine and her mom is that they love life,” said Buck Davidson. “They live to the fullest. Everything they do, they have a smile on their face. They truly love to ride horses or motorcycles or whatever. They’re free spirits.”