Lexington, Ky.—Nov. 2

Before this year, McKayla Brombach had never competed in the hunters at the National Horse Show. While the 18-year-old had won numerous championships with her large pony California Dreamin’, the National doesn’t hold pony classes, and she’d never had a junior hunter of her own.

But this fall, Michael Britt-Leon sent Brombach’s mom, Colleen Brombach, a text asking whether they would be heading to Kentucky as he had a horse that was qualified in the 3’3″ juniors. McKayla sat on Fair Game once during the Pennsylvania National but only got to flat him. The first time she jumped him was Thursday, but only over single fences, so she wasn’t quite sure what he would be like on course.

“I was like, ‘I hope I can measure the lines when I go in,’ ” she said with a laugh. “But he was great. His step is so big, it makes it so easy to get down the lines.”

Brombach won two over fences classes and had a pair of third-placed ribbons to win the 3’3″ junior hunter, 16-17, championship over Sarah Entzian and Spectacular.

“I was really happy with my stake round and my regular hunter round,” she said. “He’s so good at hunting the jumps, and he was so nice. It was nice to let him do his job and let him really show himself off.”

The teen from Wimberly, Texas, has a lot of experience catch-riding, but she drew on her experiences with California Dreamin’ to help her with “Ross,” a 13-year-old Oldenburg (Diarado—Gracia).

“It’s the same feel of, you really just let them show themselves off and you just guide them, so it’s nice because I kind of had an idea of how to do that,” she said. “It was nostalgic. It was nice to kind of finish off my last year reminded of some of the best years.”

Brombach is part of the NCEA team at Texas A&M University and is studying sports management, so she was working on her assignments between riding Ross and her equitation mount, Actionable.

“It’s actually been super fun and interesting,” she said of her classes, “because obviously it’s sports teams and stuff and the class I’m taking is psychology. That’s been interesting to read about it and then come to the horse shows and see it actually happening. I think it’ll be that much more insightful when I do go pro because now I understand really what’s happening in a kid’s head, not just what I think is happening.”

Taking the grand 3’3” junior hunter and 3’3″ junior hunter, 15 and under, championships was Lily Sonneborn on Andesite Equestrian’s Spoken. The pair won two over fences classes and the under saddle on the way to the division championship over Addison Slye and Conrido.

Sonneborn started showing “Stewie,” a 9-year-old Brandenburg gelding (A’lee Spring Power—Oriane) at the beginning of the year, and they were reserve at Devon (Pennsylvania) this spring.

See full results here.

The Chronicle will be on site, bringing you gorgeous photos, interviews and more, so check back during the week. Make sure to follow along at www.coth.com and on Facebook and Instagram @Chronofhorse. For full analysis and coverage from the horse show be sure to check out the Nov. 18 issue of the magazine.