Temecula, Calif.—Aug. 30

Amid a lineup of horses in the junior novice awards ceremony at the USEA American Eventing Championships, Michaela Smith’s palomino pony Cashmaker was easy to spot and, despite his size, impossible to beat. The German Sport Horse was the only pony in the ribbons, but it didn’t surprise his 13-year-old rider that the 14.1-hand pony was able to win the division over his big-strided competition. 

“Even though he’s small, he is very energetic and—when he’s jumping—he has the spring of a horse,” Smith said. “He can jump pretty big and he can make a lot of the horse strides.”

Smith met “Cash” he was 8 and she was 9, and both the pony and rider’s experience at the time was limited to the  hunter/jumper rings. When Smith took an interest in eventing, she didn’t know how game Cash would be for the sport, but he took right to it, especially cross-country. 

“He loves to go fast,” she said.

Over the years, Cash has kept pace as his young rider has become better and braver. At last year’s AEC, she said that the pair had a time penalty on cross-country, so she planned to add some speed this year. But Cash upped the ante. 

“I was like, I’ll go fast in the beginning and then I’ll slow down at the end and get closer to my minute marker,” Smith said. But when the rider asked him to slow, the pony (Casino Royale K—Golden Princess) had a different idea. 

“I didn’t have many brakes, so I came in at 4:32,” she said. “My speed fault was 4:32, so if I was one second faster, I would have had speed faults.”

Smith and Cash went last in the show jumping today, a finale that solidified their lead with a clear round and secured the win on their dressage score of 24.2. Smith says that adding dressage to the former hunter/jumper pony’s repertoire was easy with the help of her trainer, Taya Perry, the assistant trainer at Soleil Equestrian in Portola Valley, California. 

This week at the AEC, Smith had the added challenge of tackling the championship without her trainer, who missed the competition while to go on her honeymoon. Throughout the week, Smith has been supported by her mother, sister and the Soleil team, but when she went clear over the last jump in the stadium, there was one person she wanted to call.

The connection with Perry was glitchy, but on the other end of the line Smith caught just enough: “good” and “job.”

The USEA American Eventing Championships continue through Sunday at Galway Downs in Temecula, California. The highlight of today’s action will be this evening’s show jumping in the $60,000 Adequan USEA Advanced Final, beginning at 6 p.m. Pacific Time (9 p.m. ET).

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