Meghan Fisher knew that Rock Poet was a special gift-of-a-horse, and he under-scored that belief by carrying her to the Great American/USDF Region 6 junior/young rider third level championship title, Auburn, Wash., Oct. 1-3.

“I never had a horse that wants to win and that wants to work for me, like this one does,” said Fisher.

On their first day of competition at the Emerald Downs racetrack, Fisher said that Rock Poet was “a little tense” due to the hubbub of a large show and the noise from the trains that whistle by on the backside of the grounds. But on the second day, the day of their championship ride, Fisher and Rock Poet found themselves in a groove and scored a 69.88 percent for the win.

“He was so nice and steady and willing,” she said. “When we finished the test, he knew he’d done well. His attitude walking back to the barn was one of being totally pleased with himself.”

Rock Poet was so steady he even performed his flying changes with aplomb. Changes can be an issue with the chestnut gelding at times since he knows the third level test too well.

“He knows the changes are coming and he tries to do them by himself, or he tries to change and forgets he has a hind too,” said Fisher. “But we’ve been getting better, and I’ve had to concentrate on not anticipating things too.”

Rock Poet’s personality is a bit canine sometimes. “I think he would love to be a dog,” she said. “He’s completely into being the center of attention. Anytime he hears applause, he perks up, even if it isn’t for him.”

Another dog-like trait “Poet” flashes is that he nips. “He was really bad about it when I first got him. I really had to work on the nipping, but it’s calmed down now. Now, if I’m near him but talking to someone else, he’ll grab a hold of me and then let go; it’s like he’s trying to say to me, ‘Hey, pay attention to me, not to them!’ “

Poet has his job cut out for him demanding attention from Fisher. The 20-year-old has eight horses she owns and rides, and she also gives lessons at her barn near Olalla, Wash., to help defray boarding costs.

Her mother Karen said “nothing but pure determination” has gotten Meghan this far in her equestrian pursuits. “Riding is her whole life. She’s in the barn seven days a week without fail; she lives and breathes horses. Nothing has been easy for her, and she’s gutted it out and kept trying,” said Karen.

When Meghan bought Poet, an Oldenburg, from a farm in Texas, he was very green. At that the time, she was hoping to find a horse she could ride in the FEI-level junior tests and perhaps qualify for the USEF junior team championships. But a frustrating search that resulted in overpriced and/or unsound or unsuitable third- and fourth-level horses waylaid her plans.

Then she found Poet, and even though he was green and clearly wouldn’t be trained before she aged-out of the division at 18, Meghan was determined to have him. Even after she was warned that Poet might not come along fast enough to make it to the Young Rider level, she had her heart set on having the gelding.

With help from her trainers, Jill Seely and Jennifer Schrader, she and Poet are now schooling Prix St. Georges and have their sights set on qualifying for next year’s North American Young Riders Championships, which would be Meghan’s only chance before she turns 21.

Even more special for the Fisher family than the third level championship was that Meghan’s father, who has a rare disease called Pick’s Disease, was there to see them do it. Pick’s Disease is a progressively degenerative neurological disease similar to Alzheimer’s Disease for which there is no known prevention, or cure. “It was very special for all us. They both show such courage in their own way,” said Karen.

“The Horse I Had”

People tried to talk Cathleen Fitzgerald out of riding Calliope too, and like Fisher, Fitzgerald refused to listen and walked away with the first level freestyle championship (68.64%) at the Region 6 championships.

Fitzgerald has owned Calliope, 15, a white Dutch Warmblood mare, for three years. Before that, Calliope had some basic dressage training, had been a 4-H family horse, a trail horse and had been shown in-hand.

When Fitzgerald expressed an interest in riding the mare at dressage shows, people told her not to keep Calliope because the mare would never bend, was too old, that Fitzgerald needed an easier mount, perhaps even an old schoolmaster.

“Calliope was the horse that fell in my lap,” said Fitzgerald. “She was the horse I had and the horse I could afford. So I took the horse I had and tried to do what I wanted with her.”

It wasn’t easy. For about a year Calliope was unengaged, unsupple and unwilling. The mare also has an “independent mind and a little attitude,” said Fitzgerald, “so she had to want to perform; she couldn’t be made to perform.”

A lot of hard work later, Calliope and Fitzgerald were at first level and doing just fine, despite their detractors. But what Fitzgerald really wanted to do was freestyle. Once again, she had to work with what she had-herself.

She watched the USDF videotape from their freestyle symposium for ideas. She wanted music that suited Calliope, so she picked out some Spanish music that matched her mare’s Andulusian/Arab looks-she has a slightly dished face and an enormous white tail.

“The whole freestyle is nuevo flamenco music by Oscar Lopez. Calliope has a light, airy way of going, and this guitar music is soft, plucky and light too,” said Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald didn’t edit the music to fit her choreography because she said she’s just no good at editing. Instead she shaped her choreography around the music. By taking that approach, she has an unusual freestyle, one that judges like.

“I’ve performed this freestyle quite a few times now, and the judges always make positive comments about the interpretation of the music,” she said. “When the music goes around and around, I do my circles, and when it gets a bit squirrelly, I do serpentine loops. It’s such fun.”

Fitzgerald and Calliope will move up to second level next year. When she finished her championship class, she realized that was the last time she and Calliope would perform that Spanish freestyle.

“I know it sounds silly, but it was quite an emotional moment. Calliope loves to perform freestyle, and we worked so hard together to get to this moment, I just had to take myself off and cry a little,” said Fitzgerald, with a smile.

A Mustang Or A Warmblood?

Lisa Koch’s adult amateur Intermediaire I championship with Dutch was another emotional moment at the Region 6 Championships. When Koch’s score, a 71.37 percent, was announced, she said she was “just blown away. I never got a score like that before.”

Dutch and Koch’s championship title was the culmination of a strange tale of how they found each other.

Koch, 47, bought Dutch for “nothing” a few years ago. As she got to know him, she realized that the horse knew a lot more than she first suspected.

Curious about his past, she started to backtrack from owner to owner, and so his tale unfolded.

Koch discovered that Dutch had been imported from the Netherlands as a 10-year-old. When he was 15, his owner wanted to move up from the small tour to Grand Prix, but the extra physical stress resulted in an unsound horse, so that owner decided to retire him. She sent him to a ranch, where Dutch was turned out with a bunch of Mustangs.

After some time there, the owner of the ranch had a sale, and a woman who recognized he was no Mustang bought Dutch for $1,500. She in turn sold him to a dressage rider. But Dutch bucked his new owner off, and she instructed her trainer to get rid of him post haste. In stepped Koch.

Now 22, Dutch is the dream schoolmaster. Koch, who works for Xerox in sales, is gone from her farm in Redmond, Ore., two to three days a week. “It’s not like I have to train him or anything,” she said, with a smile. “He knows his job already. I live out in the middle of nowhere, so I rely on clinics for instruction, otherwise it’s just Dutch and me.”

Even though Dutch knows all the tricks, he doesn’t just hand them over to his rider wrapped in a blue ribbon. “He knows the most inventive ways to cheat out of the movements,” Koch said. “My personal goal at the championships was not to just sit there and let my horse do it for me; I was determined to really ride the test and to get what he knows out of him.”

Koch’s 40-acre farm backs up to a tract of Bureau of Land Management land and Dutch, who’s a stall weaver, lives outside and trail rides as much as he trains in the arena.

“He’s pretty cool,” said Koch. “He’s got a home for life.”