Lexington, Ky.—Nov. 7

Sarah Jammer can’t quite believe she’s made it to the U.S. Dressage Finals. The 21-year-old traveled from Parker, Colorado, to the Kentucky Horse Park this week to compete Cami Klein’s 16-year-old Chip, a palomino Paint/Quarter horse gelding.

“I don’t think it feels as big as it actually is,” Jammer said Thursday, the first day of competition in Kentucky. “I don’t think it’s quite sunken in yet, but it will.”

Jammer isn’t quite sure of Chip’s early background, but the colorful gelding turns heads wherever he goes.

“His old trainer had found him in a pasture as an 8-year-old and asked the guy if he could buy him, and he said, ‘Why not?’ ” Jammer said. “She bought him, and he did dressage for a couple years, and then his previous owner wanted to try the hunter/jumpers, so he was a hunter/jumper pony for a little bit.”

Since then, Chip’s had “a pretty easy life the last couple years,” before Jammer started leasing him from current owner Klein in May. 

The pair are coming off a win at the GAIG/USDF Region 5 Championships (Colorado) in the junior/young rider training division and will be competing in the junior/young rider training and first level championships this weekend.

Jammer has trained Chip on her own for the past year, and she continued that theme by flying solo at dressage finals as well. She’s ridden dressage for most of her life and earned her U.S. Dressage Federation bronze medal on a previous trainer’s Grand Prix horse.

While Chip is definitely a different ride than that horse, Jammer appreciates that about him.

“Getting to kind of push his buttons and add lots of touch-ups to him—he still remembered most of it [from his previous dressage training], but it was just kind of fine tuning,” she said. “It’s been really fun, the whole training and teaching aspect of it.”

Jammer described Chip as funny at horse shows.

“He can go from being half asleep in his stall until we go in the show ring, and he just turns it on and shows off. He’s very much a show horse. His personality, he acts so tough, but he’s really just a little, baby teddy bear.”

Follow along with the Chronicle’s coverage of the U.S. Dressage Finals here.