The last time Skylar Wireman and Crunch K were winning in the Desert International Horse Park’s Grand Prix Arena, it was in a CSI3* speed competition. Fast forward a year, and this time—while some of their competitors remained the same—their win came in an entirely different discipline. On Friday, Wireman bested a multigenerational field of equitation riders to take home victory in the $100,000 DIHP 3’3” Pro Equitation Challenge.

“I love this class for a lot of reasons,” Wireman said. “For starters, I love that they put it in the grand prix ring. It gives all the pros a chance to compete against each other. … It’s different when you’re in the hunter ring. It depends on the horse, but the equitation, that’s fun!”

On her way to the win, Wireman piloted “Crunch” to a score of 94 over the Skip Bailey-designed first-round course. That put her right at the top of the leaderboard heading into the second round.

“The first round, everything was mostly unrelated,” she said. “It was a great class for [Crunch] because I could just kind of jump the jump and just open up and flow, and he has a nice, big rhythmic stride. You’re just able to kind of seamlessly open up and hunt down to everything. And I thought it was really well designed.”

Following the first round, the top 12 returned for a second round, and Wireman again broke into the 90s, earning a score of 91.5 to secure her spot in the top four for additional testing.

Watch Wireman’s second round on Crunch K, courtesy of ShowGroundsLive.com:

Joining Wireman in the top four were Zazou Hoffman on Uno!, Katie Gardner on Linford 9 and Jamie Taylor on Starboy. With Hoffman holding first place and Wireman sitting in second, the two riders were asked to swap horses for the final test, as were Gardner and Taylor, sitting in third and fourth, respectively.

Fortunately for Wireman, both Hoffman’s horse and Crunch require similar rides, so she knew just what to do to deliver a seamless test and ultimately take home the win.

 “[Hoffman] and I were joking around a little bit; she was like, ‘It’s funny; we’re just getting to switch on to almost the same horse!’ ” Wireman said. “They’re both big, slow and a little bit like cruise ships to turn. It was kind of fun, and he was a little bit like Crunch K in a way. He was amazing to ride.”

Watch Wireman’s work-off round on Uno!, courtesy of ShowGroundsLive.com:

With Wireman’s test helping to secure her the win, and second place went to Taylor. Hoffman finished in third, and Gardner ultimately took home fourth place.

“I’ve actually shown Crunch in many different rings,” Wireman said. “Last year, I was showing him in the big jumpers. … We decided that he’s so big and slow that maybe he’d be better as an equitation horse.”

The 14-year-old Holsteiner gelding (Clarimo—Shamrock I, Canturo), owned by MJ and Todd Kaplan, transitioned to the equitation and has been competing with Taryn McEntire since last year before reuniting with Wireman on Friday.

“To get to take the reins on him and ride him as an eq horse, [he] was just a total dream boat to ride,” Wireman said. “He is so fun to just steer around, and it was nice to go so fast. I’ve done a lot with him, and we’ve won a few FEI classes before this. Now, getting to do this on him, it has just been a blast.”

See full results here.