With the nation's top young horses on display at the Markel/U.S. Equestrian Federation Developing and Young Horse Dressage Championships at the Lamplight Equestrian Center, The Chronicle took the opportunity to track down some top riders and ask them about their general thoughts on working with their future stars.

On the first day of competition for the 6-Year-Old Markel/USEF National Young Horse Dressage Championship, Wakeup and Emily Wagner won the Preliminary test with an 8.88. In the Championship test today, Bon Chance and Caroline Roffman won with an 8.88. But that wasn’t the only similarity of scores between the two horses; they also managed to finish with exactly the same overall number—an 8.736.

He and Chris Hickey earn their third national title for Hilltop Farm.

“I really feel like Cabana Boy is the poster child for American breeding,” said Chris Hickey after he and Cabana Boy won the 2009 USEF National Developing Horse Dressage Championship, sponsored by the Dutta Corp. & Performance Sales International, today, Aug. 23 at Lamplight Equestrian Center.

Cabana Boy (Contucci—Britania) and Hickey simply dominated the 15-horse field with their overall score of 73.44 percent.