What a whirlwind summer I’ve had! Gary and I traveled to Parker, CO at the end of July to compete in the North American Junior Young Rider Championships as part of the Region 9 team. The Colorado Horse Park with its stunning views was an amazing backdrop for the event. This event hasn’t been held at this facility since 2008. I was moderately concerned about the effects of altitude on the riders and horses, but it proved to be a nonissue. A couple of our team’s horses needed fluids as they got a little dehydrated, but otherwise, it was not a problem.
The week started with a team meeting hosted by our coordinator, Kathy Jones, who was very organized and kept us in the know about the week’s schedule. The girls received their sponsored equipment- and it was crazy how much support our region’s businesses provided to help our team look the part. We can’t thank them enough as well as everyone else who donated equipment and helped with contributions to our “Go Fund Me” account! A big thanks to Kevin Campbell who made our team banner to represent all our supporters! The teams were also very supportive of each other making it for a very fun week! Plus, we had Benny Pfabe as our Chef d’equipe and Sarah Evans and Jessica Fan came as grooms!
The juniors finished fifth overall and the Young Riders finished fourth. Gary and I had an especially good ride to finish in second place on the team test day with a 69%. The individual day looked to be another incredible ride for us, but an unfortunate spook at the jumper ring caused some tension throughout the ride. We ended up finishing eight which allowed us to move on to the freestyle competition. There were some costly mistakes in the shallow loop tempi lines in our very challenging pattern and placed sixth in that class. Nick Hanson had a fantastic weekend peaking at the right moment, sweeping all three days. Congratulations to Nick!
Gary and I also qualified to attend the Festival of Champions at the Lamplight Equestrian Center in Chicago. This is a National Championship where the top 12 riders in the US are invited to compete. This was just over three weeks after arriving home from Colorado. Gary was a trooper and handled all of the travel fine, but after two amazing warm up rides and a wet arena on the individual day with heavy footing, he lost some of his sparkle. I rode to a second place finish on the team day and sixth on the individual day for FOURTH overall. Thank you to Nancy Hinz and Charlotte Bredahl for their inspiring coaching! Also from Region 9, Abby Fleischli rode to an eighth place finish in the junior division and Allison Hopkins won the 14-18 Equitation Finals!
HDS Junior Board President – Allison Cyprus at the Robert Dover Horse Mastership Clinic 2016 I, Allie Cyprus, have just returned from Wellington, FL where I trained and attended the 5th annual Robert Dover Horse Mastership Clinic. I spent the first eight days training with Pam Goodrich thanks to a D4K scholarship. Click here to read full article
2014 HDS Junior Young Rider Championship Competition Highlights – by Anna Campbell This summer I was able to participate in three of the most prestigious shows in the country. The first show was The Festival of Champions, held in Gladstone, New Jersey, at the historic headquarters of the United States Equestrian Team. In the past few years, there were only a handful of riders from Region 9 who qualified for this show, however, this year one of every four junior (under 21) riders at this competition hailed from Region 9 in addition to being HDS members. It was so much fun to have such a large portion of your region to share such a great experience with, and it made the whole competition even more memorable to me. Our region dominated this year and I was very proud to be a part of it. Click here to read full article
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