A violent thunderstorm roared through Lexington, Va., during the U.S. Pony Clubs Championships East at the Virginia Horse Center, July 23-26. Nearby lightning strikes and high winds that reduced several region’s tents to piles of metal rubble couldn’t keep Pony Clubbers away from their horses, however.

Many dedicated preliminary eventing competitors braved falling branches on the winding country roads on Saturday night on the trek back to the horse park to hand walk their hardworking mounts.

New this year, the Grand Prix award attracted four full teams of preliminary event riders to Championships, many of whom might not ordinarily have participated. Each team was vying not only for a ribbon and the honor of winning, but also an all-expense paid trip to Ireland.

Sophia Sacksen, a C-3 from the Tri-State region, topped the individual preliminary rankings aboard Cortez. She was sitting in sixth after dressage, but clean jumping rounds around the maxed-out courses catapulted her into first place. She topped teammate Laura Crowl by 0.2 points, but Crowl was appeased when their team placed first, securing them all the 10-day trip to Ireland. Horse manager Rachael Sacksen and fellow rider Kyle Smith will be joining them.

Sophia, 19, and her twin sister Rachael were both entered to ride their horses  (which are also siblings) in the competition. But when Rachael’s mare went lame two weeks before the show, she opted to serve as the stable manager instead.

“I’ve raised Cortez from a baby,” said Sophia of her 11-year-old homebred appendix Quarter Horse. “We did our first beginner novice together, and I’m the only one that has ever ridden him.”

The victory held special meaning for Sophia, who hadn’t competed at Championships since she and Cortez contested the novice division six years ago.

“The course was more challenging than at a normal horse trial,” she said. “It was a technical course, and there were options.”

Let The Games Begin

Sharlee Lowe, a 14-year-old C-2 from the Great Lakes region, traveled all the way from Michigan to compete at the novice level with her 7-year-old Thoroughbred, Committed Saint. As part of the winning Great Lakes/Red River/Carolina/Delmarva scramble team that included Stella Sunstein, Brittany Alston, Ashley Hays and stable manager Katielynn Rand, Lowe was able to experience riding at Championships for the first time.

“When the announcer yelled, ‘Let the games begin!’ at the beginning of the opening ceremony, the true enormity of this five-day undertaking hit me,” Lowe recalled. “After halting and saluting at X at the end of one of the nicest dressage tests of my life, I looked up to the Smokey Mountains lining the horizon and felt so happy to be alive, on this amazing horse, in such a beautiful part of the country.”

Lowe’s experience at her first Championships made her realize what Pony Club is really about. In the vet box after cross-country, she was amazed to have her horse taken from her, stirrups run up and girth loosened before she could blink.

“A cold towel was put around my neck and a cold cup of water shoved into my hand as my teammates cooled out my horse,” said Lowe. “I watched this process be repeated with every rider who crossed through the finish flags, and it hit me how amazing it truly was. This really was a Pony Club effort. Every available hand from every team rushed to help each rider, no matter whose team the rider was from.”

Lowe’s teammate Sunstein was also riding at the Championships for the first time.

“Our team worked very well together,” said Sunstein. “We helped each other get ready for formals, walked courses together and even played a game of Uno to help us relax before stadium.”

Sunstein knew that her team would have to leave the rails up in show jumping in order to maintain its narrow lead over the Virginia region team. Though she pulled the team’s only rail, she still finished 20th individually of the 36 starters with 36.6. Combined with Lowe’s third-placed finish (31.6), Alston’s eighth-placed finish (33.2) and Hay’s individual win with 27.9 penalties, the team secured first. Accruing 4 points in horse management, they managed to clinch the win by 6.73 points over Virginia.

Jennifer Price and Valentino didn’t post one of the best scores in the training level division, but as part of the Capital/ Delmarva scramble team, they received the first-placed ribbon along with Erika Gonzalez, Sarah Morgan, Annelise Gress, and stable manager Larissa Kulp.

For Price, her score of 46.9 (3.2 cross-country time penalties added to her dressage score) was a dream come true. She and her 13-year-old Thoroughbred have only been together since May and are still working out the kinks in their partnership.

“Initially, he was priced out of my budget,” said Price. “Other riders that tried him had trouble getting along with him, so since I did well with him, his owner dropped the price so that I was able to buy him. It’s so great to know that there are still generous people out there in the horse world.”

Price had only evented at training level once before she took Valentino to their first competition. The pair completed one novice and two training level events before arriving at Championships.

“All of it happened really fast,” said Price. “I couldn’t be happier. I’ve put a lot of determination and hard work into this sport, and Valentino is my first higher-level horse.”

Unlike Price, teammate Gress already had one training level championship under her belt when she returned this year, ready for another win. Even so, the road to Championships wasn’t easy for the 16-year-old C-3 from Delmarva. She fractured her femur and patella falling out of bed this spring and couldn’t ride at the qualifying rally as a result of her injury.

“I really wanted to ride at Champs, so I worked extra hard to recover in time for the Capital Region qualifying rally at the Seneca Valley Horse Trials [Md.],” Gress explained.

She finished seventh individually, one rail away from winning the competition.

In true Pony Club fashion, she was still thrilled to have earned the team championship and took home something far more valuable than a ribbon from the experience.

“My horse hit his knee pretty hard on cross-country, and it swelled overnight,” she said. “In the end, hand-walking, ice and bandaging helped me keep him sound to finish the competition and stay comfortable on the ride home. I learned how to do a figure-eight wrap!”

As a testament to the Pony Club value of teamwork, yet another scramble team claimed the beginner novice championship.

MidSouth/New England riders Elizabeth Clark, Kelly Doyle, Morgan Garrett and Stephanie Williamson teamed up with stable manager Kira McElvery to narrowly beat the North Central Prairie/Delmarva team for the win, finishing 1 point ahead on a score of 110.0. With no horse management points, the team took home the blue ribbon in that as well.

Williamson walked away from her first Championships with three blue ribbons, also taking first place individually. The 17-year-old C-1 from Stillwater Pony Club has been in Pony Club for four years but has just gotten her horse Spy Music to where he’s competitive.

“When I got him three years ago, he hadn’t been ridden for several years and was underweight,” Williamson said. “Even a year ago, we were still scoring a 48 percent in the dressage.”

As a result of Williamson’s patience and hard work, the 12-year-old gelding finished on his dressage score of 30.0 at Championships. Williamson was thrilled with their success, even more so because she almost didn’t get to ride.

“My dad just had surgery, so my coach Sue Colliver arranged for a hotel for me and for people I’d never met to haul Spy down,” she said.

Williamson had only met Colliver once before and had never met any of her teammates.

“Everyone was incredibly nice,” she said gratefully. “Morgan even invited us all to stay at her house during [the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event] next year since she lives nearby.”

She Can’t Stay Away

A last-minute decision enabled Meredith Baker to claim her third dressage championship. The 20-year-old H-A from the Maryland region has been to Championships six times, five of them for dressage, and this year was the best yet.

Baker topped the first level standings individually with her 10-year-old Hanoverian Wynd Wrunner and also performed the highest-scoring musical freestyle, which earned a 69.79 percent.

Baker almost didn’t compete this year. A rising junior at Mt. Holyoke College (Mass.), she didn’t attend the regional rally and had no plans to return to Lexington. When one of the Maryland region team members had to scratch two weeks before the Championships, however, Baker accepted an offer to join the team. Since she is an H-A, she was able to compete without qualifying at a regional rally.

Baker led teammates Erica Greenwald, Jaclyn Sink, Alexandra Moody and Laura Barnsley to the first level & above cham-pionship. The co-founder and president of the USPC National Youth Board isn’t sure if she’ll return to Championships for a seventh time.

“I had said I wasn’t going to come again, but I went,” said Baker with a laugh. “I really like going, so who knows!”

The winning training level team was a scramble team from the Rio Grande and New Jersey regions. Rebecca Brake, Toni Gee, Leigh Ann Czigler, Megan Struble and stable manager Kendall Raisbeck competed together for the first time at Championships.

Despite nursing a broken foot, Struble posted the highest training level score of the week with her first ride, which earned a 71 percent.

“That ride must have started a winning streak, because my team was laying down awesome scores the entire weekend,” Struble said. “I never would have thought that girls from Texas and New Jersey would create such an amazing team!”

Though she’s heading to college in the fall, Struble plans to return next year to defend her title.

Younger teammate Gee, a 14-year-old C-2 from the Rio Grande region, was thrilled to win at her first Championships. The young rider was enthusiastic about the horse management aspect of the competition and especially appreciated the Vetrolin horse care products she received along with her blue ribbon and medal.

“The whole team worked really hard together to keep all our stuff clean,” said Gee. “We ended up coming in third in horse management with only 2 points!”

A New Opportunity

Hanna Parsons thought that because she hadn’t yet achieved her C-1 rating, she wouldn’t be able to go to Championships in show jumping. Luckily for her, the new developing horse and rider division was offered this year for the first time. This division is slightly less difficult than the modified show jumping division and is designed to prepare less experienced horses and riders to compete in the higher divisions.

The 16-year-old D-3 from the Virginia region didn’t initially make the team, but she was able to scramble with Capital region members Sarah Stayer, Cacie Nichols, Meredith Kearney and Bridget Bigelow.

“Scrambling was a lot of fun,” said Parsons. “We all wanted the same thing; we all wanted to come and do our best, and that’s what we did.”

Parsons and her teammates posted multiple clear rounds around the 3-foot courses before disaster struck on Saturday afternoon. Rain had caused the Wylie Arena to become slick, resulting in several horse falls as riders tried to complete the tight turns of their jumper courses. Parson’s ordinarily surefooted Paint, Cowboy, was on his way to a clean round when he lost his footing near the in-gate, disqualifying them from that round.

Despite the setback, the Capital/Virginia Coolwhips held onto their lead and won the competition with a score of 4.12 points.

Capital region riders scored again in the modified division, tackling a course of jumps up to 3’6″ in height. The team of Maryland-based riders included Jenny Barnhard, Julia Norwind, Emma Bellet and Catherine Hanagan. Catherine’s older sister, Lela, served as the stable manager for the team, which had a perfect horse management score and final score of 5.13.

Only two teams competed in the regular division, but the Old Dominion/EPA/Cimarron/Tri-State scramble team still had to ride hard to bring home first place. Kaelin Creange, Carly Strohmeyer and Alexandra Blyskal all rode at the Horse II level, jumping fences up to 3’9″, while teammate Monica Gaebe contested Horse III, tackling 4-foot fences. Despite the sloppy conditions on Saturday and Sunday, the team only pulled 10 rails throughout the competition to finish on a score of 16.09, while the second-placed scramble team had more than twice that number.

Rewarding Times

The SWAT team has been a fixture in mounted games competition for the past several years. Aron Cone and Evan Becker, both C-2 members of Capital region’s Frederick Pony Club, helped the team win the junior games championship in 2006. Since then, however, the team dynamic has changed. This year, Cone and Becker teamed up with Emily Witty and Melissa Wrobleski, also of Capital region, and Gretel Briand from the Midwest region to claim the advanced division championship.

“Ball and racquet was our worst race,” said Cone of a race that involves pole bending while balancing a ball on a tennis racquet. “Dropping the ball is bad; you aren’t supposed to do that!”

Despite SWAT’s performance in that race, the team dominated the competition to win its first advanced championship. Unlike in the junior and senior divisions, however, the winning team won’t go on to compete in another competition as a result of their win. Cone and Becker both plan to return to Championships next year to defend their title.

The top four teams in the senior games division will go on to play at the President’s Cup, a mounted games competition that takes place as part of the annual Festival In The Country at Fair Hill, Md. The winning senior team, Risky Business, won’t have far to travel. Team members Emma Bartnick, Krista Godshall, Jonathan Naji, Blake Fickenbeiner and Adrianna Mayo are all from the Eastern Pennsylvania region.

The top finishers in the junior division will enjoy a similar opportunity. The winning team, Fired Up, hails from the Great Lakes and Western New York regions and will travel to Lexington, Ky., next April to compete in the Prince Phillip Cup, which takes place during the Rolex Kentucky CCI****. Fired Up team members Madeleine Sadler, Alyssa Kress, Katherine Rodgers, Margot Miller and Ingrid Donnan dominated the competition, winning with a final score of 87 points. 

Weather Woes

The ground is usually getting hard in Virginia by the time the U.S. Pony Club Championships comes around, but fears of a parched cross-country course and polocrosse field in Lexington were alleviated by rainstorms that began on Thursday and continued through the weekend.

Most of the actual ride times were spared from rain, but competitors who lingered at the barns on Saturday afternoon to finish their turnback inspections and get that last manure pile out of their stalls were besieged by the first of the violent storms that rolled through the area that night.

“There was a textbook lightning strike behind the Coliseum,” said Jackie Imholte, a member of the Virginia region training level dressage team who was getting ready to leave the East Complex arena. “Everyone scattered.”

Those taking shelter in the Coliseum were plunged into darkness as the Virginia Horse Center lost power. When competitors, parents and organizers returned the following morning, they were met with quite a sight. Tents surrounding the Moore Arena had been blown over in the high winds, some reduced to unsalvageable heaps of rubble. The storm wreaked havoc on the arenas as well, but thanks to the quick work of volunteers, most competitors were none the wiser.

“The mangled wreckage of the tents was a sight to see,” said Elizabeth Clark, a member of the winning beginner novice eventing team with Herbie The Love Bug. The storm started just as she was about to walk her stadium course. “The metal frames were all twisted together. Lucky for me, Herbie isn’t spooky, since that’s not a sight horses see every day!”

Polocrosse Knows No Boundaries

Both of the winning Polocrosse teams at the U.S. Pony Club Championships were scramble teams from the Capital and Sunshine regions. In the intermediate division, the Fo Shizzle team of Evan Vallee, Peter Balogh, Samantha Stewart and stable manager Vanessa Rogers took first with 36.3.

The rules state that riders must be rated at C-1 or higher to play in the intermediate division, but organizers made an exception for Balogh, a D-3. The 15-year-old has only been riding for two years but is such a fierce and able player that he clearly belonged on the intermediate field. Even more impressively, Balogh and teammate Vallee secured their win on Sunday morning as a two-man team playing against teams with three members after Stewart had to withdraw her horse from competition due to injury.

Valee’s sister, Paige, played on the winning Ball Hogs team in the novice division along with Marlene Bigsby, Glen Bigsby and stable manager Erin Fletcher. The 12-year-old from Maryland’s Marlboro Pony Club was selected for the American Polocrosse Association Youth Tour, and she met her future teammates at a camp in March conducted by Ryan Murphy, a Pony Club graduate and past Polocrosse World Cup competitor.

While Marlene and Glen have experience competing in eventing, the two D-3 siblings from the Sun-shine region’s Wekiva Basin Pony Club have only been playing polo-crosse for six months. Paige’s pony, Bo, is equally new to the sport. The 19-year-old gelding evented through preliminary and did dressage up to third level before Paige taught him to play polocrosse last fall. She continues to event the versatile pony and plans to take her C-2 with him in September.

Despite their relative inexperience, the Ball Hogs played with gusto all weekend long to secure the win with 33.1 points.

Sharing Is The Name Of The Game

Competing at his fifth U.S. Pony Club Championship competition, Reed Dove decided it was time to share some of his success. The C+ Pony Clubber from Virginia region won the senior boys tetrathlon division even though his mount for the riding phase, Lightning, had to do double duty.

Dove lent the diminutive buckskin gelding to senior girl competitor Kathleen Coker from the Carolina region. After riding her borrowed mount for only 10 minutes on Friday, Coker finished fourth in her division but posted the second-highest riding score.

Sharing mounts isn’t an uncommon practice in tetrathlon, in which competitors run, swim, shoot and ride. The riding portion consists of a jumper-type course that also includes a gate that the rider must open, go through and close while mounted and a rail that the rider must lead their mount over before re-mounting to continue the course. The fences that Lightning jumped were 3’6″.

Dove was excited to shave a full 4 seconds off his time in the 200-meter freestyle, finishing with a time of 2:07. He hopes to continue his winning ways at local Pony Club rallies and on future international exchange teams.