Wellington, Fla.—March 20

Winning the WEF Equitation Championship has been a goal of Olivia Sweetnam’s for a while now, but the class hasn’t always gone to plan. Last year a mistake kept her out of the second round, so she returned to the International Arena on Thursday night determined to redeem herself.

And that she did, leading the class from start to finish to claim the title over Baylee Rowan and Adriana Forte, with JJ Torano rounding out the top four.

For the WEF Equitation Championship, riders must qualify throughout the circuit, with the top 40 in the standings earning an invitation to the feature equitation class of the Winter Equestrian Festival. Once they get there, riders are sequestered from their trainers and must walk the course and warm up on their own.

Last to go in Round 1, Sweetnam wowed the judges, scoring the highest mark of the day—a 95—from one of the two panels. For Round 2 she stayed strong and finished on top again. The top four riders came back sans stirrups and rode a test that included a hand gallop to the first fence, two counter-cantered jumps and a trot jump, finishing with a halt.

Watch Sweetnam’s winning ride, courtesy of USEF Network, powered by ClipMyHorse.tv:

“I’m not weak without stirrups, but I’m not the strongest either, and I tend to mess up the tests often,” said Sweetnam, 16. “So I just really thought about what was going to be best for my horse. I did change my plan a little bit as it went, because I realized that I needed to do what was better for my horse, and not just because everyone else was doing it. … I didn’t plan [to land the counter-canter], but it worked out that I did.”

Ken and Emily Smith of Ashland Farm, who train Sweetnam along with Sweet Oak Farm’s Danny Arendt, have been working with her for a year and a half. Sweetnam said that she practices keeping a strong position in lessons and staying mentally strong. To solidify that, Ken and Emily put Sweetnam and their other students through their paces before the big class.

“At home we did a practice version of this, with a first round and a second round with everyone in the barn,” said Sweetnam, Wellington, Florida. “We did no trainers in the schooling area. [Afterward] they told us what we did that was right and what was wrong, so we came in here feeling mentally prepared and knowing what we had to expect.”

That started with walking the course. While Sweetnam did compare notes with a few riders, including Torano, and she tried to support the first-timers in the class by offering an ear or advice, at the end of the day she relied on herself.

“In this specific class, I wanted to focus on what was going to be best for myself and my horse,” she said. “I didn’t want to get too caught up on what everybody else was doing, because all of our horses are extremely different, and we all, for the majority, we all know our horses extremely well, so we’re going to tend to have different plans. So I was just focusing on what I could do to execute my plan the best.”

Sweetnam tacked up Efendi, a 17-year-old Holsteiner (Ephebe F. Ever—Legende IX) owned by Ashland Farm, for the class. She described him as a “dream boat,” and she’s been riding him about a year.

“His stride is huge,” she said. “I know I can do any number of strides I want, short or long, because he’s so adjustable. His jump is an amazing feeling. He’s just a great horse.

“He definitely stepped up to the occasion tonight. He’s been under the lights a number of times, so I wasn’t too worried about it,” she added. “Tonight he jumped amazing. He felt amazing. His quietness level was perfect, and he really gave me everything.”

This marked Sweetnam’s fourth time doing the WEF Equitation Championship, and it is among her biggest wins to date. Despite being seasoned, she still very much battles nerves.

“I polished my boots about three times,” she said. “I redid my hair net twice, and I just kept kind of imagining what the course was going to feel like going around, what the hard parts were going to be, what I really needed to focus on in certain parts to try and keep myself focused, but also not hyper-fixated on it to the point where I was overthinking it.

“I’ve been really trying to stay focused throughout finals and championships, during [the WEC Premier Cup Championship (Florida), where she was second] and now here, and I will continue to do so throughout the year, and I hope I can produce more results similar to this,” she added.

Results:

1. Olivia Sweetnam
2. Baylee Rowan
3. Adriana Forte
4. JJ Torano
5. Parker Peacock
6. Emi Richard
7. Paige Walkenbach
8. Lily Epstein
9. Rylynn Conway
10. Faith Schuttemeyer
11. Brooke Hagerty
12. Katherine Mercer

Follow along with the Chronicle on Instagram and Facebook, and check out more from the last two weeks of competition at the Winter Equestrian Festival in the April edition of the magazine.