Summer flew by, and I am at the start of my last junior “finals” season. I have big hopes and watching our country’s greatest riders this summer in the Tokyo Olympics has given me great motivation not just for the twilight of my junior career, but for the start of my life as an adult in this industry. I have much to learn.
(Photo: Amazing in Traverse City, Photo Credit Kind Media)
I was honored this summer with a cover story on Sidelines Magazine – highlighting my nontraditional path to this level of junior competition and giving credit to the years I spent at the grassroots level in my local barn, competing on an IEA team and learning to juggle school with training and goals are totally consuming. I haven’t had one regret for the decisions and changes I’ve made – and I am only grateful for the sacrifices my family and supporters have made to get me where I am today.
This was a summer of “firsts.” Every time I think I’ve hit a milestone, the bar is raised higher. I won my first FEI 2* class with Amazing at The Travese City Horse Shows, I competed for my country in my first North American Youth Championships, I won the Dudley B. Smith Equitation Championship, I won the High Jr/AO Jumper Classic at The Upperville Colt & Horse Show as well as all my equitation classes. I was able to compete in my first Junior Hunter Finals aboard Joey Roman’s wonderful green hunter, Cascatero, and finished 3rd in the USHJA Gladstone Cup. A rider error slipped me from first to third – ohhh, the agony.
So here we go!! Let the leaves change, let the weather cool and let’s rev it up with my amazing horse partners – Amazing, Delia B and Cent! Ferry Van Den Hoogeweg is for sale through Plain Bay Sales and I’ll be sad to see him go. Delia B is for sale now, ready for her next rider – and is primed and ready to go after winning the 1.35m Medium Junior Classic last week and zipping around the 1.40 High Juniors! Together, I’ve come so far with these horses! Now they are ready for their next step, and we are searching for just who it will be.
Here’s the video of Amazing’s first FEI win! We did it!