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California Riding Magazine • September, 2010 North American Young |
Kelly Pugh: Individual gold medalist in the Young Rider/Two Star division and team silver medalist along with Area VI’s Natalia Gurmankin and Devon Brown from Area VII. The daughter of eventing trainer and former competitor Dayna Lynd Pugh, 20-year-old Kelly Pugh is no stranger to the winners circle. She first contested the Championships in 2005 in the One Star division. Riding in the Two Star this time, Kelly brought her equine partner of two years, the 8-year-old Thoroughbred/Trakehner mare Copycat Chloe. She trains with her mom at Flying Tail Farm in the Bay Area’s Gilroy. Visit www.kellypugh.blogspot.com for her fun daily reports from the Championship. My most memorable moment was after show jumping when I found out I won. I can’t describe the feeling that came over me! It is a bit of a blur but I think I started hugging everyone around me. I am so proud of my horse and all she has accomplished. She really deserved this. She is getting about a bag of carrots a day!
Kelly Pugh & Copycat Chloe What also stands out for me is the amazing team we had. The Area VI riders all worked so well together and I couldn’t have asked for a better team. The grooms were amazing, waking up early and staying up late to get things done. The parents were outstanding, cooking our meals for us and sewing us into our jog outfits (literally!). Shannon Lilley, our chef d’equipe, was outstanding: her help was invaluable. And I can’t thank my own parents, Dayna and Steve, enough for all they have done for me. I am extremely lucky! The atmosphere at the Championships started out as excitement. We were all so happy to be there! For us Californians it was a long trip to get there and I can speak for my whole team when I say we worked ridiculously hard to get to NAJYRC.
Kelly Pugh, center, with her mom and dad, Dayna Lynd and Steve Pugh. Security was strict. We had to have picture IDs to enter and exit the barns and that is nothing like normal horse shows. Being the anchor rider and only having three people on the team, there was no room for mistakes. That put a bit of pressure on. I find that I ride better under pressure, though, and it made everything that much more exciting! Rails were very influential in the show jumping and it was hard not to get nervous. Show jumping was held in the huge grandstand arena where Rolex show jumps and the WEG show jumping will be held. It was all very intimidating. Chloe was jumping me out of the tack in warm-up and I went into it feeling very confident. We were one of two clean goes. Words can’t describe how much I love my horse! I have been working extremely hard on my dressage. It has always been our weakest phase and I wanted to go to NAJYRC and be competitive and that meant I needed good dressage. A lot of my time before Young Riders was spent working on my dressage and it paid off! Also, my horse is not used to galloping on terrain and in the humidity. It was imperative to get her conditioned properly. She came off of cross-country still pulling and jumped clean Sunday. She was fit! I’m hoping that competing at NAJYRC will open some doors for us. It is a great opportunity to have competed there and to walk away with two medals is just the icing on the cake! Chloe has a bright future and I really hope this shows people the potential she has.
Copycat Chloe on the airplane. After the competition was over, we gave the horses a day to rest before starting the drive home. We took that time to go visit all the museums located at the Kentucky Horse Park. They were pretty amazing!! I met some amazing people who remind me why this sport is so special. We all cheered each other on and to be able to share this experience with great people makes it that much more special. I definitely tried to take advantage of watching the other disciplines. The dressage freestyle was pretty impressive and I had no clue the jumper riders jumped so big! Kelly Loria: Individual gold medalist in the Junior/One-Star division and team gold medalist along with Area VI’s Madison Reeb and riders from Areas VII and VIII. The 16-year-old tackled NAJYRC for the first time this year. Her partner in the One Star division was her off-the-track Thoroughbred Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. The relatively green mare is estimated to be about 10 and the Championships cap little more than one full year of eventing competition. Kelly and Lucy train with Heidi Riddle of Half Halt Farms in the East Bay Area’s Martinez. Kelly’s been there since she was 9 and appreciates the emphasis on dressage.
Kelly Loria preparing for Dressage phase. This was my first year as a member of the Young Rider program as well as my first time competing at the Young Rider Championships so it was all really exciting to me. I was pretty shell-shocked when we first got to the Horse Park. (I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much green grass!). Steve Pugh got to the Horse Park ahead of time with our team’s equipment, which he had very kindly driven from California to Kentucky, so he was able to meet Natalia and Kelly with the horses. The horse flight left earlier than mine, so I got to the barn a couple hours later. I’m only 16, so unfortunately I couldn’t fly with Lucy. I was really excited for the Championships because it was my first time competing out of state and on a team. I found the team dynamic to be very supportive. I really enjoyed having such experienced people able to help me out with everything. It also helped me relax more knowing that the show was bigger than just my score. Overall the show really helped me gain confidence and also pointed out some of my weaknesses. I really feel a need to school some more difficult fences, both cross-country and stadium, before bumping up to Intermediate. I love my horse and want to do everything I can to make sure her first go at Intermediate is as smooth and successful as possible. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to spend much time away from the horse show except for the occasional excursion to Walmart, which is possibly the biggest store known to man! But it was really fun to be in an area where so much of the culture had to do with horses. One of my favorite things about the Championships was that it wasn’t only eventing. I really enjoyed watching the other disciplines, both in the ring and in the barns. It definitely encouraged me to learn more from both the dressage and show jumping trainers. It was really cool sitting at the gold medalist’s table and asking how high do you jump or what music do you use for your dressage freestyle. As far as horsemanship goes, I believe that anyone who doesn’t take excellent care of their horse would not be able to make it to this or any other intense competition. That seemed to be true in every discipline. On Saturday evening, you could be sure to see at least one girl from every discipline area walking a horse around or wrapping, icing or giving fluids. Overall, I think Young Riders is a really valuable experience for anyone who wants to pursue a serious career in horses! Madison Reeb: Team gold medalist in the Junior/One-Star division, along with Area VI’s Kelly Loria and riders from Areas VII and VIII. Riding at NAJYRC this year was a completely different experience for me than any other in the past (this is my third year.) This is the first year I have not completed the competition. This year I learned the true definition of riding for a team. On cross-country day both my horse and I fell at fence 15. We had been having a great go, but I messed up a distance to a log on top of a down bank. My horse tried very hard to make up for my mistake, but in the end she just couldn’t regain her balance. She landed on top of me and rolled away as quickly as she could. We are both very lucky, and walked away from the fall with nothing but a small nick and minor bruises. I think one of the things that contributed to my ability to walk away was the fact I was wearing an airvest. I landed in a delicate spot on my side and I am fairly positive that I would not be in as good of shape as I am in now because of it. Even with a vest, we were both very lucky.
Kelly Pugh, Kelly Loria and Madison Reeb. It is crazy what riding for a team does to your perspective on competition. While I was certainly disappointed in my personal outcome, I was much more distressed about what my stupid mistake had done to our team – I just cost our team its first place position. I had been shocked and truly honored when I was chosen as the anchor rider, but so far I felt I did nothing but disappoint with a mediocre dressage ride and now a big fat mandatory retirement for the team. To my amazement, the girls on my team and all the members from my area, including my coach and my chef, were completely supportive. Not one person mentioned our drop from first place, they were only concerned about the well-being of my horse and me. Noelle Varga (from Kentucky) and Lizzie Snow (from Oregon) were strangers to me until this weekend and Kelly Loria (from California) and I had just met this year. Despite the fact that we all barely knew each other, these girls offered only words of kindness. They acted as true team members and friends. From that afternoon on, I doubled my efforts to contribute to the team in any way I could. I got to the barn early to help braid for the jog, I gave pep talks when a team member expressed doubts, and I tried to be a calm and positive presence for my entire team during jog and then stadium jumping. It would have been easy to feel sorry for myself and try to stay in the background, but I wanted to be as supportive of them as they were for me. My teammates were awesome and I wanted to help them celebrate their success as much as I could. When Kelly Loria won the individual gold (they were a phenomenal duo and her show jumping was outstanding!) I was beyond elated for her. I felt the same when Lizzie got the bronze, and when Noelle completed on a horse that was difficult. I was so proud of them and their accomplishments. I was told that this is how team riding works, sometimes you carry the team and other times the team carries you. While it’s a very hard lesson to learn, I could not agree more with that statement. I can’t say that I know if my actions were all that helpful to the team, and I wish that I could say I was able to contribute to our team’s winning score. I’d like to think that I was helpful but I can’t prove that. But as I stood on the podium with my team members and received the gold medal, I knew I had contributed as much as I could in any way that I could. And at the end of the day, that is all we could really ask of each other.
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