Middle California Team Wins Dressage at Pony Club Nationals
Congratulations to the Middle California Pony Club team for winning first place against a field of 26 teams in the Dressage Training Level competition at the United States Pony Club National Championships at the end of July in Lexington, KY.
This tremendous feat was accomplished by a team comprised of Portola Valley Pony Club’s Kirstin Hill, 21, aboard Limerick, Saratoga Pony Club’s Courtney Claunch, 17, on her 22-year-old Arabian gelding Sasha, Black Oaks Pony Club’s Kaitlin Sally, 16, on her horse Phoebe and the youngster of the group, Moon Valley Pony Club’s Hannah Rice, 12, riding her buckskin gelding California Pie. Veronique Hodgkinson, 14, from the Moon Valley Pony Club was stable manager for the team. The riders qualified for the team during a regional competition last October.
In addition to the team award, team captain Kristin and Courtney each won a first place medal for their individual performances in the Musical Kur, riding in a field of nearly 100 competitors.
The United States Pony Club Festival is a week-long celebration taking place every third year and bringing together more than 1300 competitors for a total of 4000 Pony Club members and their families. Contestants from across the country competed in dressage, eventing, mounted games, polocrosse, show jumping, tetrathlon and quiz. The second half of the week was comprised of various clinics, workshops, lectures and camps, taught by well-known equestrian stars and professionals in all disciplines, veterinarians and Pony Club examiners. The festival is held at the historic and beautiful Kentucky Horse Park.
Each team member rode Training Test 2 twice, Training Test 4 once and performed a Musical Kur. For each set of tests the team kept the three highest scores. The four day competition ended on Friday with an awards ceremony. “It was an incredibly stressful and amazing experience,” says Hannah’s mom, Charlotte Rice. “Pie pulled a shoe right before the first inspection and the girls were in a panic. I thought at that moment that maybe Hannah was a little too young for a competition of this level. Turns out I was wrong.”
In addition to ongoing work with her overall trainer Jenni (Bruno) Giannini, Hannah and Pie worked with dressage trainer Nicole Perry of Golden Oak Dressage at the Portola Valley Training Center in the months leading up to the competition. Upon her return to Half Moon Bay, Hannah was all smiles. When asked about her favorite experiences she quickly listed off several of the clinics. “The foxhunting, cross country and dressage clinics were all great,” she says. “Sue Kolstad, my dressage clinician, said if I rode as well in my tests we would have scored even higher!”
Middle California won the division with a point total of 833.490. Second place was earned by Carolina with 805.796 points and Maryland Blue came in third with 700.097 points.
The Middle California/Rocky Mountain team placed second in the Upper Level Dressage division. The riders on the team from California were Tessa Tapscott on Silver Charm, Sierra Mathias on Just Like Marilyn and stable manager Leah Miller.
The dressage judges were as follows: Trip Harting (S judge), Lois Yukins (S judge), Kristi Wyscoki (R judge), Heidi Berry (R Judge), Sue Kolstad (R judge), and Joni Abney (R judge).
Thanks to Kathleen Burke Jensen for submitting this story.

German Dressage GOV Inspection Site Champion
Jeanne Schamblin and Linares
Congratulations to Jeanne Schamblin of Sierra Vista Sport Horses. Her German Riding Pony colt Linares was Site Champion at the GOV Inspection at German Dressage in Encinitas on July 31. The three month old colt, bred by Polly Limond of Pepper Knoll Farm, is by the imported German Riding Pony, Lateran, out of imported States Premium pony mare, Crown Iowa. 
Linares beat 15 other foals, all high quality Warmblood foals, for the honor, and was pronounced a stallion prospect by the judges from the GOV. The judges comments were: “...breathtakingly beautiful head and neck, extremely good walk and trot, and he is as kind as he can be.  There really is no question who the champion is here today, he is a truly exceptional foal.”

Californian Francie Steinwedell-Carvin
wins $25,000 High Prairie Grand Prix
Francie Steinwedell-Carvin came all the way from California to claim first place in the Peak Building Systems $25,000 High Prairie Grand Prix at The Colorado Horse Park. Steinwedell-Carvin, who has represented the United States
internationally, bested a field of 26 other top riders from Mexico, Canada, Arizona, Illinois, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado.
Only three riders advanced to the jump-off from Guilherme Jorge’s first round course set on the Park’s large derby field. The World Cup course designer set a challenging test of 13 obstacles. “I thought it walked very nice,” said Steinwedell-Carvin. Her victory came on Ness-Go, a 12-year-old Dutch gelding by Ircolando that has recently returned to the show ring after an absence while he recovered from colic surgery. Ness-Go is a special horse for Steinwedell-Carvin and has become part of the family. “I could just stand and watch him,” she enthused.
Finishing second was Colorado favorite John McConnell on Carolina. Although the 17.2 hand, 8-year-old Holsteiner mare is in her first year of Grand Prix she made short work of the course. “She’s coming along,” said her rider. The pair was victorious in the Sandia Classic II Grand Prix and also in the $25,000 Colorado Summer Classic II earlier this summer. Rounding out the jump-off was Charlie Jayne with Urbanus. The Elgin, IL resident rode for the win in jump-off, but his quest for speed brought down the rails, leaving him third. This was Jayne’s first trip to the Colorado shows, which he opted for instead of the usual Lake Placid events.
The Grand Prix also featured an autograph signing with Denver Bronco, Champ Bailey. “Our goal with the autograph signing was to create awareness of the park and the Grand Prix in a whole new audience,” said media coordinator Christine DeHerrera.
For more information or complete results visit www.coloradohorsepark.org.

Congratulations to Ronn Montoya on his First Place win in the Walk/Jog Western Equitation 40 & Over at the Vista Palomar Riders Club’s Arabian Community Horse Show in Vista. The club’s next show will be held on November 11 at the same facility.

Zone 10 is Solid Gold at NAJYRC
The all-California Zone 10 won both the Young Riders and Juniors team show jumping gold medals at the 2007 CN North American Junior and Young Riders’ Championships (NAJYRC), presented by Gotham North and UlcerGard, at the Virginia Horse Center in Lexington, VA.
Young equestrians from the United States, Canada and Mexico, as well as a South American rider from Argentina, came to the Championships to vie for team and individual medals in the three Olympic disciplines of show jumping, dressage and eventing. For many, the NAJYRC, is the premier competition in North America for Juniors (age 14-18) and Young Riders (age 16-21) and is their first experience riding on a team, as well as their first time competing under the rules of the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI), the international governing body for equestrian sport.
In the Young Riders’ division, the Zone 10 team had a score of 20 faults for the two rounds where each team counts its three best scores. Aurora Griffin of Westlake Village had scores of zero and 4 in her two rounds on Tucker, Karl Cook of Woodside scored 4 and zero on Uno de Laubry, Megan Edrick of San Juan Capistrano scored 8 and 4 on Kandel and Katie Harris of Wilton scored 17 and 12 on Billy Orange.
“We run our final trial to make the team exactly like these Championships and that really helps us when we get here,” said Edrick. “Going through it in a pressure atmosphere when we’re trying to make the team helps ease some of the pressure here.”
The USHJA Show Jumping Junior Division also featured a win by Zone 10 in the team championship. The team of Saer Coulter of San Francisco on Paddington, Meredith Hursh of San Mateo on Runaway, Danielle Korsh of San Diego on San Diego and Paige Dotson of Laguna Hills on Caretano B, finished with a two-round total of 16 faults to claim the win.
“This team was amazing. The way they picked me up after round one really showed how we worked as a team,” said Paige Dotson, who bounced back from a fall in the first round to turn in the team’s only clear in round two. “I think the way we supported each other was the real key to our coming out on top.”
In the USHJA individual show jumping division, Karl Cook of Woodside continued Zone 10’s week of dominance when he rode Uno de Laubry to a five-round score of 4.06 faults to clinch the Young Riders individual gold. Laura Teodori of Scottsdale, AZ and Zone 8 scored 6.84 faults on Kasaar D’Uselles to win the silver and Aurora Griffin of Westlake Village scored 12 faults on Tucker to win the bronze.
“The kid was awesome, he rode better every round,” said an elated Zone 10 chef d’equipe Butch Thomas of Cook. “He just loped the last round—beautiful!”
The NAJYRC is the continuation of an annual competition that began in 1974 as an eventing challenge between Canada and the United States. In the years since its inception, it has grown considerably with the addition of a Dressage Championship in 1981 and the Show Jumping Championship in 1982. The first complete Championships with all three Olympic disciplines was held in British Columbia, Canada in 1982. Last year’s Championships saw the addition of officially-sanctioned championship divisions for junior riders in the three Olympic disciplines for the first time.
Complete results are available on the NAJYRC website at www.youngriders.org. This press release was provided by LEG Up News.

40th Annual San Francisco Peninsula CDS Show
Among the many beautiful perpetual trophies awarded by the San Francisco Peninsula Chapter of the California Dressage Society at its 40th Annual Show, two trophies were designated especially for junior riders.
New to the perpetual trophy collection this year was the Veronika Optiz-Berry Perpetual Trophy, named for the SFP Chapter’s beloved “V” whose junior riders had a special place in her heart and her life until her untimely death last year. Veronika’s husband Greg was on hand to present the trophy to Chloe McNally of San Mateo, who rode her own Lad’s Night Out, a 7 year old grey ISH/TB cross, to qualify as the high point Junior or Young Rider at First Level through Fourth Level in Saturday’s classes.
Artist Pam Orisek, who created the bronze horse head perpetual trophy, was on hand for the presentation, as was Veronique Gillard, the artist who will create a graphite drawing of each year’s winner for them to keep.
Dedicated last year, the Riley Church Memorial Trophy for high score for a Junior or Young Rider at Training Level went to Leah Myers of Carmel. Winning the trophy, named for one of the SFP Chapter’s beloved junior members, Leah rode her own Maverick, a 14 year old 14.3-hand red roan Appaloosa gelding.
Andrea Church, on hand to present the trophy, remarked that one of her daughter’s defining characteristics was her dedication to her riding and her horses, “A dedication which I can see Leah shares. I expect we’ll see Leah here in the future to accept the Veronika Optitz-Berry Trophy, as well.”
On hand to applaud Leah, amidst both smiles and tears, were family and friends, and Leah’s trainer, Jennifer Roth, who took home the Bolshoj Perpetual Trophy for Prix St. Georges high score with Maestoso XLIV-17, her 10 year old Lipizzan stallion. The Bolshoj Trophy was designed and created by the late Merrily Page, a SFP chapter member and ASHS judge, to honor Bolshoj, the Oldenburg gelding owned and ridden by then-chapter member Elizabeth Ball to many honors, among them the Pan American Games silver medal.
This information was provided courtesy of California Riding Magazine’s Nan Meek.

Congratulations to Stacy Mortazavi and MF Malakeh Samrah, who was named the 2007 Pacific Slope Champion Mare.

The Winners Circle welcomes submissions and photos. E-mail them to rebecca@ridingmagazine.com.