Trail, Western Pleasure and Horsemanship Champions Named Monday at the Congress

The last Monday of the 2015 Congress found all ages of Youth Trail, several Western Pleasure finals and Horsemanship champions being crowned. The Way To Go talked with some of the day’s champions.

Youth Blaze The Trail in All Shapes and Sizes

All three age groups of Youth Trail found champions being crowned on Monday. The youngest of the three NSBA champions was Isabella D’Onofrio and Just Good Enough, who won the NSBA championship and placed reserve overall in Youth Trail 11 & Under.

The ten year old piloted her 16 year old gelding, Roanie, to the win with a score of 219.5. “We’ve been showing together for two years,” D’Onofrio said. “My mom used to show when she was younger, and she got me started.”

“I really like showing in Showmanship and Trail. It’s fun going over the poles in Trail, and Showmanship is one of our best classes,” she said.

“The hardest part of this pattern was probably the lope overs and finding your spot. I really liked the back and the gate best. I was really excited when we won the NSBA trophy.”

In the 12-14 Trail, Ellexxah Maxwell and Zips Bossy Chip, or Annie B, took the NSBA champion award and placed reserve overall. “We were 20^th in the order, so we just had to wait to see how our score held up,” Maxwell said. The pair scored 228.

“Probably the hardest part of the pattern was where you had to stop and walk over poles in the middle of it,” she said. “It’s not something you usually see in the middle of the pattern. It was a fun pattern, because it had you lope over a set of poles to a slow walk over, then build up to another lope again.”

The win helped Maxwell rub in a joke she has with her dad about Annie B and Trail. “My dad told me in the beginning that Annie B would never make a Trail horse, so when we do well, I have to rub it in,” she said with a laugh.

Deanna Green and ‘Buttercup,’ or Blazinmytroublesaway, added another Congress AQHA and NSBA championship to their trophy shelf by winning the 15-18 Youth Trail. Green just started working on Trail a year ago, and is still Novice eligible in the class.

“There were a lot of elevated poles in our pattern, and the transition from the last lope to a trot was pretty tight, so I would say those were the most difficult parts of our pattern today,” Green said. “Buttercup was really good through the whole pattern, and she really listened to me.”

To read the full article on NSBA.com, click here.