Horse Riding in its purest form
By
Marja Haflinger
While most people, on September 24, were counting the seconds until school was over, Hanna Ferguson was traveling down to a highly selective Dressage Competition in Sherwood, Oregon.
Marja Haflinger
While most people, on September 24, were counting the seconds until school was over, Hanna Ferguson was traveling down to a highly selective Dressage Competition in Sherwood, Oregon.
Ferguson is a member of the Lower Puget Sound Dressage Club and spends her afternoons training her horse PJ, a nine-year-old, 17 hand, Dutch Warmblood Thoroughbred that she got as a rescue horse. Currently, Ferguson rides at second level dressage. She has been riding for nine years and, just like with any sport, there are ups and downs.
“It is hard to balance the school work and friends, and it is also hard communicating with a 1200 pound animal and, well, my horse is really sassy, trying to get him to be nice and listen to me,” said Ferguson.
Ferguson and PJ drove to Sherwood, to compete in the Northwest Dressage/USDF Region Six Championships at Devonwood equestrian center. In order to qualify for the event, Ferguson had to ride in three other shows this summer.
“At the championships PJ was the best he had been all year and I got the highest scores I had gotten this year,” said Ferguson
At the show, Ferguson rode two of the three days. On Friday she rode one test and on Sunday she rode two. Judges evaluate the rider and horse on every movement performed in the test. They also evaluate how well the rider and the horse work together as a team. Over all, Ferguson placed third and fourth out of 25 competing against girls her age.
“Getting good scores is always nice. Placing doesn’t matter to me as long as I improve my scores and I get productive comments from the judges,” said Ferguson.
The Northwest Dressage Championships marked the end of the show season this year. Next year Ferguson hopes to qualify again and maybe win the title.
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