Off to the Western Dressage World Championships By: Scot MacGregor
When you pull your big horse trailer out of the driveway loaded with everything you need for the next week plus four horses, you never know what adventures await you. We headed out to Guthrie Oklahoma for the Western Dressage World Championships at the Lazy E Arena with high hopes and a year’ s worth of practice and planning. I could say it was an easy trip and hordes of people were waiting for us to arrive with leis and music like a bad episode of Fantasy Island but we just got stuck in the mud.
Working that out we did find a beautiful horse show facility with ponds and paths under trees and huge arenas with perfect footing for the horses to perform their best in. Everything packed must now find its new place and the unloaded horses must be fed and settled down for the night because first thing in the morning it’ s show time!
Our first competitions on Thursday would be suitability and equitation. Suitability assesses the horse and equitation evaluates the rider and I had the honor of winning both. Belle( Banner’ s Dixie Belle) a 14 year old mare was found to be most suitable toward the contests of western dressage and I was deemed a decent rider on Knight( All Around Midnight).
The second day each horse would ride in their first western dressage tests. We arrived for warm up and every horse in sight was perfect! This is not normal at most horse shows where there may be a few excellent horses and many average people packers( easy to ride horses). I was a little intimidated but my lower level horses were first to show and they both performed well. My mom’ s horse Belle was next and she performed very well winning her test in basic level. Western Dressage starts with introductory level, then advances to basic level on up to first, second and finally third level. My mom, Marilynne MacLeod, was really excited. Winning is only dreamed about but the reality of your horse becoming a world champion really impacts you emotionally. We cried.
Knight, my 13 year old stallion, whom I raised, was our final horse of the day competing at the highest level. Third level takes a decade of work to achieve. As a winning professional horse trainer, I took five years of lessons at Roberson Equestrian Facility, here in Murfreesboro, preparing for this challenge. Can I become one moving body with my trusted horse? Can we move through extremely hard maneuvers linked in trust and years of practice to achieve the heights of third level?
We arrived at the doors of the main arena for the upper level horses. It was huge! This massive building held two 20 x 60 meter arenas side by side and they only filled the floor half way. The warm up area was immediately in front of us using the front half of the building, then the competition arenas, surrounded by many rows of seats. Walking in, we rode under the largest American flag I’ ve ever seen. Old Glory prominently welcomed you to the big time. Now I’ m really intimidated!
NWHA National News 28