36 / Sport and Trail Magazine
Several young people have also been building a serious following in the sport. Madison Waller, who competes in Working Equitation on both her Lusitano Diablo DC and her Welsh pony Rollingwoods Double Stuff, helped introduce thousands to the sport at the 2016 BreyerFest event in Lexington, Kentucky. She is also a regular at Working Equitation competitions in her home state of Texas. Madison finished the 2016 Competition season at the top of the National standings for Junior riders at the Introductory level.
In 2016, CDC Memoria was not only the high-point IALHA-registered horse competing in Working Equitation, she and her owner Julie Alonzo also led the nation at the Novice-level.
Although many people associate the sport of Working Equitation with the Iberian breeds, chiefly the Lusitano and Andalusian, American Quarter Horses and Grade horses competing in the sport outnumber their Portuguese and Spanish relatives almost two to one in the United States (see Figure 1 for a depiction of the breeds with 3 or more horses registered with WE United).
The sport also welcomes some of the more rare breeds, with at least one representative from the following breeds: American Bashkir Curly, American Warmblood, Arabian, Canadian
Horse, Marchador, Norwegian Fjord, Oldenburg, Tennessee Walking Horse, Warlander, 1/2 Connemara, 3/4 PRE, Baroque Pinto, Cleveland Bay, Connemara, Drum, Dutch Warmblood, Half Arabian Pinto, Holsteiner, Hungarian, Iberian Warmblood, Irish Sport Horse, Kiger, Paso Fino, Peruvian Paso, Rheinland, POA, Spanish Barb, Spotted Saddle Horse, and Trakehner.
Gaited horses are welcome to participate, with the same expectations for performance applied. In other words, if a gaited horse gaits instead of trotting, that particular movement in the dressage trial will receive a lower mark because it does not meet the specified gait, but the horse is not disqualified or prevented from participating. And, at events with 4 or more gaited horses, event organizers may offer a special division for gaited horses, enabling them to compete against each other where, theoretically at least, they will be on a more even playing field. There are absolutely no penalties for gaiting during the Speed Trial, and that part of the competition is one where we’ve definitely seen well-trained gaited horses do quite well.
A Princess Warhawk earned the most points of all APHA-registered horses in 2016
High point Haflinger was Mahon II FLH
Matt Command, a Quarter Horse gelding, topped the boards at #1 of 55 AQHA horses registered in the sport.