(By Lynndee Kemmet) -  A 15-year-old rider from Avon, Connecticut came out on top at this year’s Youth Dressage Festival. Held July 6-8 at the HITS show grounds in Saugerties, New York, the annual festival, created by Lendon Gray, drew hundreds of young riders from across the U.S. and abroad. This year’s overall champion is Angela Peavy who rode her own Stuart Little, a 13-year-old gelding, to victory. Her combined percentage score after the weekend was 88.531. The Reserve Champion was Jannike Gray.

Unlike other dressage competitions, the Youth Dressage Festival was developed by Gray as a way to reward horsemanship rather than those riders who simply had the better horse. The competition consists of three phases – a written test, an equitation test and a dressage test. In addition, there are additional “fun” classes such as dressage trail classes, Prix Caprilli and freestyle competitions. Awards and prizes are given out throughout the event when good horsemanship and good sportsmanship is spotted by event officials.

Peavy excelled in all three phases of the competition by earning a 100 percent in equitation, a 93 percent on the written test and a 72.593 in her para-dressage class. Although this high school sophomore has competed in Training Level and First Level competition with much success, she just recently qualified as an FEI para-dressage rider and has now set her sights on international competition. Peavy said that she was born with a blood clot in her brain that left her partially paralyzed on her left side from birth.

“I can walk and I can even run but it does hurt,” Peavy said. “It’s my left side that is rather weak.” She uses a special rein to help stabilize her left hand and while it is her left side that is a problem, she carries her whip in her right hand because the left hand has too little control. “That’s also why I don’t wear spurs because my leg would move around and I’d probably be kicking my horse all the time,” Peavy said.

Peavy said her parents are not riders but they started her with therapy horses when she was five. She quickly moved beyond therapeutic riding. “I wanted to trot and what they focused on was walking and going around obstacles. So they sent me to another barn where I could do more riding.” And that was all it took for Peavy. By the age of 10 she had talked her parents into her own horse and her dressage career was launched. Her latest persuasive success was talking her mom into taking up riding. “I finally convinced her after 10 years,” Peavy said.

This was the first time that Peavy, who trains with Ann Guptil, had competed at the Youth Dressage Festival and she was shocked when she learned she was the 2012 champion. She had been watching her scores and knew they were good but hadn’t been looking at the scores of others to see how she matched up. Even when they announced that Jannike Gray had earned the title of reserve champion, Peavy never expected to be called next as the champion. “I had no clue I was the champion until they announced it but it made me really happy.”

It wasn’t exactly an easy win for Peavy. Her horse wasn’t on his best behavior on the first day of competition but Peavy got him over that. And while she did extremely well on the written text that high score came with a lot of work. “I was so nervous about the written test that I went on the website and studied everything on there that it said I should study for my group. I didn’t want the written test to be the reason I didn’t do well in the competition.”

What’s next for this new champion? Well, Peavy says she’ll be busy competing this season in para-dressage competition and against able-bodied riders in Training and First Level competition. Plus, she’ll be trying her hand at musical freestyles. She has a new freestyle developed by Guptil and her husband, Ed Iarusso, that Peavy will use in competition this summer.  

In this year’s team competition, the winning team at the 2012 Youth Dressage Festival was the Thunder Ponies with a total team score of 241.517. The team consisted of Sarah Lemien riding Sun Ruler, Devon Gillespie riding Lecondor and Elizabeth O’Brien riding Jannus. The second-place team was the C-Striders with a score of 241.48. Team members were Lily Oliver riding Hermes, Logan Volpe riding Elmonzo, Ashley Lovely riding Hollywood’s Wiseguy and Jade Premont on Little Man. And in third place was the team of ESDCTA Medalists with a score of 241.253 and riders Amanda Perkowski on Ducheneau aka Spencer, Christy Pellegrino on Christmas Eve and Amanda McAuliffe riding Rainbeau’s Finella.

Other 2012 Youth Dressage Festival Champions:

FEI Champion – Giuila Cohen

Fourth Level Champion – Eleni Econopouly

Third Level Champion – Robert Leuck

Second Level Champion – Marlena Kurz

First Level Champion – Jannike Gray

Training Level Champion – Jennifer Salinger

Para Champion – Angela Peavy

WTC Champion – Daniel Irons

WT Champion – Sophia Robinson

Musical Freestyle Champion – Caitlin Tierney

Prix Caprilli Champion – Mackenzie Kurtz

Photo by Molly Lane – Lendon Gray congratulates 2012 Youth Dressage Festival Champion Angela Peavy