AFTER honing their skills and getting to know their horses over the past week, competitors from 13 different nations will saddle up today for the first of three straight competition days of the American Quarter Horse Youth World Cup at the Australian Equine and Livestock Events Centre (AELEC) in Tamworth.
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Over 100 of the best youth riders in the world have been involved in clinics and sessions all week and it was the USA that drew first blood, Austria Arnold taking out both shows of the cutting competition held on Sunday to be crowned world youth cutting champion.
Tamworth’s own Australian representative, Natasha Rapley, finished eleventh overall in the first cutting show, and is hoping for some further results over the next few days.
Following the opening ceremony last Friday, the riders all got to meet and select their individual horses for the competitions, after the horses had been graded and divided up fairly between the teams.
The cutting horses and reining horses are separate from the quarter horses, which will be ridden over these three days of competition.
“We bought the horses in on Friday and the clinics began on Saturday,” spokeswoman Vanessa Roach said.
“The ability for the riders to be able to adjust to riding different horses is all part of the skill.”
“We have had to source 110 horses for the entire event.”
Today’s program will kick-off with Showmanship, Hunter Under Saddle, Hunter Seat Equitation and Horsemanship, with three riders from each nation selected to compete and the winner hailed as world champion, while only two riders from each nation will compete in the trail and ranch riding events this afternoon.
That same program will be completed again on Saturday for the B Show, with the reining and trail competitions on tomorrow.
