For those of you who don’t know me, I am Alexa Eleanor Ehlers, and I am currently a freshman at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. I have always dreamt of representing the U.S. and have been lucky enough to be selected to ride for Area V and the U.S. at the North American Junior Young Rider Championships for the past three years. In saying all of this, I am beyond excited about representing the USPC in Australia with these three girls! I know that we have all been preparing since the day we found out that we were selected.
To prepare personally, I have been riding any horse that I can get my hands on. That includes my two goofy horses—In Any Event or “Mitch” and Clear Approval or “Brownie”. This past weekend was our first event of the season, and the boys were beyond stellar for me. Mitch was entered in the JYOP, as he hadn’t competed since running the CIC** at Red Hills a year ago, and Brownie was entered in the Preliminary/Training division.
My first ride was at 7:51 a.m. on Mitch and the sun had literally just come up as I went to ride over to the warm up. I have been riding with Allie Knowles, and we decided to try out a new way of going for Mitch in the dressage ring. I had always tried to get him straight by moving forward, but it was making our lateral movements more difficult, as he didn’t have time to cross over completely. Allie has me moving the wiggle worm sideways before he can so that I am the one who is getting him to do the moving. Needless to say he was going MUCH better, and he ended up scoring a 29.1!
Brownie was my second test, and it was a quick change from one horse to the other. We have been working on similar movements with Brownie (lateral movements ALL the time), but for different reasons. Brownie is such a giant that he still lacks the ability to understand how to put his hind end to use. If I put my leg on he immediately pulls down, and well, 17.3 hands pulling down… there is nothing that I can do to stop it. The idea is that if he has to move sideways with my leg ON, he will begin associating leg with holding himself up. It’s really starting to help (as long as I can stay on during his random fits of frustration…aka bucking)! He ended up putting in a very consistent test, scoring a 28.6. I couldn’t have been any happier at the end of the day!
I didn’t know either of the boys’ scores going into showjumping, thank goodness. My main goal going into the ring was to transfer what we had been working on in the flat. Mitch warmed up quite well, and I was lucky enough to follow Boyd Martin into the ring. As I told the gatekeeper, “I can’t think of a better image to have in my head when walking into the ring”. Of course, Boyd rode a stellar round, and I went cantering into the ring. As I halted, I reached up to do my lucky ear grab on Mitch—something that began when I did a few months of jumpers—yes, I’m a tad bit superstitious. Mitch began jumping, and it was just like the old days. We both found a rhythm, and the course felt great. I came out of the ring patting him and loving on him to find out that he had been leading the division going in to show jump. What a fabulous boy!
It was yet another quick switch from Mitch to Brownie, and I was still waiting to find out about Brownie’s scores. He warmed up well too, but with him especially I always have to think about sitting down and moving sideways (shoulder-in, leg-yield, anything lateral and DIFFERENT from the last time) before going to lifting my hands (NOT pulling). Yeah, he’s a bit of a tough ride right now… He was feeling pretty light in the bridle, which I was pleased with, going into the ring. He had a few rubs throughout the course, and we almost had a time fault or two, but I was excited about his overall way of going. A double clean in The Giant’s third Preliminary show jump round ever! When we came out of the ring my parents let me know that he was sitting in second after dressage. After the round he put in, he moved up to first place!
The rest of the afternoon was spent walking courses. I had forgotten just how fun/long walking two courses twice really was. I ended up walking in my comfy flip-flops for the second round of walks, but by the end we decided that we had definitely earned a Dairy Queen or “Texas Stop Sign” blizzard.
Sunday morning, I fed the boys, walked them around the barn a few times and let them graze before heading out to watch Boyd ride a few of the lines that walked a little odd. To no one’s surprise, Boyd rode the lines perfectly, and once again I was glad to have the image of him in my head going to warm up.
When I got to the cross-country warm up with Mitch I learned that there had been a fall at fence six—an upright table in the woods—and we were on hold. The hold wasn’t very long, and we were all back on track. My favorite thing about Pine Top is their cross-country warm up. They have a few show jump fences, but plenty of cross-country fences to school before heading out on course. I started with a few smaller cross-country fences, and ended by angling two of the larger fences. It was a great way to head out on course. I had someone walk next to us up to the box in case Mitch got too excited to make it through the box when the counter began the infamous 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. He surprisingly held everything together and was the perfect amount of “let me at it” when I asked him to move forward, out of the box. He went out on course, and didn’t look at a thing. It felt so good to be back on my old man. 
My parents helped keep an eye on Mitch while he stood in the ice tub, and I tacked up Brownie. Mitch finished icing just as I hopped on to head to warm-up. When I got to warm up, I saw Phillip Dutton utilizing an edge of the pond as a type of water jump. He is brilliant. I did a very similar warm up on Brownie as I did on Mitch, but really had to work the left to right lateral work. Brownie’s instinct is to bulge out of his left should when spooking, and that isn’t what you want happening when the fist half of the course is on a giant right circle. Brownie went out on the course a touch spooky, but finished wonderfully. He is really starting to figure out the game, and he feels like he is enjoying it too!
All in all, I couldn’t have been happier with the weekend. As always, I have my homework, and that’s my favorite part of getting back into competing…finding ways to better yourself for the future. It’s now time to prep for our next outing at Chattahoochee Hills in Georgia at the beginning of April. Mitch will be running Intermediate, and Brownie will be moving back up to Preliminary. Until then it’s back to the barn for some no stirrups work, and more schooling of the movements that will be on the new tests. I can’t wait to write back in a few weeks with hopefully another successful story, but until then, best wishes to you all!
Love always,
Alexa, Mitch & Brownie
As any dedicated rider knows, you can take the girl out of the barn, but you cannot take the barn out of the girl. Along with my internship this summer, I also was training two project horses. A typical day proceeded as follows: wake up at 7 to go to the barn, work both horses before 10, change into “real person clothes” (apparently you can’t wear britches to the office!), use baby wipes and apply heavy perfume to absorb all remnants of horse smell, drive to Charlotte by 11am, and then work there until 6pm. At one point I also had a part-time job at Davidson working as a student caller for alumni donations, so I did that from 7-9pm in the month of June. Oddly enough, this worked out quite well because I could ride before the intense southern heat kicked in, and none of my colleagues were genuinely surprised to hear that I had spent my morning at a barn. Though I did once pull a piece of hay out of my hair.
spring break by taking her Training level at Full Gallop Horse Trials. I may be a little rusty, but we had an amazing time. Nothing quite beats the feeling of blasting out of the start box on cross country, and galloping home through the finish flags.
USPC Exchange Team 