Shannon Lilley has been generously keeping us posted on all things Area VI throughout Young Riders. Area VI has a wonderful team of riders, horses, parents, grooms, and supporters. Dayna Lynd-Pugh is Area VI’s coach and Laura Powell is serving as Area VI’s chef on scene while Shannon recovers from her back injury at home in California. As always, thanks for writing this Shannon and thank you for reading.
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Photo courtesy of Leslie Mintz and the USEA
From Shannon:
First of all, I want to congratulate the Area VI, VII, and IX combined team for an epic wire to wire gold medal win! Also, congrats to Area V for their gold medal win as they survived the show jumping so well! The lives of the two individual gold medalists, Victoria New with Fleeceworks Mystere du Val and Connor Husain aboard Piece of Hope, will forever be changed now that they have this paramount win to add to their resume.
Unlike most competitions, NAJYRC is a team competition, which makes it all that much more special. I have said before that it is one thing to win a major competition as an individual, but winning as a part of a team is an exponentially greater feeling. These riders who competed for their area now have memories that will last a lifetime. I want to give a special congratulations to all of the riders who qualified, made the team, and traveled to NAJYRC this year, and every year for that matter. It is a very difficult achievement. That achievement of making the team in the first place is why the journey leading up to and at the competition gives these kids special memories that they will never repeat. Even if they compete on a team again; there is no team experience like another. So I advise all the young riders to strive to do bigger and better things but never forget the experience you had this year at the 2012 North American Junior Young Rider Championships!
On a personal note, I have been the Chef d’Equip for the Area VI Young Rider program for 5 years now and each of those years we have come home with a medal. I worked with Bea and Derek di Grazia the first two years and Dayna Lynd-Pugh the past three years. The quality of our program has been insurmountable each year but never as well organized as it was this year with Laura Powell as our coordinator, who also stood in for me at Championships this year.
I often find myself feeling like the ending to this week is a bit anticlimactic. It takes and army of people, volunteers, vets, coaches, chefs, coordinators, shoers, sports psychologists, therapists – equine and human – to make this a successful week for the riders and the horses yet when it is all said and done the momentum stops dead. I think the time is now after many of the areas’ success and we should be able to build momentum to build the program and highlight these wonderful riders and their equine athletes. They should be treated at the ambassadors of their Area or Country just as the various sports teams representing the USA in the upcoming Olympics will be for the rest of their lives.
Making NAJYRC something bigger than it is now is a future goal of mine. I would love to see it carry as much clout as the equivalent does in Europe. Regardless of how quickly we can make changes in this sport; we can control how we, as areas, build momentum. So I implore all the Area Young Rider Coordinators to make celebrities out of these kids for all of their hard work and sacrifice. It will only increase the desire in future kids to get to NAJYRC, which will increase membership!
Go Area VI and Go Young Riders!!!
