ONWARD & The UPWARD

Three young riders share their experiences while moving on to new horses.

- BY SHOSHANA RUDSKI

If you're reading Young Rider, we know one thing about you for certain—you love horses! However, whether it's due to size, ability, or physical limitations, most of us can't ride the same horse forever. It's tricky to know when to move onto a new friend, so we chatted with three of our readers to share their stories.

SIZE MATCH

Grace, 12, is small but mighty, and her ponies match! Coming from a horsey family, she has ridden ponies since she was tiny. However, as her skills continued to grow, so have her horses.

A couple of years ago, Grace moved up from her tiny pony, Annie, to Dinero, a Pony of the Americas who can jump the moon.

"Dinero is similar to Annie," she says. "They both overjump the jumps and like going fast! However, I needed to move up the levels, but it would have been hard on Annie's hocks. Now I get to compete at Novice level in eventing with Dinero and jump bigger things."

At 14.1 hands, Dinero and Grace are a perfect match. They already won the Top Pony award in their Junior Beginner Novice division at the American Eventing Championships!

However, Grace is still growing, so in addition to Dinero, she is now also riding her off-track Thoroughbred, Greye's Creek ("Slate"). They have been accepted to compete in the Retired Racehorse Project's Thoroughbred Makeover in October, and Grace is getting to learn about differences between riding ponies and larger horses.

"Slate feels like he's floating when he trots," she says. "He is way up in the air. Slate is larger and I am growing— maybe he will be able to go Modified or Preliminary level and jump even bigger things!"

TOO MUCH HORSE