John Briggs and Won Vital Code RV Win Junior Trail L2 With 235

By: Brittany Bevis

John Briggs received a spectacular birthday present at the 2017 AQHA World Show, winning a golden trophy in L2 Junior Trail with Won Vital Code RV for owner, Eric Mendrysa. John and “Levi” scored a 235 to win the class and claim a spot in the Junior Trail L3 finals that will take place on Saturday evening.

John and Levi were first to go, a challenging position for any Trail class. “I was definitely worried about it. With going first, I didn’t know if my score was going to hold up. I was just hoping to have a score that would hold up for the shootout. When you go that early, you just don’t know.”

John and Levi have been a team since March of this year, when he was approached by Eric and trainer, Reid Thomas, about forming a partnership with the pretty roan gelding. “The first time I rode him was at the Sun Circuit, when Reid and Eric came to me and asked if I would try him out, to see if it was something that would work. They thought it might be a good team.”

“He had already been doing Trail and doing it really well. Christie Arrington had him and won the NSBA World Show 3-Year-Old Trail the year before. She did an amazing job with him. I was excited to show him, and we seemed to click right away.”

John believes one of Levi’s best features is his intelligence, which was certainly tested on last night’s challenging course. “I had done Senior Trail the day before, and that was more of an opened up course, so it was nice and easy to ride. But, the Junior course was a lot tighter in the transitions. It was a harder course. There was an obstacle at the end where you had to trot over four elevated poles, stop, do a 180 turn, side pass, back, and walk out over elevated poles. I thought that was very challenging for a preliminaries course.”

“You couldn’t miss a beat or you’d get yourself in trouble. Also, going first is always a challenging position, because you don’t get to see anyone else ride the course. He was very clean. He had only one light tick. He was in the zone.”

Levi is not only very talented in Trail; John confirms this gelding has potential in Western Riding as well. It’s a class he hopes to explore more next year. “He’s just learning how to do Western Riding, and I’ve showed him a couple of times in that. I showed him one time and was fifth in Junior Western Riding at the NSBA World Show. That will be an event we try to qualify in next year.”

“I like this horse’s personality. He’s super smart. You show him something one time, and he gets it. You can tell he thinks about it. He’s really smart and tries really hard.”

The Reserve Champion in the class was Troy Lehn with Zippin A Breeze. Third was Holden Jung with Made Rite. Fourth was Ashley Merchant with Certainly Chatty. Fifth was Lindsey Minor with Frost Me Radical.