APHA Green Trail Champions Include Troy Lehn/A Chrome Cookie, Sara Simons/Gametime Sensation, Shannon Gillespie/I’m First N Line

By: Brittany Bevis

Trail course designer, Robert Dehn, created a challenging and creative course for the 35 horse and riders teams that competed in Green Trail this morning at the APHA World Show. Winning his second green class of the show was Troy Lehn aboard A Chrome Cookie for owner Alexandra Chavez. In a very close finish, the Reserve Champion was Sara Simons with Gametime Sensation.

Third place was Shannon Gillespie with I’m First N Line. Fourth place was Seth Fender with Spent The Night. Fifth place was Jeffrey Gibbs with Gotta Lotta Good.

We already had the chance to chat with Troy last night following his win with “Rocky” in Green Western Pleasure, so this morning we spoke with Sara Simons to find out about her Reserve Champion run aboard the 5-year-old gelding named “Doc.” Sara was in the saddle this morning for Doc’s owner, Ali Eidson.

“He’s an amazing Trail horse that hasn’t done a lot of Trail,” Sara says. “This is probably the sixth Trail pattern he’s ever done in his life. It was a good course, but it was very challenging. He saw a few things out there that he’d never seen before, so we had a little bit of that green horse stuff that a lot of people had today, but it was awesome.”

“He really is an amazing mover, so that takes him a long way out there. I think his lope-overs were pretty amazing, and the trot pinwheel was super difficult; he did that really nicely.”

Doc has only been competing in Trail since May of this year, but he’s already showing promise as a future all-around star due to his inherent talent, sweet nature, and persistence. “He’s super easy going,” she says. “He’s really wiling, he wants to try, and he really want to do good. He’s a pleaser.”

Considering that a World Show Trail course is likely much more challenging than the typical obstacles a green horse might they encounter at home, we wondered how Sara goes about preparing her horses for a successful future in the discipline while not throwing too much at them at once.

“I work a couple of poles at home,” she says. “I don’t do full courses, so it never gets really overwhelming for them. I do more of the smaller maneuvers throughout the week. There are very few times, besides at a horse show, that they see a big, huge course. It’s really important that they have good transitions. Most of these patterns really lend themselves well to a Horsemanship-style  horse.”

Currently underway are the Senior Trail preliminaries. Stay tuned later today for classes like Bronze 2-Year-Old Hunter Under Saddle Breeders’ Futurity, Ranch Riding Sweepstakes, 3-Year-Old Hunter Under Saddle, Gold/Silver 2-Year-Old Western Pleasure Breeders’ Futurity, Non-Pro 3-Year-Old Western Pleasure, Solid Paint Bred Yearling Longe Line, and Senior Western Pleasure. Meanwhile, over  in the Watt Arena, Cutting classes are underway.