At Her Last Youth World Show, Gabrielle Lofton Wins First World Title in Tough Trail Finals
After watching a very tough Youth Trail preliminaries at the 2013 AQHYA World Show just a few days ago, all of the competitors knew that Tim “The Trail Man” Kimura was going to pull out some surprises for the finals today.
Since Captain America and his flying shields had made an appearance in the prelims, many exhibitors wondered who might show up in the finals… the Hulk perhaps? Although there were no additional superheroes adorning obstacles, the competitors truly needed some superpowers to navigate an extremely difficult finals course. A few of the obstacles included a double gate with multiple raised poles, diagonal lope-overs, a tight figure eight back with tempting shrubbery, a square corner bridge with raised poles, and seemingly endless square corners and tight turns.
But even though the difficulty level was intense, competitors and their horses rose to the challenge scoring some incredibly high marks. When it was announced that the tenth place horse had marked a 227, it was clear that the judges rewarded exhibitors accordingly.
Winning the World Champion title with a whopping 236.5 was Gabrielle Lofton aboard Lil Bit Western, a 17-year-old gelding by The Sports Machine and out of Chf National Rosette.
“After the prelims, I kind of knew Tim was going to throw something out in the finals,” she says. “It was fun. It was a challenge. I think if it was an easy smooth pattern it wouldn’t be as exciting to me. Because it was such a challenge, it was more like I had to just attack every obstacle.”
“The bridge [was] definitely [difficult]. I had to get the right angle and help him miss all the poles. Also, probably the jog in and the left turn to the jog out [was the most challenging].”
Today’s win marks a special occasion for Lofton because this is her first World Championship title. The win is made even more special by the fact that this is her last trip to the Youth World. She will join her sister, Brittany Lofton, in the amateur ranks next year.
In addition, trail just happens to be the speciality of her trainer, Jill Newcomb.
“There’s so much that Jill tells me,” she says. “She is such an inspiration to me. Probably the most important thing she says is, “I know you’re good, and no matter what, you’re a champion.’ ”
“It’s amazing. I’m still in shock. I don’t even know what to do. I’m just kind of walking around on cloud nine.”
“I was pretty excited,” she says. “After that, I knew that no matter what, I did good and I got a high score. It was fun knowing that all of the competition was so good and everybody scored so big. It was fun to just be in a pen like that and to be with everyone else.”
Caption: Jill Newcomb and Brittany Lofton wait to hear the final results.
Another notable fact about this particular finals is that the top eight exhibitors were also the top eight highest placing Intermediate exhibitors. That’s quite an accomplishment for such a difficult course.
Leading Lofton to victory today was Lil Bit Western, aka “Critter,” a horse she shares with her big sister Brittany.
“Critter has a huge personality, probably more than most people,” she says. “He loves treats. He acts like a dog, and he’ll follow you around if you have a carrot. He bucks a lot, and when he’s feisty, he lets you know for sure.”
Caption: The winning reaction!
Lofton and Critter bested 156 exhibitors to win the World Champion title today. A big congratulations goes to the Lofton family and Newcomb Show Horses Crew.
Trail-
1-Lil Bit Western/Gabrielle Lofton- First place Intermediate (236.5)
2-Some Hot Potential/Bailey Mierzewski- Second place Intermediate (235.5)
3-She Made It Happen/Cole Gower- Third place Intermediate (230.5)
4-Gone Red Instead/Koedi Lawley- Fourth place Intermediate (230)
5-Invitation To Boot/Caleb Bailie- Fifth place Intermediate (229.5)
