Lila Owens and Chandler Ennis Win Novice Youth Trail at 2016 AjPHA Youth World Show

By: Brittany Bevis

While most people around the country are enjoying family barbecues, parades, and fireworks this Fourth of July, AjPHA competitors are taking on lope pinwheels, trot serpentines, and other complex maneuvers during a challenging Robert Dehn Trail course.

First, Lila Jane Owens rode her beautiful, black and white gelding named Radically Deputized to win the Novice Youth 14-18 Trail. Coming in Reserve was Isabella Applegarth with Onesensationalcowgirl. Third was Taylor Burgess with Talk About Sudden. Fourth was Veronica John with Pour Me A Cuervo. Fifth was also Lila Jane Owens with The Cajun Cowgirl.

Lila has had a busy day, showing two horses in the same class, but she was pleased with the result of having both place in the Top Five!

“My mare and my gelding are completely different horses,” she says. “One moves a lot straighter and softer, and one is a Western Pleasure horse with a lot of hock. You aim for poles and go around obstacles completely different, so that was a big deciding factor yesterday in which horse I would show first in the working order.”

The newly crowned World Champion, Radically Deputized, aka “Daniel,” was bred and raised by APHA’s own Susie Shaw and has lived at Dare to Dream Performance Horses with Julie and Allan Schmidt for most of his carer. “Julie has worked really hard with him in Trail, and he’s also very good in Western Riding. He likes to keep his mind busy, so he’s good at those classes where he has to look around and be aware of where he’s going.”

Earlier in the show, Lila and Daniel placed Top Five in Showmanship and Top Five in Equitation. At the Pinto World Championship Show a few weeks ago, they were Reserve in Trail, so Lila was looking to improve upon their performance coming into her first and last Youth World Show.

“I had one little tick that pushed me back to Reserve, so I wanted to come here and clean it up a bit, because I know his potential to do so well. I moved to a new trainer at the beginning of this year and I got Daniel at the beginning of the year, so it was a big move. He’s a completely different horse than I’m used to. I wanted to do Top 20 for my last year in 14-18, and I also ride for the University of Georgia, so that takes up a lot of my time. My coaches were very nice to let me focus on [APHA competition] this year.”

Lila enjoys riding Daniel in Trail because of his fluid motion and expression over the poles. “Daniel is a really flowy mover,” she says. “If you send him where he should go, he usually has great expression. I knew it was good pattern because it really flowed. Robert always makes his patterns that way.”

“I remember being at the gate before the lope overs coming into the last maneuver. I remember thinking that this had been a really good pattern and these were our last two obstacles. I walked out a step and asked for him to lope. Then, I looked down and started counting my strides. I saw that it was going to be an awkward maneuver, so I took my legs off him and kept him going with my hips. He figured it out himself. That was really cool, because that could’ve hurt us a little bit.”

Later on today, the pair will compete in Western Riding.

In Novice Youth Trail 13 and Under, Chandler Ennis was named the World Champion with One Sensational Diva. The Reserve Champion was Eve Sachs with Plenty of Tats Rhythm. Third place was Lenora Roberts with Ima Gallant Titan. Fourth was Lindsey Roth with Invite Linda. Fifth was Isabella Hehr with Doctor Can Dee.

Stay tuned for Western Riding Finals this evening after the 14-18 Trail preliminaries…