Thomasa Sanchez and Envious Invitation Win Amateur Hunter Hack at 2014 QH Congress

By: Brittany Bevis

When Thomasa Sanchez exited the arena this afternoon following the Amateur Hunter Hack, she knew she’d pulled out an impressive performance. “My trainer, Alfred Hewitt, said it was fantastic, and he only saves that for the good ones!”

Thomasa’s daughter Skylar echoed the praise saying, “Mom, you were never even on the wrong lead!”

In fact, Envious Invitation, aka “Coal,” is Skylar’s small fry horse, and the pair will be moving up into regular youth competition next year. Coal already has had some success here at the Congress winning the Progressive Working Hunter yesterday with Alfred Hewitt in the irons. This afternoon, Thomasa will hop on her bay mare, Like To Be Noticed, to compete in Amateur Working Hunter; the horse was Reserve in Green Working Hunter with Hewitt as well.

This isn’t Thomasa’s first time winning a Congress Champion title. She was named Champion in 1997 in an event you might not expect…

“In 1997, I won Congress in Cutting,” she says. “I did all the all-around events when I was a youth, but I think everything is too slow now! I need something more exciting. Coal does everything from Showmanship and Poles to Pleasure. He’s going to be a superstar with [Skylar.]”

“He’s more than just an all-around horse. I put special needs kids on him; I put veterans on him; I put my kid on him; and then I have fun jumping on him too. He’s pretty special. Now, it seems like everything is more specialized. You don’t get a lot of horses that will do such a variety of things. I feel very blessed.”

In 2002, Thomasa started working with a therapeutic riding center called Heavenly Hooves in the McCormick Research Institute in Kissimmee, Florida. The group works with children who have special needs, as well as those with life-threatening illnesses, and veterans with PTSD.

“What’s unique about this therapeutic riding center is we work in conjunction with a medical school and no other therapeutic riding center in the United States does that,” she says. “We do research to study what techniques are most effective. For example, we have a study right now where we have a veteran see a therapist within four, white walls. Then, we have another group of veterans come see a therapist on site at the barn and examine how they do with their PTSD in the different scenarios.”

Skylar also volunteers at the center from time to time, and Coal has been known to do his part as well. At the NSBA World Championship Show this year, Coal participated in the Equestrians With Disabilities classes for special needs children and veterans.

Amateur Hunter Hack-

1- Envious Invitation/Thomasa Sanchez

2- Only Royal Blue/Samantha Roper

3- Better Buy The Minit/Morgan Parisek

4- The Blue Cowboy/Whitney Mcilvain

5- Cool Man Jazz/Chad Sandoval

6- Size Matters/Julie Cole

7- A Tattle Tail/Keirstin Sapp

8- Supremotee For Me/CherylLee Sargent

9- Jetset On Cruz/Susan Cannan

10- Im Naturally Grey/Lauren Eichstadt