Bruce Vickery and Signature Absolute Receive Highest Congress Trail Score of 239 to Win Junior Trail

By: Brittany Bevis

Those watching the Junior Trail finals today at the 2014 All American Quarter Horse Congress had the opportunity to witness history being made as Bruce Vickery rode Signature Absolute to score a whopping 239 to win the Junior Trail by a margin of 6.5 points. Although Vickery knew he was racking up plus points on many of the obstacles, he had no idea the score would be quite so big.

“I knew I had a great go; I was pretty excited,” Vickery says. “I didn’t know it would be that big. Your scores are based on the amount of obstacles in the pattern, and we didn’t really have a lot of obstacles in the class. It was kind of cool to know that he scored plus 1, at least, on probably every obstacle. It’s exciting. It’s definitely the highest in Trail ever, at the Congress, so far…”

Just a few weeks ago, Vickery and his mount achieved two Reserve Champion titles at the NSBA World Show. For the horse’s owner, Nancy Riggs, who’s just getting into showing on a national level, this huge win is very exciting, to say the least.

“I got this horse early on this year,” he says. “His owner is from California, and she decided she wanted to send him out to do a little more national showing. Since then, both Anthony Montes, my assistant, and I have been showing him and have been circuit champion at a few places.”

“What’s so cool about this horse is his expression. He has so much expression over the poles; he looks everywhere he’s going; and he’s really intense. It’s just cool. When he’s out there, it feels easy for him. It’s pretty effortless.”

Vickery describes the 5-year-old grey gelding as a Trail natural with plenty of rhythm and eye-appeal.

“Today’s pattern really suited him,” he says. “Everything he does is pretty natural. He’s great over the poles. I thought it was cool that we had a sidepass today. He sidepasses great, so it was fun to sit down on him with a full drape and sidepass. I even went a little extra far, just because he can!”

“Probably, the most challenging part of this pattern was the transitions. There were a lot of transitions and [you had to] make sure you got your transitions in the right spots to get to the next obstacle. It was really a flowy pattern, and there was a lot that you could make really pretty.”

 

Junior Trail

1- Signature Absolute/Bruce Vickery- 239

2-Snap Krackle Pop/Blake Weis- 232.5

3- Suddenly Im Cool/Bruce Vickery- 230

4- Only Temptation/Jet Thompson- 229

5- So Dang Lazy/Melissa Jones- 228.5