Lila Owens and Best Made Machine win Amateur Showmanship

Friday, June 28th, at the 2024 APHA World Championship Show, Lila Owens and Best Made Machine won the Amateur Showmanship All Ages, a big class of 29.

Lisa has owned “Marshall” since he was two years old, and he’s now eight – and Lila explains she gets emotional when talking about him. “This horse is a soldier; he wants to work, he wants to be your teammate, and he learns very fast. He’s very reliable, and he’s a horse you can really trust in the show pen, and not a horse that will spook – he really is with me every stride all the time, and he’s like that for Sara (Simons), too.”

Their bond was beneficial in their success, and so was the preparation made for the very challenging pattern in the Watt Arena.  “There was a lot of running in today’s pattern, and I think the key elements that were hard today, and what you could do to stand out, were the square corners and really making sure those were crisp and clean, and making sure your horse was following your body really well,” she says.

The trot to walk transition was another opportunity to plus or minus in the pattern as well, since it would be penalty-earning if you stop, she adds, and she speaks from experience. “Making sure that was really fluid was really important.”

Since the Watt is known for being useful as a cowhorse arena, sometimes that also means the footing is deep, which can provide additional hurdles for showmanship, but Lila says the staff was on top of it. “They actually groomed it pretty well today, and I know that they definitely did a lot of tractor work in between draws, which helped.  I was pleasantly surprised by today’s footing.”

Marshall, she says, will have a forever home with her family.  “He means a lot to our family and to Sara, so he’ll be staying around a while!”

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Find complete results for their class under the Amateur Performance category: http://press.apha.com/worldshow/results/RAPHAASH11.htm