Team USA Member Reflects on This Year’s Youth World Cup

By Lauren Pursley

Every two years the American Quarter Horse Association puts on the Youth World Cup, where this year, 22 different countries were represented in the international competition. The event lasted 11 days and served its participants not only as a competition but also as an educational tool. My name is Lauren Pursley, and this year I had the honor of representing the United States in the Youth World Cup. I was on Team USA with nine other girls including, Brooke Jolstad, Violet Shetler, Lily Corbin, Blakely Abbott, Rosemary Hartman, Taylor Allen, Liz Marmor, Jaymee Carruth, and Sydney Sargent. I can honestly say that in just under two weeks we went from hardly knowing each other to becoming a family. The Youth World Cup was incredibly challenging at times while also extremely rewarding. These are some of my experiences from this unforgettable event.

The 2023 Youth World Cup started off with a random draw for each team’s set of horses. These horses were unfamiliar to all of us and during our first allotted time to ride them, each riding member of our team was sure to get on all five of our horses to see who got along with what horse. Our set of horses consisted of four nice ranch horses with little to no all-around experience and one seasoned all-around horse. We all fell in love with every one of the horses in our set, but deciding who was going to ride what horse in which event was definitely one of the most challenging parts of this process. Team USA was represented in the arena by five strong riders that all wanted to compete in as many events as possible. Unfortunately, each team is only allowed to enter three riders in each event, with the exception of ranch riding, trail, and cutting which only allowed two riders from each team. This posed some issues for us as four of us wanted to compete in events like trail and horsemanship. This is where we received immense help from our leadership girls.

Lily, Blakely, Rosemary, Sydney, and Jaymee represented the U.S. as ambassadors and leaders for the team. They played a pivotal role in deciding the lineups for horses and riders for each event. They watched us ride and gave their opinions on what would set the team up for success the best. Blakley even took charge and became our own personal showmanship coach. Every day throughout the competition, she worked with all three showmanship competitors, as well as our horses. I personally have never tried showmanship and knew nothing about it. Although I was paired with a horse with the same amount of experience as me, Blakely was able to completely train and transform both of us. With help from her as well as some of the clinicians at the Youth World Cup, my ranch horse, All Hat And Cattle, aka Herman, and I were able to successfully show and place in the top 25 of the class. This was absolutely one of the most rewarding parts of the event.

On the topic of rewarding, our first win for the team is something I’ll never forget. Violet Shetler and our seasoned show horse, Fools Rush N, won Team USA’s first gold medal of the event in showmanship. Each time someone wins an event, their country’s national anthem is played and their flag is displayed behind them. Our first time to stand together as a team as our national anthem played was such an experience. Throughout the week, we were able to stand as a team with our flag on display as the top team a total of seven times, in addition to taking home the title of Youth World Cup Champions. These wins and countless other placings throughout the competition were a complete team effort and couldn’t be accomplished without everyone.

Performance in the show pen isn’t all that contributed to Team USA’s overall success. There were other competitions such as social media, art, scrapbook, and even a lip sync battle. Social media presence plays a big role in the outreach and growth of events like the Youth World Cup. Team USA brought home gold in the social media contest with thanks to Lily and Blakely who managed to post over 150 times in one day, all in the name of team spirit. While this contest didn’t contribute to the overall team score, our placings in the top ten in the art and scrapbook competitions added a lot of points to the team’s overall score. Our lip sync and line dance to Footloose, unfortunately, wasn’t enough to beat out the rest of the fierce competition. This lip sync was one of the most fun and entertaining parts of the entire World Cup. Watching each team perform their pre-choreographed dance montage was truly impressive and the late nights we spent practicing before the performance is something I won’t forget.

On other nights, if we weren’t practicing our dance moves or recovering from long days of clinics and competition, many of us from all countries would gather in the hotel lobby, talking and playing card games. This was no doubt our favorite part of the Youth World Cup. We talked and shared stories for hours with these international competitors. One night we sat in a circle and played songs from all of our countries, shared a positive and negative attribute about where we lived, and talked about some of the differences in horse showing across the globe. It was so neat to learn from each of the competitors and even hear their thoughts on America… the common consensus from our international friends is that Americans are very friendly with very large food portions.

Ultimately the Youth World Cup once again served its members by uniting some of the world’s greatest young horsemen in one arena. The amount of knowledge spread among the participants is not only incredible, but also necessary for the growth of equestrians globally. However, this international event would not be possible without the people behind it. Nancy Cahill has been coaching Team USA since the first Youth World Cup in 1978. Serving right beside her as manager of the team is Michelle Tidwell. Together, Nancy and Michelle not only work to keep Team USA running smoothly, but they also worked behind the scenes to set up the event and gather horses, tack, and clinicians. In addition to these two, Michelle Forness worked countless hours on the unseen logistics that keep the event going. Lastly, you cannot mention the Youth World Cup without thinking of its longtime coordinator, Dawn Forest. While she took a step back from this year’s competition, her presence is always felt throughout the event. These few people along with dozens of volunteers are who we have to thank for this spectacular event.

Thank you to Lauren for this amazing and insightful behind the scenes blog from the Youth World Cup!

 

You can learn more about the results and the event by following them on social media, and on their website: AQHA Youth World Cup 2023 (aqha-youthworldcup.com)