Trials and Tribulations Come As Newcomer Makes Trip to National Dressage Finals

Horses in her Blood

She comes from a horse oriented family and she gets emotional support from them. Her grandmother, Jane Auchincloos, a former pony club “A” examiner, “can still tell if a pirouette is good or not. Then she will ask `why didn’t you do it better?’” said Hannigan. She also has the backing of her mother, Sibley Hannigan, who was involved in pony club and had been Hannigan’s instructor in her daughter’s youth.

“She worked with me until I was 15 and too bratty to teach any more,” Hannigan said with a wink of her eye.

A former eventer as a junior, she learned about dressage through riding a stallion named Limelight. “He was so awful to me but I learned so much from riding him. So I switched to dressage only.” After she tried but failed to make Young Riders as a teen, she moved from First to Fourth Level while riding with Ellen Dixon Miller. Then she had an opportunity to work with Priscilla Endicott and through her, hooked up with Voulker Brommann. He took her from Fourth to the I1 level.

Reaching for Grand Prix and Beyond

“I almost did grand prix and went to Florida with Ellen. But my horse colicked and never recovered,” she recalls. But qualifying and making the June 16-18 championships “is so fun.”