Boots Wright (Ocala, Fla.) earned the top placing with her own 2008 Welsh Pony geldings, Schermeer’s HOF Figaro (Heitrak’s Marvin x Schermeer’s HOF Feline) and Middendorp’s Stitch (Heitrak’s Marvin and Ammikalge’s Sungmi), and her 2002 German Riding Pony gelding Bax 3 (Brilliant x Alina). While Wright and her ponies are all veteran competitors in the sport, the partnership she has with her two main ponies is brand new.

Photo – Boots Wright with HOF Figaro and Middendorp’s Stitch. (©Leslie Potter/US Equestrian)

“Stitch and Figaro have been in this country two months,” said Wright. “They came from Hungary, and they are Austrian Welsh Ponies. They’re both 15 years old, and they’re half-brothers. I have a very good friend who lives in the Netherlands, Boyd Exell, and I’ve trained with him for years. He knew that I was looking for ponies and through the network somehow or other these ponies appeared. He went and drove them, and he liked them and said that they would do very well, and they have so far.”

With solid dressage and marathon phases and a double-clear cones phase, Wright and her team are off to a remarkable start together.

“They know their job. They’re old campaigners,” she said. “Now it’s about figuring out how to get the best out of them, because they had some baggage. They’ve been doing this for years, and people do stuff different ways.

“I used my spare pony for the dressage. He also is an old campaigner. He’s 22 and he only does dressage. And so, figuring out how to get the warmup right and what to do has been a learning experience. The dressage was very good. The marathon was excellent. I made a bit of a mistake in one of the obstacles, I had to correct the course which cost me 20 points which made me very cross. But again, these weekends are about how to prepare the ponies correctly because they have their own way of doing things and we have to come to some kind of an agreement.”

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