Team #853 Willa Rose and Sabrina
Team #853: Willa Rose and Sabrina
From: Oasis, Idaho
Ages: 72 & 29
Combined Age: 101
Test: Working Equitation Introductory Test
My Grammie introduced me to my first horse at three. I chuckle because I don’t remember Trilby, but I’ve seen our pictures. My favorite shows had horses in them. As a kid, I pretended to be a cantering horse. A few times I was allowed to ride friends’ horses, but did not own one until I was 23. Since I’ve owned and ridden several dozen horses in a handful of sports.
A favorite mare is Mira Alleged, aka Sabrina. Sabrina is a dark brown Thoroughbred. She is retired now. Sabrina came to me in 2008. It took nearly a year to find her sweet spots. I could only whisper to her with light aides. She became my riding horse from a string of lesson horses in my therapeutic riding program. Sabrina is spicy. This was a perfect personality to train her for mounted military games. She loved these games, and her mareish nature was imposing on our competitors. Therefore, I named her Sabrina War Horse of the Black.
Sabrina and I successfully jumped alongside my youth jumping team. We also focused on Working Equitation (WE). In WE, the dressage phase adds to the collective score. My WE clinician encouraged me for the Century Club ride. Why not dressage? We started our WE training at Level 3 in 2022.
It was a windy day in Idaho, and I was afraid to warm up too much. We completed the ride and got cheers from our friends, who knew our story and accomplished a pretty good score for such an older, spicy girl.
