Team #113 - The FIRST Western Dressage Century Club Team!
Cayce is a very active, adventurous woman, and at 86, she still is. She taught physical education for 33 years and with her first husband ran a sailing and scuba diving venture. Oh, and she likes to fly airplanes. Horses were one of Cayce's first loves, after her very first pony ride when she was 5 years old, a ride she never wanted to end. However, it was 55 years later and upon her retirement that she set out to buy her first horse. A friend told her about a 2-year-old Paint named Impressive Moon, a.k.a. "Flame." When Cayce saw him, she instantly fell in love. Even though his owners were asking twice the amount of money that she wanted to spend, he was so gorgeous that Cayce bought him anyway.
Flame was a total package; he and Cayce did it all. They rode and showed in Western, English, halter, showmanship, jumping, and driving. Although dressage wasn't well known in her area of Florida back in the 1980s, Cayce and Flame did participate in dressage suitability classes that were judged on the flat with scores based on the team’s potential for dressage.
In 2004, Hurricanes Jeanne and Frances came back-to-back. As Cayce was packing up to get out of the area, she, thinking Flame would be safer to be free in an open pasture, took him to her daughter’s large place. But sometime during the storm, Flame stepped in a hole and pulled a tendon that never healed. Although Cayce was never able to ride him again, Flame spent the rest of his life, until he was 34, with his best horse friend, Cayce’s Mini named Flash.
Being unable to ride Flame (or Flash), Cayce set out to get another horse and found a wonderful 6-year old Paint, Liquid Asset (Eli), who quickly filled the role as another all-around partner for Cayce. As a member of Jupiter Horsemen's Association and Twin Rivers Saddle Club, Cayce showed Eli in Western and English classes, and had recently started Western dressage with him. In Western Dressage, the same tests are ridden, but the horse walks, jogs, and lopes with the instructions, and, of course, the attire is very different. But that does not mean that Cayce tips her cowboy hat and says “howdy” to the judge at X.
Cayce and Eli made history for The Dressage Foundation's Century Club, as the first Western dressage team to join the club. Their ride was on July 14th at the Jupiter Horsemen's Association arena in Jupiter, Florida. Judge Libby Anderson gave the team a score of 79.52% and said they were a beautifully presented pair! Cayce said, "We rode our Century Club test in memory of Flame, and it was a wonderful moment in my life."
