Morgan Hill – After missing a chance to compete last year when her horse was injured, Morgan Hill’s Alexandra Garr-Schultz is set to compete in the North American Young Riders Eventing Championships at the Junior Olympics in Virginia this week.
The 18-year-old and her horse Tom Henry will compete in the “horse triathlon” on three of the five competition days in Lexington, Va.
The competition begins Tuesday and continues through Sunday. Events include English dressage, cross country jumping and stadium jumping.
Garr-Schultz was chosen to join a four-member intermediate level team from California for the prestigious competition. To be considered for the team, Garr-Schultz had to a young rider with good standing – meaning she never caused problems when competing. She also had to do community service through fundraising and helping at clinics for beginning, young riders.
“I’m really excited, I’ve been working toward this for I don’t know how many years,” Garr-Schultz said. “It was a disappointment (not to go last year). I will definitely put the horse before myself. It’s not worth hurting him.”
Garr-Schultz has been riding for about 10 years and has ribboned in all the events in which she has competed. But she has never won first place.
“I’ve always ribboned at the intermediate level, but I’ve never won,” Garr-Schultz said. “Still, I’m working on that one. Someday it will happen.”
Dixie Garr, Garr-Schultz’s mother, said her daughter has worked real hard to make it to the national event, missing several days of school each month to compete.
Despite missing so much school, Garr-Schultz graduated at the top of her class from Harker School earlier this year. She will attend Yale in the fall where she plans to double major in computer science and psychology.
“She is the kind of kid who would do it,” Garr said.
“Tenacious is the word that comes to mind when I think of her.”
Garr-Schultz missed so much school, she had to petition to get her credits back. She said her teachers stood up for her and she graduated on time.
Garr said her daughter always managed to get her work done either before she left for a competition or when she returned.
Garr-Schultz said while it was difficult to balance school, the competitions and extracurricular activities, squeezing in a social life was the hardest thing to do.
“It was harder balance a normal high school social life and the sport,” Garr-Schultz said. “Shows were on the weekends, but so were the dances and activities like that.”
Garr-Schultz said she will continue to ride through college, though she will have to sell her horse before she goes.
“I do want to continue,” Garr-Schultz said. “I will sell my horse but I will get another one. This is my passion; I’ll be around for awhile.”
Dressage was originally created for cavalry units to do maneuvers silently. It has evolved into a competition where the rider must take the horse through a course and not allow the commands to be seen. Garr-Schultz described dressage as a ballet of sorts where the horse eloquently travels through the course.
The cross country event is an endurance race through an open field course while jumping over obstacles including tables, water and ditches. The horse has between eight and nine minutes to complete the course.
For the final event, the horse must be examined by a vet and officials before continuing on to stadium jumping. The horse and rider must jump different obstacles in eight minutes or less. Points are deducted for failure to complete a jump or taking too long.
