United States Dressage Federation Annual Awards Banquets - All Breeds Grand Champion

This past weekend I attended the United States Dressage Federation's Annual Awards Banquet.  This year it was held in Salt Lake City, Utah.  I went because Klein ended up with Grand Champion in three different categories for the All Breeds Awards for the Percheron Horse Association of America.  This was our goal this year, to go for at least one All Breeds Award and we got three.

The Awards Banquet was nicely done and the part I honestly enjoyed the most, besides the fact that my mom went with me, and that I was there because I won awards, was hearing Kate Shoemaker speak.  If you are not familiar with her, she is a member of the United States Para-Dressage team.  She has a condition called "Periventricular Ischemia" which causes interruption in motor control in the right side of her body, due to the softening of white matter in her brain.  It causes her to have to walk with a brace as well.  She spoke about setting goals and at the end pulled her gold medal out of her collar to show us that anything is possible if you commit and don't look at obstacles as complete roadblocks.

Kate Shoemaker speaking.

The entire WEG team was there, except for Laura Graves.  There was a slide show/video presentation for Diddy since he was again named Adequan/USDF Grand Prix Horse of the Year, then Laura and Diddy joined us via live video feed.  She gave a great, lighthearted talk about winning the award and those that helped them get to where they are.  She said that Diddy is showing absolutely no signs of slowing down and even tried to buck her off twice last week. 

Laura and Diddy on the live feed.

As soon as we got there we ran into a very nice family that we always see at shows.  I was happy to see them because they are such nice people and they have some drop dead gorgeous Oldenburgs.  They were there because a couple of their young Oldenburgs had also won some All Breeds Championships.  Very well deserved!  They are a group I will be sad not to see regularly anymore after we leave here.  But, we made a deal that we will see each other at next year's awards banquet because we are planning to win some more this year.  I also made a couple new friends that are familiar with the military and look forward to seeing them this show season. 

So glad my mom was able to go with me because after all, these awards ARE for one of her beloved Grand Horses!

Overall, I was so proud to be there as a representative for the Percheron Horse Association of America.  Of course all of it is thanks to Klein.  She has taken me so many places I would have never imagined I would go.  I will forever be grateful to her for everything she has given me and taught me.  The only place to go from here is up and I am very much looking forward to achieving more of our goals that I have set for us this coming year.

Heart Horse aka Horse of a Lifetime aka Once in a Lifetime Horse, aka BAMF.