United States Eventing Association

Hello all, I am proud to say that at the age of 15 I am competing on the Area V CCI* team at NAJYRC. My name is Alexa Ehlers, and I have been dreaming about competing in this event my entire life! I found my partner, Crystal Clear, four years ago on the Louisiana Downs race track and brought her home to Texas. Crystal is small, but bold, and is not like a mare at all. Even though Crystal is only 15.2 hands, I’ve never felt like there was anything she couldn’t do. She just keeps proving to us that she can conquer anything we ask of her. Throughout the years I have found that we have very similar personalities. We both have that stubborn characteristic, which has proven to be both beneficial and sometimes a little difficult to deal with. I feel like we are siblings!

My road to Young Riders hasn’t been the easiest path! We have always had our horses at home, and I started riding before I can even remember. I used to watch my older sister, Kelsey, take lessons and event and honestly I was dying to be just like her. After Kelsey’s approval, we bought Crystal and she came along quickly, thanks to my trainer at the time, Lynne Partridge. Since Crystal had never evented and I had only done Beginner Novice on my BLM mustang, we both moved through the levels, learning together. In 2008, two weeks after winning the Jr. Training Division at Greenwood farm, Crystal seemed off. We took a trip to the vet and learned that she had mildly pulled her suspensory and we decided to give her 6 months off. Our plans of moving up to Prelim were postponed. It was hard to think that I was so close to moving up, but I learned that injuries are a part of having horses, and that the path isn’t always a straight one.

We finally started Crystal back in the spring of 2009. We competed at Training in Florida for 3 weeks and moved up to Prelim when we got home. We finished 4^th out of 20 in the Open Prelim Division at Greenwood Farm. As we looked into getting qualified for NAJYRC we knew that traveling out of area was a must to fit in the Prelims I needed. We went to Colorado and Arizona during the summer (15 and 17 hour drives), and competed in our first CIC* at Poplar in September finishing 4^th. We needed another CIC* so we spent a month in February at Rocking Horse Stable in Florida where we met up with my trainer, Mike Huber. My high school let me do my schoolwork while I was away and email it back to my teachers so I could keep up with everything.

We went to the Greenwood farm CIC* in May where we had our best test yet, a 51.8, putting us in 3^rd. We ran a great cross country. I was very pleased with our Show jumping, and we finished with a qualifying score, a 6^th place, and the excitement of knowing that Area V was going to have a CCI* team for NAYJRC. I am delighted to say that my great friends Rowdie Adams aboard No Money Down, and Tripp Edwards aboard Clifton Inspiration will be joining me on the team!

It hasn’t really kicked in that I am about to go and compete at NAJYRC yet, and I’m kind of glad that it hasn’t! I’ve had some fantastic training by Mike Huber, Mary D’Arcy and Heather Morris, so I feel like I am really prepared for Young Riders. Mike emailed the teams our training schedules for June and July and our Young Rider training camp starts this week where the team will be meeting at Gold Chip Stables just 5 miles from my house. I can’t wait to keep you up to date on our journey through Young Riders!

-Alexa & Crystal