Tall in the saddle Greene County high school freshman a top-notch rider
Sausha Saunders of Clarksville, riding her saddlebred horse Maddie, won the Pink Ribbon Classic at a horse show in Lexington, Ky. Saunders went on to compete in the World’s Championship Horse Show in 2012, holding on to her expectations that someday she will become an Olympic equestrian.
Sausha Saunders, a third-place finisher in her class at the World’s Championship Horse Show last month during the Kentucky State Fair in Louisville, leads her horse, Stonehenge, around the show ring, demonstrating one of the three required disciplines, trotting.
Sausha Saunders sits atop her horse, Stonehenge, after capturing third place at the World’s Championship Horse Show in August in Louisville, Ky. With her at the event were her father, John D. Saunders, her mother, Shelley Saunders, and her brother Payne, holding her third-place ribbon.
Flags in the background make it clear that the World’s Championship Horse Show brings in riders from all over the world. Sausha Saunders of Clarksville completes one of three disciplines in the show ring, eventually winning third place in her class while competing against riders from South Africa and Canada.
The ringmaster at the World’s Championship Horse Show presents 14-year-old Sausha Saunders of Clarksville with her third-place ribbon.
This is the arena where 14-year-old Sausha Saunders of Clarksville won her third-place ribbon in her class. The freshman at Jefferson-Morgan High School said more than 3,000 horses were ridden during the weeklong event in Louisville, Ky.
CLARKSVILLE – For the last 10 years, riding horses at a competitive championship level has been a huge part of Sausha Saunders’ young life.
And, undoubtedly the highlight for the 14-year-old Jefferson-Morgan High School freshman came in August when she and her American saddlebred gelding, Stonehenge, came away from the World’s Championship Horse Show in Louisville, Ky., with a third-place ribbon in her class.
There were 35 riders in her junior exhibitor class and it was split into two groups consisting of the top eight riders in each group following a preliminary competition.
Now, it was time for the final in her class and when the 16 riders were finished, the ringmaster called out her name as the third-place finisher.
“I was so excited. I had no clue this was going to happen,” she said.
Frankly, her “win” was no fluke, considering the amount of work she has put in since taking up riding when she was just 4 years old.
One doesn’t just show up for the World’s Championship Horse Show, which Saunders referred to as the Super Bowl of horse shows. To qualify for the worlds, a rider has to win three shows and meet certain qualifications. Saunders did that this year and also two years ago, when she competed for the first time in the world championship.
The then-12-year-old was riding her mare, Maddie, and although she made the cut to the final 16, she did not place. And tragically, just before the World’s Championship last year, Maddie died at 7 years old.
But Saunders and her parents, John and Shelley of Clarksville, found another saddlebred, a 5-year-old named Stonehenge. “I didn’t name the horse,” Saunders said. “That was his name when we bought it, but I call him Stoney. That’s his barn name and it sounds more personal.”
She explained a saddlebred is a very high-stepping show horse, “high-headed and it loves to do a job.”
During the competition at the World’s Championship, each rider must execute three specific disciplines – walking, trotting and cantering.” All of us in the qualifying class do the same thing. An announcer will say ‘walk the horse,’ or trot or canter, and we all proceed around the ring,” she said.
“You just have to be positive because you are never sure what the judges are looking for.”
Saunders doesn’t have any well-kept secret as to why she has become such an accomplished rider at such a young age, but she did say she will talk to her horse and use the reins to get Stoney to do what she wants. “I also will use my legs. He knows what I want him to do and he usually does it very well.”
Presently, Stoney is stabled in Princeton, W.Va., at Mercer Spring Farms under the watchful eye of a trainer.
Saunders goes to West Virginia every other weekend to practice, preparing for the qualifying shows. “I spent most of my summer training and riding,” she said. And at the end of this month, she will ride in a show in Lexington, Va., hoping to qualify for the World’s Championship Horse Show in 2015.
Perhaps it is Saunders’ innocence or her sportsmanship, but she does not feel bad at all that she did not win first place. “The winning horse was a two-time world champion,” she said. “Coming in third against riders from South Africa and Canada was not a bad finish at all.”
So, what is in this youngster’s future? “To be on an Olympic equestrian team would be an awesome thing,” she said, but she also has plans to go to college and study optometry. “But I will always be doing something in the horse industry.”
Saunders is a member of the Jefferson-Morgan golf team, but that doesn’t interfere with her love of horses and competition.
“Riding is always first,” she said. “Always.”