Junior Trail

First to ride again, Monica Baker and Sensational Luxury capture another world title.

Working first in World Show classes must be lucky for Monica Baker and Sensational Luxury. On November 9, they were first to ride in the Junior Western Riding and captured “Hilda’s” first world championship. On November 10, in Junior Trail, the duo was again selected first in the random draw order. They must have made an impression on the judges once again, as Monica and Hilda captured their second world champion title.

PHJ: Congratulations on your second win with Hilda. Once again, you were first in the pen.

Monica: We were first to go again! I don’t know how that happened.

PHJ: Well, obviously going first is working for you.

Monica: Yeah. It’s good luck. Sometimes I think it’s best to get in there and get it over with so you don’t have time to analyze it too much.

PHJ: Walk me through the course.

Monica: She went to the first pole and was a little apprehensive on the walk-overs at first. I kind of had to shoo her forward a little bit. There was a lot of raised stuff, so I was trying to get her to stay back off of it and pick up her feet. The rest of the pattern was really good; she just flowed through it. The pattern flowed really well. We had a [flying] lead change too, so we could kind of keep our momentum going through that. She was really good.

PHJ: You mentioned that the pattern was tough—what made it difficult?

Monica: A lot of it  is because in between the fast stuff, there was no stopping. There was a lot of trot–lope–trot–lope. In a lot of horses, that kind of gets them fired up. She stays pretty mellow during that stuff. There was also a lot of steering because that pattern was set pretty tight. It was kind of hard for Junior horses.

PHJ: What was your favorite element?

Monica: I would say the lope wheels. She’s really good at those—she takes her time and her striding. That was probably our best part of it.

PHJ: How was she warming up?

Monica: She was really good. I had three horses going in the trail today, so I longed them all this morning. I only rode her for probably 10 minutes before the class and then showed her. She was really good. We just worked on some raised poles and went out there and showed.

PHJ: What were your expectations going into the trail with her?

Monica: She warmed up pretty good last night. Some of the trot-overs, the raised ones, she was hitting last night. We really worked on that before we went in, and then she’s usually pretty good on them. I thought it would be a good pattern for her because it was hard.

PHJ: You mentioned yesterday that her owner isn’t here at the show. Was she watching online?

Monica: I’m sure she was probably watching again. It’s two hours earlier for us in Washington. Yesterday was pretty early in the morning, but I’m sure she was watching it and smiling.