What this Chesapeake horseman can teach you - Virginia Horse ...

AT THE FAIR 8 Fall 2009
danceS with horSeS
Accomack County 4-H drill team to try to score another win
By Carlos Santos
One thing Stephanie Fox knows how to do is dance with
horses.
Fox, 18, was on the six-person Hoof Beats by the Beach
4-H drill team from Accomack County that won the state
championship last year at the Virginia State 4-H Championship
Horse and Pony Show.
It was a big win, garnering praise even from the Virginia
General Assembly which passed a resolution noting
“the Hoof Beats members and their horses impressed the
judges and an enthusiastic crowd of supporters with a brilliant
performance.”
Unsure what a drill team of horses actually does? Fox
said it isn’t easy to describe. “It’s when you get a bunch of
horseback riders riding in the same movement to the same
music with lyrics or without lyrics.
“It’s a dance of horse riders and horses,’’ she said. “It’s a
whole bunch of horses doing the same thing to music. It’s
really fun to watch.”
Last year, 18 teams competed for the championship.
Fox said lots of practice and the right choreography helped
the Hoof Beats win.
The music certainly was lively enough. The Hoof Beats
entered the ring to the sound of the Beach Boys’ song
“Wipe Out.”
“We had a beach theme — a surfer theme,” Fox said.
“That was our opening song.”
www.horsenation.us
2009 Drill Team Competition
When: Sept. 27.
Where: the Virginia 4-h State Fair horse Show at the
Meadow event park in doswell.
Details: State Fair 4-h horse Show Manager eleszabeth
Mcneel at e7aquila@aol.com.
The team, riding English, walked and trotted in sync to a
routine choreographed by Kendy Allen, who also coached
the team. Members of the winning drill team besides Fox,
were Kenneth Allen, Sara Miles, Brittany Kemp, Chris
Reeder and Elizabeth Snyder.
Kenneth Allen, now 20, was club president last year.
“The closer the competition got, the more we crammed
in the practice,” he said. The team practiced at the nearby
Pony Pines Farm and worked together almost flawlessly.
“This is a small 4-H club,” said Allen, now a National
Guardsman. “We’re all close anyway.”
The team had six to eight minutes to show its stuff. That
stuff — including deftly handled synchronized turns and
lines — was good enough for the state championship.
The point of the competition, however, is more than just
winning a title. “It makes you a better rider,” Fox said. “It
Photo courtesy of Kendy Allen
Hoof Beats by the Beach 4-H drill team members in the 2008 state finals were Brittany Kemp (from left), Sara Miles, Kenneth Allen, Chris Reeder,
Stephanie Fox and Elizabeth Snyder.
teaches you and your horse how you can become a team
. . . and it teaches you how to work together with other
riders.”
Fox, president of the Hoof Beats club this year, just
graduated from Holly Grove Christian School in Westover,
Md., and is set to attend Eastern Shore Community College
for two years before moving on to a four-year college.
“I plan to keep riding and I plan to go to the state show
this year and next year,” she said.
▪The Post welcomes feedback and story ideas. To contact us, e-mail Joan Hughes
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kendy allen’s account of the 2008 finals
I don’t know how much of that drill team story you
were told, but the whole thing could be made into a
Disney movie. It was that incredible.
The club that it originated from is a young club,
with only its second drill team ever entered in
competition. We started with 10 members at the
beginning of the summer, and it dwindled down to
seven throughout the summer. The seventh one quit
due to stress in her personal life the night before we
left for states [The Virginia State 4-H Championship
Horse and Pony Show].
The next day at states we were allowed one
practice — and because everyone had a new position
due to now only having six riders, the entire drill
crashed and fell apart in the big arena with all the
other teams watching. You could just see the other
teams cross Hoofbeats by the Beach off their list to
worry about.
But that incredible team of six riders, the youngest
(Lizzie) being 10 years old, and on the waiting list
to even go to states for the longest time, Kenneth
being in basic Army training all summer in Missouri
and only getting home three weeks before states and
learning the drill then, to Sara who was a natural
leader and kept them moving no matter what, to
Stephanie who overcame a tremendous attack of
nerves, to Chris who couldn’t tell his left from his
right, to Brittany who was in her first year of 4-H at
18 and really worked hard to learn to ride.
It was an incredible joy to coach them and teach
them drills through all the frustrations. Their story
really is huge at what they overcame and learned and
how that hard work paid off.