Promi­nent young rid­ers, Hadley Ra­hael and Am­ber Thomp­son claimed the two avail­able na­tion­al team places dur­ing tri­als held at Sad­dle Val­ley Sta­bles, San­ta Cruz, just over a week ago, to chal­lenge the Bar­ba­dos and Cay­man Is­land legs of the CEA (Caribbean Eques­tri­an As­so­ci­a­tion) Ju­nior Jump­ing com­pe­ti­tion.

The tri­als were host­ed by the T&T Eques­tri­an As­so­ci­a­tion (TTEA) with the two rid­ers, Ra­hael, in the 14-years-and-un­der di­vi­sion, and Thomp­son in the 16-years-and-un­der cat­e­go­ry, once again ex­celling in their re­spec­tive di­vi­sions.

Ra­hael rid­ing, bor­rowed horse, Mi­ramis, won her seg­ment, demon­strat­ing once again her dom­i­na­tion in the di­vi­sion lo­cal­ly. She moved two clear rounds, with no faults. The 13-year-old rid­er shows gen­uine promise in step­ping up to the chal­lenge in fu­ture com­pe­ti­tions.

In the Un­der-16 cat­e­go­ry, the chal­leng­ing mounts Au­dac­i­ty to Hope and Mr Wings were rid­den by Thomp­son and Adelle Stollmey­er, re­spec­tive­ly. These young rid­ers have con­sis­tent­ly chal­lenged each oth­er in of­fer­ing keen com­pe­ti­tion, and af­ter the day's com­pe­ti­tion it was Thomp­son who took the lead, end­ing with just four faults, which earned her a spot on the team yet again in the re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tion. Thomp­son and Ra­hael, to­geth­er, form a very ca­pa­ble and con­fi­dent T&T team for the re­spec­tive CEA com­pe­ti­tions to be held in Bar­ba­dos and the Cay­man Is­lands, in Feb­ru­ary and May.

Both young rid­ers formed part of the team which brought home the re­gion's 2013 Cham­pi­onship Tro­phy, the Bernard Payen Memo­r­i­al Shield, af­ter a joint first placed fin­ish at the CEA Jump­ing Chal­lenge com­pe­ti­tion, to­geth­er with the Cay­man Is­lands.

The team will be ac­com­pa­nied to Bar­ba­dos and Cay­man Is­lands by na­tion­al coach Patrice Stollmey­er.

Thomp­son is coached by Stollmey­er at Sad­dle Val­ley Sta­bles, while Ra­hael is coached by Mar­garet Auer­bach and Sara Mc­Cart­ney at Good­win Heights Sta­bles.

The TTEA's next lo­cal com­pe­ti­tion, the FEI World Dres­sage Show, will take place on Feb­ru­ary 22, at the Sad­dle Val­ley Sta­bles.

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