by Pam Kragen

There’s an old saying that the best thing to do if you fall off a horse is to get back on again. Twelve-year-old Escondido equestrian Lindsay Heliker took that advice and rode it all the way to a world championship this fall.

Last year, Lindsay was bucked off of her high-spirited Morgan horse, Odyssey, during a competition and disqualified from moving forward. Nervous but undaunted, Lindsay did get back on Odyssey that very same weekend and over the next several months they forged a tight and trusting bond.

This year, the Rincon Middle School seventh-grader has ridden Odyssey to multiple first-place wins for her age group at horse shows throughout the Southwest. And in October, they cinched a unanimous world championship in classic equitation at the Grand National & World Championship Morgan Horse Show in Oklahoma City, Okla.

Lindsay said she loves riding and competing and she especially loves her horse, a 13-year-old gelding who her parents, Rachael and Arick Heliker, purchased for her last year.

“We connect a lot better now,” Lindsay said, during an early morning visit to Odyssey’s barn earlier this month. “I love it when he and I communicate. I can tell he loves me because he likes to do special things for me.”

Read more: Escondido Girl, 12, a World Champion Equestrian

by Guy Chapman

At first glance, 11-year-old Aden Bernhagen seems like a regular kid. However, as of Dec. 5, he's also become the world title holder of the National Cutting Horse Association World Finals.

The NCHA World Finals Awards, which took place in Fort Worth's Watt Arena, honored winners during three ceremonies over the weekend. Contestants hailed from the United States and Canada, going up against the top 15 other competitors in each class.

For December's world finals, there were three checks to be had, including two goes and an average check. Bernhagen placed fifth place the first go, and second place the second go, and won the average putting him enough ahead to become the the World Finals Champion, and becoming the youngest winner in the world, outside of the Youth class. The World Champion of a NCHA class is determined by the most money won at the end of the year.

Bernhagen has only been horse cutting for a little over a year.

Read more: "You just keep going" 11-Year-Old Becomes Cutting Horse World Title Holder

An Excerpt from Riding for the Team from the USET, Edited by Nancy Jaffer

Roxie Trunnell was a competitor in able-bodied dressage who aspired to be an Olympian. When she was a teenager, she created her own business to help purchase her first dressage horse, Nice Touch, known as Touché. She earned a U.S. Dressage Federation Bronze Medal and was close to obtaining her Silver Medal until contracting a virus in 2009 that caused swelling in her brain. She lapsed into a coma and suffered a stroke after a blood clot went to her brain. She now requires a wheelchair to get around for the most part.

Determined to ride Touché again, Roxie had the help of her family and friends to get her back in the saddle. After a long recovery, the native of Washington State slowly began to ride once more and completed her master’s degree in psychology with a focus on equine-assisted psychotherapy.

Roxie is a veteran of the 2014 World Equestrian Games and was tenth individually at the 2016 Paralympics. Her bronze medal at WEG in Tryon, North Carolina, in 2018 was her first medal in a global championship.

Riding has mostly helped me mentally. Prior to becoming a para-equestrian, I would go to school or work and then go ride. This had been the norm for a good chunk of my life. When my friends would go to parties on weekends I would be going to horse shows. After I woke up from the coma, it was very important for me to go out to the barn as much as possible, even if I couldn’t ride, just to feed carrots and cookies to the horses because that felt “normal” to me.

Read more: My Horse Accepts Me, So the Rest of the World Can, Too

Pieres and polo ponies go together like bread and butter. Since the legendary Gonzalo Pieres founded Ellerstina with the inimitable Kerry Packer, the Pieres’ have not stopped breeding horses. The quality of the horses has improved every year, and today, the Pieres’ own some of the best polo ponies in the world. Their horses are fast and nimble, and they have been prized by associations around the world, staring with the fabulous Luna that Gonzalo played in the glory days of Ellerston and La Espadaña. Today, the mare holds a place in the Argentine Association of Polo Breeders’ Hall of Fame.

Gonzalo’s sons, current members of Ellerstina, continue the family legacy, playing horses from the Pieres family breeding program in both Argentina and abroad. Gonzalito Pieres, recent finalist of the San Jorge Open and winner of the Jockey Club Open, spoke to PoloLine about horses, a passion which has tied the family for over three decades.

Can you describe your perfect polo pony?

The perfect horse has to be easy to ride, have a soft mouth, be fast to turn, and be able to accelerate quickly over a short distance.

What is the most important characteristic of a good polo horse?

A good head, those horses that are quick learners, and good height. In my case, the horse must be medium sized, not too big. And overall, the horse must be docile.

Read more: Gonza Pieres talks horses: “I am intrigued by each player’s best horses”