Earth To Wanda and Ellen Williams claimed their second world championship trophy in jumping Sunday night. It was a return to the top after winning the world in 2004, then taking reserve for the past two years.
Ellen said she loved the course.
“I like starting over a big spread fence,” she said. “It’s just something that gets you going.”
The Bon Aqua, Tennessee, exhibitor enjoyed the twists and turns throughout the Mike Christian designed course, and got a kick out of the last fence, another oxer.
“That was really my kind of treat, just go for it, go for the big one,” she said. “That’s more what I used to do, instead of nice and slow and easy.”
Ellen and her family are avid fox hunters and have also done their share of steeple chasing and flat racing.
Ellen bought “Wanda” as a 5-year-old off the racetrack in Florida. The bay mare was supposed to become her quiet hunter.
“She did fine over trot poles and was coming along really well and we started doing low level events,” Ellen said of Wanda’s early training. “She showed a lot of heart, but we soon learned that she really went a little too fast to be a hunter.”
Wanda got her first point in jumping six years ago at a show in Kentucky. They qualified for the amateur jumping at the 2001 AQHA World Championship Show.
“That was our first real experience with the world show and it was awesome, and I am now addicted and have been for about six years,” Ellen said.
When not in the show ring, Ellen takes Wanda out fox hunting and trail riding.
“She’s a horse you can do just about anything with,” she said. “She’s a very laid back horse at home but when she sees that course she comes alive. That’s what she likes, other than her food and hay.”
Ellen hopes to head to Oklahoma City in November for the open jumping at the AQHA World Show. They were reserve champions in the class in 2004.
“Wanda’s really just been my good friend all these years, ever since she was 5. She’s taught me about the Quarter Horse industry, which I knew nothing about. But I have to give a lot of credit to friends of mine who kept saying ‘Why don’t you come to the shows with us.’ But I didn’t have a Quarter Horse until I had Wanda. She really brought me here.”
