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AMATEUR PLEASURE DRIVING TROPHY NO. 2 FOR HOT ONES ONLY. BY CHRISTINE HAMILTON, JOURNAL EDITOR Coming into the evening finals on November 9, Sharnai Thompson, 22, had a lot to organize. She was riding in no less than four finals classes: the amateur pleasure driving on her stallion, Hot Ones Only, and in the amateur western pleasure, amateur western riding and horsemanship on her mare, Sleepin In The Rain. That’s a lot of outfit and tack changes. She had high hopes for her talented young stallion, “Bruno.” The two captured the amateur hunter under saddle world championship on November 8. “He has always been easy at (pleasure driving), and he’s one of those horses where it’s just natural for him,” she said. But she sure wasn’t certain she would drive out with another gold trophy in the cart with her, which she did. There wasn’t much time to bask in the win – she had to get ready for the pleasure. Q. Did you expect Bruno to do so well? SHARNAI: No! Not at all. He’s only 3 and I, it was a little scary, all those horses feel a lot more broke than mine and I have a stallion, so I was a little scared going in. But he could not have been any better. He was perfect. Q: How did you get him ready between the All American Quarter Horse Congress and now? SHARNAI: We have not driven him since the Congress. We drove him in practice quite a bit at the Congress, because he had not done it a lot before. But he was really good at the Congress, and I drove him in the prelims yesterday and he, once again, could not have been any better. So we really didn’t practice a whole lot. We just went in there and went with what we had. Q: Does Bruno have anything else this week? SHARNAI: He has the junior hunter under saddle and the junior driving. And that’s next week. So he gets a few days off, a deserved few days off. Q: How did you prepare for this string of finals? SHARNAI: I slept for about 12 hours last night. I knew it was going to be a long stretch. I had all my outfit changes laid out. I just tried to prepare for it as much as I could because I knew it was going to be hard. I had some really good people helping me. It went really smooth, actually. No really big glitches or wardrobe malfunctions or anything like that. Fun Fact: Sharnai had a big afternoon. Read more about it in the amateur western pleasure winning run interview. WINNER STATS Horse name: Hot Ones Only Total class entries: 20
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