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| Angela Hartley flew half-way around the world to compete with her horse, Makenthebigleagues. |
If you ever find yourself flying across 14 times zones, Angela Hartley suggests giving yourself at least a week to readjust. She should know, because that’s how far she came to compete at the 2006 AQHA World Championship Show.
“I just stopped getting up at 3 a.m. two days ago,” she said.
Angela flew in from her home in Okinawa, Japan, on November 1 to work with her trainer, Chuck Briggs, in Azle, Texas, and prepare her 1999 gray gelding, Makenthebigleagues, for the amateur hunter hack and equitation over fences.
“The good thing is I don’t want to sleep all day. I want to get up early. If you get up at 3, you can stretch it out and make yourself stay up a little longer each night.”
The 2001 AQHYA working hunter reserve world champion moved to Okinawa last summer after graduating from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Her husband, Jeremy Parker, an U.S. Air Force jet engine mechanic, was transferred there in January.
Angela qualified “Armani” for the World Show before heading to Japan. She missed qualifying for amateur working hunter by just half a point, but was happy to qualify in the two events that she did.
“Two out of three, that’s not bad,” she said.
Angela and her husband will be based in Japan until January of 2009. But it doesn’t change her ambitions to continue to qualify for the World Show.
“I’m going to miss Florida this year, which I hate because it’s always so big in the hunters,” she said. “So I’m going to come back for Redbud and Boys Town this year, and try to hit the big shows and get the most points in the least amount of time.”
Angela said one of the hardest parts of moving from Texas to Japan is missing her horse.
“About three weeks before I came back for the World Show, I burst into tears and my husband was like, ‘What’s wrong,’ and I was like, ‘I want to give my horse carrots,’” she said.
So far, Angela hasn’t been able to ride at all while in Japan, which has presented it’s own challenges in the form of sore muscles.
“I don’t get to jump, so I don’t use those muscles,” she said. “I just now am able to walk without a limp.”
She has managed to stay busy though. Since moving to Japan, she has learned how to dive and is excited about taking up surfing. And she may have a lead on some riding opportunities.
“The day before I left, I saw a car with a bumper sticker with a horse on it that said ‘Okinawa Riding Club.’ So far, I haven’t found it, but when I get back I’m going to look into it.”
