JUNIOR TRAIL

FIRST TIME MIRACLE.

BY CHRISTINE HAMILTON, FIELD EDITOR 

Daniel Carlson of Sheffield, Massa- chusetts and Are You Charlie, aka "Emily," win the junior trail for their first world championship. Emily came back to competition from neck surger after the 2004 World Show.

Against a tough field of professional trainers with several trail world championships to their credit, 23-year-old Daniel Carlson of Sheffield, Massachusetts, won the junior trail for his first AQHA world championship.

Daniel and his 2001 mare Are You Charlie, aka “Emily,” were the first to tackle the Tim Kimura pattern.

“I was a little scared at first, but once I got out there and started to realize I was doing really well, I had fun at it,” Daniel said after the win. “I’m kind of glad I did (have to go first). It kept the nerves down; I didn’t have much time to think about it.”

The pattern included a series of winding lopeovers, a tricky back around a cone and a quick lead change down a chute.

“(The toughest part about it was) staying on pattern,” Daniel said. “It was really well laid out; it was easy to go off if you looked down for a few seconds.

“I was able to do the flying lead change; my horse is good at lead changes,” he added. “It kind of paid off, I think.”

Daniel and Emily are also successful western riding competitors. They finished fourth in junior western riding at the 2005 AQHA World Championship Show.

But it’s nothing short of a medical miracle that they made it back here to compete.

“Two years ago, right after I showed here, we started to notice that she was a little neurologic,” Daniel explained. “Her neck showed signs of arthritis in vertebrae C6 and C7 in her neck. We went to see some specialists at Cornell University, and they were able to fuse her neck together with the Seattle Slew titanium screw so it wouldn’t press on her spinal cord anymore.

“It really paid off,” he continued. “We had to give her 6 months of stall rest after the surgery. She was excellent through the surgery and everything went right. She came back with a full recovery, which is very rare with that kind of surgery.”

Daniel keeps Emily at home and works with AQHA Pro Horsemen Jimmy and Lisa Farrell of Durham, Connecticut. His mother, Patricia, owns Emily; Daniel picked her out as a yearling at the All American Quarter Horse Congress Sale.

Daniel came to the World Show this year aiming for the open classes.

“Junior trail and junior western riding have been remarkable classes for us this year,” he said. “The competitors were awesome. There were a couple of us going neck-and-neck all summer long.”

Daniel and Emily finished eighth in amateur western riding, but they didn’t make the amateur trail finals.

“We came in from Massachusetts, and it was such a long drive we only had two days rest and had to do trail warm up and show,” he said. “It was just a little hard on her getting in there. We hit a couple of poles.”

He and Emily will be back for the junior western riding finals tonight.

“She’s been a remarkable horse, and hopefully we have many more years of showing ahead of us,” Daniel said.

“There were a lot of good horses (in the junior trail),” he added. “I wish they could have given out a whole bunch of first prizes because there were a whole lot of horses that deserved it.”