SPECIAL NOTE:
2008 AQHA WORLD SHOW TENTATIVE DATES!
NOVEMBER 7-22, 2008 (dates tentative)

Read below for a special recap of this past year's world show.

JUNIOR AND SENIOR TRAIL

LIGHTNING CAN STRIKE TWICE.

BY CHRISTINE HAMILTON, FIELD EDITOR, AND  MEGAN BROWNELL, JOURNAL INTERN 

Ashley Dunbar of Simi Valley, California, won the junior trail with Smokin Sensational (above) and the senior trail with RL Tune Up (below).

Nineteen-year-old Ashley Dunbar of Simi Valley, California, had no idea her first AQHA World Championship Show experience would be this good. But 2007 turned into a banner year for her.

“You know, I never thought I’d make it back to the finals my first year,” she said. “You have to ‘walk the chain’ as they say.

“(With it being) my last year as a youth and still being young competing with all these great trainers, I was just ecstatic to make it back to the finals on one horse, let alone on two.”

Ashley qualified the mare, Smokin Sensational, to the junior trail finals and the gelding, RL Tune Up, to the senior trail finals. Both horses are owned by Rancho Brillando Inc., of Moorpark, California, and they are trained by Ashley’s mother, Brenda Dunbar.

“And then in the finals, I just said, ‘I’m just going to go in and show my horse,’ ” Ashley said.

Both patterns called for an extended lope with downward transitions – down to a jog over poles in the junior, and down to a stop or break to a walk in the senior.

“In the extended part, I said, ‘I’m just going to push it and push my extension’ just to show (the judges) they can make it through the course with a pushed extension,” she continued.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams I would win two world championships back-to-back.”

But that’s exactly what she did.

Ashley and Smokin Sensational scored a 224.5 in the junior.

“We’ve had her for two years now,” Ashley said of the mare. “She was just a pasture pony; she came straight out of a pasture to us. In a million years, I never would have thought that she would pull out for me as she has tonight.

“She’s a great little horse, and we always give her a hard time because she’s so little. But she held her own. She showed that she can hold her own with all the (big) horses.”

The biggest challenge Ashley had with the mare was that she tends to wake up a little in the pen.

“Her big thing and my big thing together was, on all the trot stuff, don’t push too hard and don’t lope off. But she held her own. She’s a great mare, and I love riding her.”

But Ashley wasn’t too worried about RL Tune Up in the senior. The two scored an impressive 238.5.

“He has been down the road and around the block,” Ashley said of the gelding. “He doesn’t have any challenges but picking his feet up. I just told him before we went in, I said, ‘Ralph,’ you pick your feet up for me, and you’ll live on grass and alfalfa and cookies and mints for the rest of the winter.”

Up in the stands, no one was more pleased than Lisa Sheppard, one of the owners behind Rancho Brillando Inc. Rancho Brillando Inc. includes Lisa, her husband, Ron Levy, daughter, Lauren, and son, Chris.

“This all started because my children rode horses,” Lisa said. Chris used to show youth, and Lauren still does.

“Sort of like a snowball, it developed over the years,” she continued. “We created a corporation and built a ranch five years ago. We were lucky to get RL Tune Up, and he kind of set the bar. We own a couple of other really nice horses, Sega Luck is going in the (junior pleasure driving finals), and Absolute Doll is a great western rider.

“It was incredible to me that they could (both) make the finals,” Lisa said of her world champion trail horses. “And it didn’t seem to me that lightning could strike twice, even though I knew they were both really great horses. That’s asking a lot to have two winners. I was just crossing my fingers. I knew they had the capability of doing it. We’re so happy and lucky.

“Ashley did such an incredible job,” she added. “I’ll always remember this ride. I am just thrilled to be here to see it.”