Ashley Ann Aikman had to wait. And wait.
The 17-year-old from Mission, Texas, rode second in the trail finals August 9 at the Ford AQHYA World Championship Show, but her score was under judges’ review, and she didn’t hear it until after the halfway mark and a rake break.
“I was really nervous,” Ashley said. “Nobody had any idea what they could have been reviewing. When the announcer came on, he said it really slowly, and I was hoping (the second number) wasn’t a zero. When I heard that 236, I knew that if anybody got a better score than that, then they sure deserved it.”
With that 236 as the high mark, competitor after competitor rode, attempting a Tim Kimura pattern that the designer thought was difficult.
“It was hard,” Tim said after the class was over. “It was involved tonight. All the pieces kind of worked out good. I kind of liked it. It took a combination of a lot of different skills and she knocked it out. She beat me. Ashley wins tonight.”
Tim might have thought the pattern complex, but Ashley said it rode smoothly.
“It was a fun pattern, actually,” Ashley said. “You’re always going to be a little bit nervous, but once you get to that last lope and the (extension of the lope around a half-circle), you’re like, OK, I’m almost done here. This is going good.”
The coming freshman at Texas Christian University said the most difficult part of the pattern was a double gate that required horses to back in and step up and over out of a chute.
The win makes Ashley a world champion for the first time, though her horse, Zips Hidden Resource, is no stranger to the victory lap. Teresa Fletcher rode “Harley” to three all-around championships at the Bayer Select World Championship Show.
“I’ve had Harley for about three years now, but this is my sixth year in a row in the finals in the trail, so I was really waiting for this one,” Ashley said. “We’ve been really good together. We probably started really clicking about a year or two ago, and I wouldn’t have any other horse right now. I’m really hoping so. I have to go to college, and that comes first, but I’m planning on coming back for my last year and giving it my all again.”
