Alysha Sauve

          I am 17 years old (coming 18) and dressage is my passion. I began riding at 10 years old when my grandparents bought me five private lessons for a Christmas gift. Ever since I have been riding and never looked back, when I was 11 became very serious and extremely dedicated to my riding. I learned how to ride all types of horses with different attitudes. After one year riding in weekly private lessons I leased a 5 year old 14.3h Arab gelding during the Christmas break of 2002 in exchange for cleaning stalls six days a week. His name was Beethoven, who despite his size had a rather large ego, bucking was his main event. We formed a very strong partnership very quickly; I began riding Beethoven almost everyday after school and in my lessons as well. During this time my coach and my parents saw my extreme dedication and love for riding and it was time to start looking for my first horse. Although in exchange for my parents buying me a horse I had to pay for all my tack, vet and farrier bills. With this in mind I quickly found a job cleaning stalls on the weekends. Also during this time after my six month partnership with Beethoven he was sold to a student, now being horseless I seriously started looking for a horse of my own. After looking at what felt like every horse in the world I found my match, he was right in the barn. His name was Mega Rock aka Jack a 16h 1996 Appaloosa sport horse gelding. He was a very strong minded horse and together we learned a lot, we became very busy showing in Canada and the US in dressage and jumping. After only a year and a half I grew out of Jack and I needed to find a more serious dressage mount. In September of 2004 I bought Step Aside Clyde a 1997 15.3h thoroughbred gelding that could be a bit of a hot head at times, Clyde and I worked very hard over the winter and competed at first level in 2005. In one season we were first level junior champions at MREC, Amherst and reserve champions at Provincials.

In May 2006 my coach had told me that it was time to move onto a dressage horse with more potential therefore Clyde went up for sale and sold very quickly to a very nice adult amateur. After the quick sale of Clyde I began looking for my future FEI horse and I could not afford anything that was already at the FEI level so I decided to search for a young horse with potential. It was in July of 2006 that I found a 2001 17.1hh SWB/TB gelding by Braveheart named Bravado who had been shown in hand as a 3yr and was the 3yr Canadian Sport Horse year end champion. I entered Bravo in BC/ Provincial Championships at training level and we ended up being reserve champions for Provincials despite some baby behavior. We later entered in Rising Stars Youth dressage show and were 15-21 year old training level champions as well as being the highest place Canadian Sport Horse. Over the winter Bravo and I continued to train and build our new partnership together and before we knew it show season was right around the corner and I was looking forward to our first full season together. Although it was in April 2007 Bravo became sidelined for five months with a conditional work program due to a minor surgery, which he recovered very well from. During this time I struggled to find another horse to ride and possibly show, later in the season I began to show my trainers 17.3hh KWPN gelding by Clavicembal, we had a great time together and formed a nice partnership. I am looking forward to continuing Bravo’s training and taking him out as much as I can this season. In the future I plan on attending NAJYRC as well as Canada’s Youth National Championships.