YARMOUTH, N.S. — Two teens from Yarmouth County will be Texas bound this summer as members of Team Canada for the 2023 American Quarter Horse Youth World Cup.
Kaidyn Goodwin, of Tusket, has been chosen as one of two alternate riders for the team, while Tylar Randall Gray, of Yarmouth, has been picked as one of three horsemanship and leadership development members. The 10-member team includes five riders.
Goodwin, 17, says she was very excited when she got the call, offering her the position. “It’s definitely going to be very fun,” she says.
Goodwin has been riding most of her life, saying, “I got my first pony when I was four."
She began to get serious about competing and showing when she was eight or nine, says her mom Janine Dixon.
Gray, 16, says she was “totally surprised, totally in shock,” when she was notified that she had been chosen for the team.
Both girls applied to be on the team, backed by their records of accomplishments. Both compete and show nationally and internationally.
“We were extremely impressed by the competencies of the riders who applied to be part of this national team,” said team manager Jodi Mallette in a media release announcing the team. “All youth displayed strong horsemanship and interpersonal skills, which are equally important when fielding a successful team to represent Canada on an international internship.”
The American Quarter Horse Youth World Cup is an international event hosted every two years by a different country and involves teams representing 16 countries.
This year it is being hosted in Bryan/College Station, Texas, from June 29 to July 8.
Throughout this competition, each country will ride for gold medals in the equestrian events of cutting, reining, horsemanship, ranch riding, trail, hunt seat equitation, hunter under saddle, and showmanship.
The American Quarter Horse Youth World Cup is a unique event because competing team members will only have a few days to get to know and develop relationships with the horses that they will compete on. The host country provides each of the team's horses for participation in skill-developing clinics and the international competition.
With the horses being supplied for the World Cup by the host Texans, “it’s kind of giving us a taste of dealing with horses that we’ve never met before and horses that are very new to competition and very new to being ridden or worked with," says Gray. "A lot of horses that we get are green and new to what we will be doing with them."
“Another thing we have to know how to do is the horses' mane and we have to know how to do each other's hair so we look proper enough to go into competition. Each team member is to know how to teach a horse showmanship, which is just groundwork where you have to know how to do a bunch of maneuvers. When we get down there, we will also be most likely teaching a course on how to do showmanship.”
Both Gray and Goodwin are seeking sponsorship for the World Cup and will be undertaking other fundraising efforts in the coming months to support the team. Gray is a Grade 10 student at the Yarmouth Consolidated Memorial High School, while Goodwin is in Grade 11 at École Secondaire de Par-en-Bas.
Gray has been riding since she was six; so about 10 years now, she says. She began showing and competing when she was seven or eight. Her horse Bennie is stabled in New Glasgow while Gray is in Yarmouth. “We try to go up on weekends.”
Goodwin, meanwhile, has five horses stabled at her family’s equestrian centre in Tusket. Stanley and Parker are the two horses she shows, although Stanley is recovering from injuries.
Oak Ridge Equestrian was opened in 2021. Dixon says her daughter was definitely the inspiration behind building the centre.
“I was tired of never being home,” she says, laughing. “I had horses when I was a kid, the whole time I was growing up so I obviously love them… I started looking around and thought it would be nice to have a place to ride in the winter. We don’t really have a place to do that other than the Corkums. That was the only place around at the time “
“We offer a lot of riding lessons. We have a great riding lessons program,” says Goodwin, proudly. “We offer boarding for horses. We have probably 35 horses there right now. A lot of people come by and just visit.”
Dixon says she has one full-time employee who looks after the horses during the week, but on the weekends, “we have our chores we have to go and do as a family,” she says.
Dixon’s stepdaughter Stella Taylor also rides, and a lot of younger kids are getting into the riding program that Jocelyn d’Entremont teaches at Oak Ridge Equestrian.
“A lot of them don’t show, but a lot of the teenagers are starting to show, the 12-to-16 years olds, there’s eight or 10 of them,” says Dixon, who is also president of the Tri-County Equestrian Club.
Dixon says horseback riding is making a comeback, noting the club had 80 to 90 members last year.
With no indoor riding facility available to the club locally to stage shows, “we had to move to Lawrencetown in the last four years because that was a bigger facility and the only place we could afford to go," Dixon says. "There are 75 to 80 stalls we have the option to use, so it's growing but we have nowhere for it to grow into here."
“Until I get things a little bit more established I could possibly have it at my place, but I don’t have the stalls to house that many horses," she adds. "Where you run into the problem is with having local shows, you need a place where can house a good number of horses or you can’t make it pay. You have to charge so much to participants.”
