{"id":2350,"date":"2015-10-01T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=2350"},"modified":"2015-10-01T08:00:56","modified_gmt":"2015-10-01T12:00:56","slug":"first-year-kate-spencer-leads-nation-in-quarter-horseback-riding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2015\/10\/01\/first-year-kate-spencer-leads-nation-in-quarter-horseback-riding\/","title":{"rendered":"First-year Kate Spencer leads nation in Quarter Horseback Riding"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY LAURA MCCANDLESS – STAFF WRITER<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kate Spencer has been around quarter horses, the most popular breed in the United States, her whole life.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom rode and she and my dad are both big into horses so I\u2019ve been riding since I could walk,\u201d Spencer said, \u201cbut really [I\u2019ve been] competing since I was five or six.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, riding has become far more than a hobby for Spencer, as she is currently leading the nation in the youth western pleasure.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom January 1, I have the most youth western pleasure points of anyone in the country and then even around the world,\u201d Spencer said. \u201cYou get points as you show, so I\u2019ve accumulated the most points out of any other youth western pleasure rider.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer is also either third or fourth in the all around, meaning she has the most total points in several divisions in the American Quarter Horse Association. She has amassed over two hundred points, participating in the Horsemanship, Western Pleasure, and Showmanship events.<\/p>\n

As an example, Spencer said in that in the Horsemanship, \u201cthey set up cones in a pattern and they give you a pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou execute it and then you are judged on how well you sit, how well you executed the pattern, overall picture, presentation, and things like that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her success doesn\u2019t end there, however; just a few years ago, Spencer won the Novice World in the Western Pleasure and was reserve in the pleasure at the American Paint Horse Association\u2019s World Show.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaints is a breed that\u2019s similar to quarter horses,\u201d she said. \u201cMy horse was double registered\u2026he had a belly spot so he qualified as a paint horse.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the level Spencer is at, riding is extremely time consuming. Though her events are not featured in the Olympic games, her level of training mirrors those competing at the Olympic level.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy trainers are extremely demanding, physically, mentally, [and] emotionally. It\u2019s very intense, but I love the horses,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

While in high school she ran and did weight training at home and would reunite with her horse on the weekends to ride.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would leave Friday after school and come home Sunday evening, but that\u2019s if we didn\u2019t have a show,\u201d Spencer said. \u201cSo then if we had a show, shows started on either Wednesday or Thursday and went all the way through Sunday. I would miss school and go up and show, and then come back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just driving to shows themselves takes up a great deal of time. Spencer has showed in: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida.<\/p>\n

Spencer has accomplished a great deal in horseback riding, but is now ready to focus on other things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m getting out of it now, [as I\u2019m] too busy, but it was a big part of my life for a very long time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But if she attacks college like she does horseback riding, expect big things to come over the next four years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY LAURA MCCANDLESS – STAFF WRITER Kate Spencer has been around quarter horses, the most popular breed in the United States, her whole life. \u201cMy mom rode and she and my dad are both big into horses so I\u2019ve been riding since I could walk,\u201d Spencer said, \u201cbut really [I\u2019ve been] competing since I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}