At 24, Hart is already a veteran of the U.S. para-equestrian program, but 16-year-old Holly Bergay is the undeniable rising star of the sport. Riding her brand new mount Grand Ballerina in her first national championship, Bergay took the overall reserve title with a score of 65.61 percent.
“Since it rained a lot, on the warm-up days she was leaping over puddles and backing up and jumping, and I wasn’t too sure about the whole thing,” Bergay said, laughing. “But once we started competing, she was great. That facility is amazing, and the energy was really good. She responded to that and just went in and did her job.”
Bergay, who trains with Pat Baker-Hutter and Debbie McDonald, placed second in all three of her tests throughout the weekend. She earned a 64.64 percent in the team test, a 64.51 percent in the individual and a 69.77 percent for her new Abba-themed freestyle aboard the 15-year-old Oldenburg mare, who is owned by Robin Garrett of Vista, Calif.
Bergay classifies as a grade IV competitor and has been riding since the age of 4, despite being born with a left arm that ends just below her elbow. She maintains control of the left rein with her elbow, however, and has competed almost exclusively in able-bodied classes since childhood. In fact, she had to miss out on a trip to the Paralympic Games last year because she hadn’t participated in enough para-equestrian qualifiers and her excellent scores in “regular” dressage shows weren’t accepted.
“There’ll only be a few CPEDIs in the country,” explained Bergay, who lives nearly as far away as possible from any of the potential sites in Tucson, Ariz. “It’ll be hard for me to get to another one before the WEG. It might be in Chicago again, or maybe New Jersey or Kentucky. Either way it’s far, and it’s expensive.”
But since Bergay missed out on a trip to Hong Kong, she’s working harder than ever to make sure she gets to the WEG. She’s a member of the National Honor Society and is enrolled in honors and AP classes, which makes it extra-difficult when she misses school for showing. Earlier this spring, she also traveled to California almost every weekend to ride Ballerina. After coming up the young rider ranks with a mare named Soliloquy, Bergay started looking for a new horse this year, and Garrett called a few months before the championships to offer her the ride on Ballerina.
“Robin’s a really good trainer, and she’s done an amazing job with the mare,” Bergay said. “I had to have a freestyle made just six weeks before Chicago, and Cynthia Collins helped me so much when I’d come up on the weekends.”
Both Ballerina and Bergay’s talent was evident enough from the get-go, but the rider was admittedly skeptical whether their partnership would meld before the championships.
“She’s a mare, so she’s very quirky and has a lot of character,” Bergay said. “Robin showed her up to Intermediaire II, so every time I halted, she was like, ‘Piaffe?’ I don’t know how I keep getting stuck with these hot mares, but I like them! This horse will give you everything she has. I don’t think I could have done so well in six weeks with a horse with a lesser work ethic than her.”
Bergay still needs to attain a higher score to get funding for the WEG, but she thinks it’s well within her reach in the next year. She needs to score in the 67 range—what the grade IV Paralympic bronze medalist earned last year—to do so.
“The first show I took Ballerina to was a mess, but I think it actually did click right before Chicago,” she said. “And a week before the competition, my trainer went to Japan, so I’m very surprised and pleased with how I did! But I know we can improve upon that.”
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