Spotlight on Demo Rider: Anne Gaudet

Demo rider, Anne Gaudet, started asking to ride when she could barely walk. When she was 6, she started vaulting with the New England Valkyries, immediately showing talent and dedication while driving her coach crazy with questionable attentiveness. In contrast to constant distraction at practice, at competitions, Anne would remember everything she’d ever been told and produce impressive performances. Unfortunately, after several years of vaulting (and competing twice at Nationals), Anne sustained repetitive stress injuries that ended her vaulting career.

Fortunately for Anne, she had also started riding ponies and showing with Red Acre Farm in Stow MA., so she still had an outlet for her love of horses. She was a successful competitor at local shows and taught two of Red Acre’s ponies to jump, including a grey paint mare who was a great great grand-daughter of Native Dancer. After moving to Colorado in 2006, Anne purchased her first horse, a TB hunter named Ernie. She showed Ernie in hunter and equitation classes for a season before soundness issues ended Ernie’s jumping days.

When looking for a replacement mount, Anne decided to switch to eventing so she could ride with Martha Deeds of Middleground Farm in Larkspur CO. She found a new partner in Rompope, an aged palomino Spanish Barb/TB who could jump the moon but had never evented before. Anne and Rompope entered 11 events over two seasons, competing successfully at Novice and Training level, in Colorado and then in Illinois, after a family move to a farm west of Chicago.After two seasons of competition, Rompope’s age started to catch up with him and Anne was looking for a new mount again. This time she wanted to find a young horse with the talent to take her through the Young Rider program. After searching the Internet and visiting several barns to look at prospects, Anne found her forever horse at Gina Kirby’s farm in Pennsylvania. Celtic Manor Forever Diamonds ("Ziggy") is a delightful opinionated IDSH mare with athleticism to spare. Ziggy and Anne have quickly come to trust each other while look for challenges to tackle together. Anne took last season off to bring Ziggy along, and now the pair is ready to start gaining competition experience at Novice level. Anne looks forward to continuing up the levels with this talented mare who looks like her sire in slightly smaller package. Look for Anne and Ziggy performing Demonstrations in Dressage, Show Jumping, and Eventing, as part of the Irish Village at the World Equestrian Games.