April 2022 | Rescued to Stardom: All Winners Here
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Rescued to Stardom: All Winners Here

Lois Szymanski - April 2022

Riata and her trainer Erin O NeillRiata and her trainer Erin O'Neill from the Heart of Phoenix Equine Rescue won the Rescued to Stardom competition at Horse World Expo. Credit: Emily Bollinger/Twilight Photography

Dishing up hope for the future of rescued horses, the Rescued to Stardom equine competition took place on Friday and Saturday (March 4 and 5) at Horse World Expo. The multi-leveled competition featured horses from 501c3 horse rescues in and around the Mid-Atlantic region and their trainers, showcasing the beauty and ability of the rescue horse.

When it was over, three year old Appalachian feral mare, Riata and her trainer Erin O'Neill from the Heart of Phoenix Equine Rescue won the competition, with a top score of 202.5 points. Second place went to the 12 year old Haflinger mare Lottie and her trainer Shelby Piovoso from Gentle Giants Draft Horse Rescue with a score of 173 points, and third place with a very close score of 172.5 went to 12 year old APHA/Arab cross, Ava and her trainer Aaryanne Cloutier from Rocky’s Horse Rescue and Rehabilitation, Inc.

Each competitor had 90-days to take their equine from unbroke to riding, documenting the progress along the way on social media, live feeds, open house clinics and other media. The first competition was held in 2018, started by Denise Parsons, president of Equestrian Promotions, Inc.

“I actually established a 501 (c) 3 horse rescue in 2016 as a volunteer and saw a lot of prejudices against horses that were formerly owned by rescue organizations,” Parsons said.  “Horse World Expo was looking to introduce some new features for the event, and I thought this would be an excellent opportunity for the public to see firsthand that a horse from a rescue [can] be trainable and a valuable asset to the equestrian community.”

Trainer Erin O’Neill spoke about the personal connection she had with first place mare Riata.

“The connection with her began when I caught her at a roundup at a strip mine in West Virginia last year,” O’Neill said, noting that she literally camped out, integrating herself into the herd to make catching them easier and less stressful.

The in-hand portion of the competition was an ode to the day Riata was found. Students from Starry Night Stables in Frederick helped her, dressing as trees while the song, “Rescue Story” played.

“A minute in, I took her halter off and just tied it around her neck. The rest was a liberty with a line attached to her. It was pretty incredible.”

According to O’Neill, the first 30 days of training were difficult.

“She had just turned three and I wasn’t sure she was ready,” she said of Riata. “She was very extroverted and in-your-pocket but she had retained some wild instincts that had morphed into a severe bucking habit. She was in the top 5 percent of the rankest horses I’ve trained, and I’m a problem horse trainer. The only way to do it was through personal connection. She had to wholeheartedly believe in me and what I was asking.”

For the riding portion, O’Neill’s student trees returned. At one point, she rode onto a tarp while students holding the corners whipped it up and down, turning a blue tarp into choppy waters. Riata was unphased.

When asked about Riata, the mare who she had hoped to adopt, O’Neill was quiet. Then she spoke.

“When she was rounded up, Riata had an umbilical hernia. If she had been bred in the wild, she would have died in labor. It would have ruptured, and no one would have ever known. She never would have ridden bridle-less in front of all those people…”

To her, the competition was about showing off the connection between horse and rider and the difference it can make.

Second-place trainer Shelby Piovoso said Lottie was friendly and outgoing, but she was also pushy and had been spoiled in her younger life.

“It took setting consistent boundaries and not letting her get away with anything,” she said.

For the in-hand portion of the competition, Lottie wore a bikini and sunglasses.

“Our theme was Beach Day. We had a kiddy pool she got in and a pedestal for her to stand on. We were throwing around beach balls, and she laid down for me in the ring,” Piovoso said.

For their full routine on Saturday, Piovoso said the nerves melted away. 

“In our routine, three of my friends were dressed up as blowup cows. We chased the cows and I roped one,” Piovoso said with a laugh. “I shot an arrow into a target from her back while going over a jump. I rode her bridle-less to stand on a pedestal and then I stood on her back.”

Sharon Burrier is the founder and president of Rocky’s Horse Rescue and Rehabilitation, Inc. Their horse, Ava took third place.

“Ava needed a kind gentle start,” Burrier said. “A conversation Aaryanne and I had was that Ava was going to need a friend to trust first before she would allow anyone to train her.”

Trainer, Aaryanne Cloutier agreed. She said Ava came from a seizure case, a very untrusting mare with a 2-week-old foal at her side.

“She was nearly feral and didn’t want anything to do with people,” she said. “I spent days just sitting in her stall, getting to know her and earning her trust. I broke her bareback and with a bitless halter because she was afraid of the saddle. The saddle and bridle came just a few weeks before the competition. It was about earning her trust and working from there.”

Cloutier brought the students from her barn to participate in the in-hand competition, “All of my students had brown shirts that said POST on their back, because they were the fenceposts. They stood still for me to weave them, and they held up jumps for her to jump.  For a 12-year-old mare who had never seen anything like this, she was so calm. During one of her maneuvers, the students held poles over their heads and she trotted underneath them.

For the riding performance, Cloutier’s students dressed up as cows, with two dressing as wranglers. 

“My ranch hands forgot to close the gate and the cows got out,” Cloutier said. “We had to go get them back. Their maneuvers made us sidestep, chase cows at a canter, do a sliding stop, and back up. We all walked out at the end with everyone cow holding another cow’s tail and the last person holding Ava’s tail.”

Cloutier said that many people applied to adopt Ava, but after a lot of consideration and a lot of crying she decided she needed to adopt the mare herself “I realized how much I truly wanted her,” she said. The adoption is pending.