On November 3, Rick Neff and his horse, Heavy Pressure, won the Junior Polebending at the American Quarter Horse Championship show in Oklahoma, City. Polebending is a test of speed and agility where you run down the arena, weave a six pole pattern up and back, then run home.
“I ran Pressure one step past the first pole to make sure I didn’t knock it down, then weaved to pole 5 where I had to pull him away from it. That caused me to lose momentum for the turn back pole. He turned back so tight that I feared he would drag it down with his hip, but I had to concentrate on the rest of the second weave. When I turned the last pole I could see that they were all standing and we ran home in a solid time of 21.2 which was good enough for the win and $1,500 first place.” Photo submitted
