Sunday April 6, 2003

2003 Pan American Games Contenders: Jacqueline Paxton

Horses, Paxton's Career Choice

To prepare for Gladstone and the Pan Ams, Jackie said her plan is to, “Just keep training. Keep going at it. Every test that I go in I just keep thinking I’ll give it my best and we’ll see how it goes.”

Jackie also competed both horses in the Intermediaire I Pan Am Selection Trial qualifier at the Zada/WEF CDI and placed fifth with Sangmelima (67.100%) and eighth with Le Roc (65.65%).

After her last show in Florida this year – Dressage At Equestrian Estates in Loxahatchee, March 28-30 – Jackie will decide what her next move will be, whether she will return home to Batavia, Ohio, where her family’s farm is located or go back to Germany to continue training. Not having Young Riders this year has left a bit of uncertainty in her normal schedule – she usually spends three months in Germany in the fall, then competes all winter in Florida, and returns to Ohio in the spring because of the North American Young Riders Championships. But perhaps this year, she will have the mid-June Festival of Champions in New Jersey to consider.

Wherever Jackie chooses to spend her spring and summer, she knows for sure that horses will be her career. She briefly attended college in Ohio after high school, and plans to return to pursue sciences and biology someday, but for now, “horses are definitely my number one career choice. I really like it. It’s just my life, pretty much.”

Mary Hilton for DressageDaily.com