Laura Noyes, an aspiring 19-year-old dressage rider from Falmouth, ME, found herself in a rather special situation – receiving an invitation to the FEI Young Rider World Cup Dressage Final in Frankfurt, Germany. Through a sponsorship from the competition organizers, Noyes and her 12-year-old bay Trakehner, Syncro, made the trek to the December 14-17 competition in Frankfurt.

The sponsorship came by way of Ann-Kathrin Linsenhoff, a German national with an interest in improving the talents of young dressage riders worldwide, and Schenker Logistics, a global logistics company headquartered in Germany. It allowed 12 lucky and aspiring international dressage riders from around the world to be invited to take part in the championship.

In order to qualify for the invitation to compete at the FEI Young Rider World Cup, a rider must complete the FEI Young Rider Freestyle test at two CDI-Y competitions achieving minimum scores of 64%. The rider with the highest scores from those competitions receives the invitation to travel to Germany. The final qualifying competition in the U.S. was held in September at Dressage at Devon where Noyes was successful in gaining her final qualifying score of 70.3% to receive the bid.

Noyes, a straight-A microbiology major at Ohio Wesleyan University, had the unique opportunity to demonstrate her freestyle ride as a part of the dressage competition at the Washington International Horse Show (WIHS) in November. This gave her the chance to introduce her mount to the electric environment of a large, indoor competition. Two weeks prior to the Frankfurt competition, Noyes had the opportunity to train with Klaus Balkenhol at his facility in Rosendahl, Germany, in preparation for the event.

Dealing with the pressures of international competition like a seasoned veteran, Noyes found herself, and her mount, suffering from some rather bad luck. However, this did not deter or take away from the invaluable experience she received. On the first of three days of competition, Syncro developed an untimely hoof abscess which resulted in the pair withdrawing from competition. This is something that any international rider could possibly face, and Noyes impressed all those who supported her with her professional attitude and sportsmanlike response as she remained at the competition to cheer on her challengers at the finals.

~~~For more information, please contact Maria Partlow, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications, at (859) 225-6941, or via e-mail at [email protected].