Cora Severs, a junior at Grand Junction High school, is an exceptional horse rider with lots of passion and skill for what she does. Severs has been riding since she was 5 and is now 17.

“I started out riding Western and learning to love horses for everything outside of just riding. When my trainer moved away when I was 8, I switched to English and started jumping,” Severs said.

As for all things we all have our favorite moments, “My best moment so far has to be rehabilitating my last horse back from an injury and winning at our first event back. He was out for about 4 months to heal and then was brought back slowly, 9 months after his injury he came back with the win in Florida,” Severs said.

Severs recently accomplished her best achievement yet at the Area IX Championships at the Novice level.  Severs said she had only owned her current horse, Cuervo, for 3 months and at their third event they were able to come together as a team. They had scored their best dressage score to date and really outdid her expectations.

Along with the triumphs there is typically setbacks. “A time I really had to push through was when my horse Marshall died. We were at his first event and he ended up colicing (twisted his stomach). We rushed him to the vet but he had died in the trailer. That was a hard time for me and it was hard to keep on pushing. He was a racehorse off the track and was severely abused. After he was deemed useless on the track he was sent to slaughter. I bought him and owned him for a year, nursing him back to health both physically and mentally. Having a horse you are so connected to die so suddenly was heartbreaking but I knew that I couldn’t sit back and let that define my love for horses,” Severs said.

Severs plans to continue improving at eventing as she continues to compete.

“My future plan is to compete at the North American Junior Young Rider Championships in 2018! It’s the junior Olympics for eventing. My plan is to go to Florida to compete and train for a couple weeks this winter and then qualify over this summer,” Severs said.