Matilda Segal Will Compete in Junior Olympics
Matilda Segal of Monticello and her mount, Guinness X, have been named to the South Eastern Jr. Olympic Equestrian Three-Day Event Team to compete in the North American Junior Young Rider Championships (NAJYRC).
Miss Segal is the the 16-year-old daughter of Jenny Tucker of Monticello and Chris Segal of Atlanta.
Guinness X, an Irish Sport Horse, Thoroughbred cross is owned by Ms. Tucker who rode him competitively until her daughter was in need of a mount to work towards her goal of making the Jr. Olympic team.
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Miss Segal said, “I am incredibly honored, and elated to have achieved this goal that I have worked towards since I was six years old! I am overwhelmed with gratitude and so proud of Guinness who has worked so hard along with me! He and I pretty much grew up together and it means the world to me to be competing him as a member of a team representing our country.”
The competition will be held at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY, July 17-22. Miss Segal will be a member of the United States Eventing Association’s Area III team, which encompasses seven states in the South East. Miss Segal’s teammates include Nicole Dolittle of Charlotte, NC, Mary Atkins Hunt of Mobile, AL, and Alden Leavitt of Ocala, FL.
The Jr. Olympic NAJYRC is the premier equestrian competition in North America for junior and young riders, age 14-21.
Teams competing in the games come from the United States, Bermuda, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean Islands to vie for team and individual Federation Equestre Internationale medals in the three Olympic equestrian disciplines of show jumping, dressage, eventing and the FEI World Games disciplines of reining and endurance.
Three Day Eventing which is the discipline Miss Segal and her teammates will be competing in is likened to a triathlon with horses. This discipline traces its roots to the days of the Calvary and was introduced at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics as the ultimate test for the cavalry horse.
Today, Equestrian Olympic sports are only one of two Olympic disciplines in which men and women compete equally. The other is sailing.
