For five years, Avery Ridgley has been very passionate about horses.

“I went through a horse camp,” the 14-year-old Jonesburg resident said. “From there, I started taking riding lessons. Then, I eventually started showing. I’ve kind of been around horses since I was really young.”

Ridgley worked with young horses and trained them for over two years. She used that training and working experience as her supervised agriculture experience (SAE) project at Montgomery County High School, where she is a freshman.

All of that impressed the American Quarter Horse Association. Ridgley was one of 40 young students to be selected to the AQHA’s Ranching Heritage Young Horse Development Program.

Ridgley found out she was picked after receiving a letter from the AQHA.

“I’m super excited,” Ridgley said. “It’s pretty big because I’ve been working with a young horse. It’s a cool opportunity. If you get selected, there are scholarship opportunities at the end and you do assignments and stuff throughout the program. It’s a nine-month program.”

In the Young Horse Development Program, members receive a hands-on horse training opportunity focusing on the fundamentals of horsemanship. They will be required to complete several units, including training horses, submit reports, photos and videos, attend events and have mentoring sessions with a professional horseman.

Ridgley was encouraged by her trainer, Kate Engemann, to apply for the program this summer.

“I would like to thank her a lot because she has really helped give me a lot of opportunities and really helped me through the process, like my application,” Ridgley said.

Candidates were selected to the program based on their applications which included horsemanship skills, academics, letter of recommendation and essay requirements. Engemann said she was thrilled that Ridgley was chosen to join a very competitive program.

“She had myself and one of her high school teachers write her letters of recommendation,” Engemann said. “There were 40 students selected out of the entire application pool. To my understanding, the application pool was about 300 kids. So it’s a pretty big deal.”

Engemann said she and Ridgley found out about the program while participating in a 4-H horse judging clinic in Lake St. Louis several years ago.

“They recommended that any youth join the American Quarter Horse Association so they could get tips, patterns, free educational flyers and brochures sent to them,” Engemann said. “She and I both signed up. I was sent some information about the program.”

Ridgley, who is also a member of the 4-H and FFA clubs, works at Engemann’s farm on Mondays when she’s not in school.

“We have a lesson program, we have a summer camp for the youth in the area, we show competitively all over Missouri and all over camps in the Midwest,” Engemann said. “She has gone from taking riding lessons to being a very proficient rider, but she doesn’t have a place to keep this horse. She will work for me like five hours a week and then, she’ll be able to keep the horse here. That way, she will have an arena and she has me to bounce some ideas off if she has any questions.”

Ridgley was matched with a weanling -- which is a young horse -- that was donated by a family in Kansas. She will be traveling there within the next several weeks to pick up her chosen weanling.

“She has four (horses) to choose from,” Engemann said. “The horse hasn’t been selected yet and won’t be until we go to Kansas to pick it up. They won’t be ready until the end of November.”