Utah equestrian vaulting team wins bronze at international competition

SALEM, Utah County — The Oak Hills Vaulting junior squad won third place at an international equestrian vaulting competition and became the first Utah team to do so, according to KyLynn James Cooper, head coach and founder of Oak Hills Vaulting.

The 2023 FEI World Championship for Young Vaulters took place from July 25-30, where young vaulters from all over the world competed in Flyinge, Sweden. The Utah junior squad was one out of 11 other junior squads that competed from all over the world.

"It made me very happy to win the bronze medal, since I've been vaulting for almost 10 years at this point," said Mikell Stoddard, a 14-year-old vaulter in Team USA's junior squad division. "It was just very surreal to run into that arena with the people that were around me."

The Utah-based Oak Hills' Vaulting squad was one of several junior squad teams, having six athletes compete with two alternates — all aged between 11 and 18. The competition also included senior squads that had competitors over the age of 18, as well as solo and "pas de deux" (pair) performers.

"This is essentially like equestrian sports at the Olympic level, so to have kids at such a young age be able to do so well is really unique," James Cooper said.

Having sent both junior and senior squads to compete internationally since 2018, James Cooper said she was expecting this year's junior squad to place in the middle, around fifth or sixth place.

But after just the second round of the competition, the team had already reached the coach's goal.

"I was very excited that they were top five after their second round. And then going into the finals, it was really like kind of a whirlwind and a complete shock to both us as coaches and the kids that they ended up medaling," James Cooper said. "That's not even something that was on our radar expectation of this event, but it was just truly kind of like a series of events that led them to that awesome victory."

As the Utah team placed third, the Switzerland squad placed second and the German team placed first.

"I have a lot of respect for all those European teams — they are crazy good. I was just really excited to watch them and compete against them. I wasn't really trying to beat them, you know. I was just like really excited to be up there with them," said Jacey Muir, a 16-year-old competitor on the Team USA junior squad.

Horse health concerns

The competition was not without its challenges. Both the original horse and backup horse that the team was going to compete with had several health concerns, James Cooper said.

Team USA's junior squad originally planned on competing with a horse from the Czech Republic; however, after hearing the horse hadn't passed its wellness checks, they changed their flights and housing to train on a horse from Germany.

Germany's horse worked well with the girls the week before the competition, James Cooper added, noting that she felt confident about the squad's success.

And then, the week of the competition, their horse failed some of the health and wellness checks. On the day of the squad's first round, the horse barely passed the health check, meaning that the girls either had to ride on a horse with unstable health or had to ride an entirely new one.

Choosing to have the girls compete on an entirely different horse was "a really tough decision," James Cooper continued. If they competed on the horse that had just barely passed some of the health checks that day but had a history of bad health, the girls and the horse could be in danger. If they competed on an entirely new horse, the girls would have less practice time to get used to the horse.

James Cooper ultimately decided on the new horse. But due to time crunches, the girls had just 30 minutes to practice with him before they entered the arena.

However, Muir welcomed the challenge.

"The first time that I got on him, I fell in love with him. … I think he was like, pretty easy for me to harmonize with and get used to," Muir said. "Obviously, not training with him super long and not knowing, like, some of his personality types is a little bit scary, but I was mostly feeling confident."

A squad's collective support promotes success

Not only did the squad overcome the curveballs that came with switching horses, but they excelled in each part of the competition — especially the freestyle components, James Cooper said.

The competition was split into two categories: compulsories and freestyles.

Compulsories have all vaulters perform the same set of moves and are judged in the same way, James Cooper explained, whereas freestyles require each squad to dress in costume, choreograph their own set of moves and time it to music.

"One of the things that we always focused on, and been really good at all season is making sure that the girls have a clean and safe performance, meaning that we never overloaded the girls with skills that they were not able to perform to the very best of their ability," James Cooper said.

This year, the squad had a "Clue" murder mystery theme, where they would take the judges and spectators through a whodunnit story. James Cooper added that the girls' facial expressions and acting "was definitely something that helped increase their score over some of the other countries."

Amber Terry, a base on the junior squad, noted that she and her team members have enough unity to make tough moves or competitions less stressful.

"My team works together really well, and we don't really have to talk to know what we have to fix while we're on the horse," Terry said.

By spending three weeks in several different countries — from practice in Germany to competition to Sweden — the squad became even closer, Stoddard said, adding that it was "like gaining seven new sisters."

"I think it was just really fun for me to connect and have those relationships grow with all of them," Stoddard said. "I think since … our team got so much closer, we trusted each other a lot more."

Squad members and parent Meredith Stoddard, vaulter Mikell Stoddard's mother, also added that the coaches and mothers provided a supportive network to help the girls compete.

"KyLynn (James Cooper) is amazing, and if she wasn't there there's no way that I would have been able to do anything," Terry said.

Muir added that she enjoys how her coaches have a "balance between how they push us to become such great athletes and how they make us feel so good about ourselves."

"They really, like, let us know that they love us, and they really just support us through it all. And I think having that supportive team behind us really helped us," Muir said. "If we didn't have that, then … we wouldn't have had as much motivation."

Many mothers also traveled with their daughters, Meredith Stoddard said; however, for her, it was difficult to leave her family and home for three weeks. That was when her entire family stepped in to help take care of her other kids and household chores while she looked after her daughter.

"There's just a lot that goes into the team," Meredith Stoddard said. "It's not just the girls and their coaches — there's a community of people that make something like this happen."

Ultimately, the community found among the team and coaches will propel the athletes forward, Mikell Stoddard continued.

"I think just those two weeks, spending time together was really helpful, and I think it will help us a lot in the future," she said. "I think in the future, we'll be able to work even better together and represent our country, maybe in future years at the World Championships."

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