Annie Peavy Website: http://www.anniepeavydressage.com

Biography
Date of Birth:          August 12, 1996
Birthplace:              Hartford, Connecticut
Hometown:             Avon, Connecticut
Height:                     5’ 6”
Parents:                   Rebecca ‘Becky’ Reno & Ed Peavy
Siblings:                   Bridgette (1990), John (1995)
Education:              Senior at Ethel Walker School, Simsbury, CT
Sport:                       Para-Dressage Grade III

Riding Career
Partially paralyzed on her left side by a stroke she suffered prior to birth, Annie began riding horses as a form of physical therapy. What began as a way for a four-year-old to improve her mobility turned into her life’s passion.
Annie’s love of horses can be traced back to her best friend in preschool, Sage Armstrong, who had horses at her home. Annie soon started taking lessons at the local barn and things took off from there. Annie asked her parents if she could get her own horse as soon as she learned to canter. They compromised and agreed that when she was 10 they would look for a horse. They found Baby Blue who became part of the family. Blue is still Annie’s first love and lives on a beautiful farm in Vermont, where Annie visits as much as possible.
As her love of dressage grew, Annie convinced her mom to take dressage vacations to Portugal, where Annie took three lessons per day. It is there where Annie first learned about para-dressage. After Annie returned home, a friend gave her an article about para-dressage, and from that moment on Annie started working toward her goal of representing the US at the World Equestrian Games and the Paralympics.
It was a couple of years later, in 2013, that Annie and her mom went to a Heather Blitz clinic and Annie knew that she had found the right trainer. They moved the horses to Heather’s training center at Cutler Farm in Medfield, MA, which is a two-hour car ride from their home. For the past year Annie has commuted five times a week to train with Heather. That training has paid off as Annie has won multiple blue ribbons in international Grade 3 para-dressage competitions, including three classes and overall at the WEG selections in Gladstone. Annie started riding the FEI Junior test this spring to complete her bronze medal.

Current Competition Horses
– Lancelot Warrior;
2002 17.0 hh Hanoverian gelding (Londonderry x Waroness – Warkant)
– Ozzy Cooper;
2006 17.0 hh Trakehner gelding (Hibiskus x Okka – Arrak)
Stuart Little – 1999 Dutch Warmblood gelding – was Annie’s first dressage horse, and together they became the 2011 Dressage 4 Kids Champion. In 2011 Annie celebrated her 16th birthday by riding her first freestyle program on Stuart Little.

Factoids
One of Annie’s hidden talents is that she knows the words to almost any song on the radio, which she credits to driving four hours in the car each day.
Annie loves her school friends and doesn’t like not being with them through the school year, but she also loves the people she has gotten to know around the world through her riding.
Annie left the show at HITS in Upstate New York this spring to go to her prom in Connecticut on Saturday afternoon. She was back the next morning to watch Heather Blitz show Paragon and then show her own horses in the Junior Class.
Earlier this year, her new horses were delayed in flying to America, so she used the opportunity to spend January in Denmark getting to know them.
When she is not with her horses, Annie enjoys traveling with her family around the world to places like France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Israel, England, Denmark and India, as well as closer to home in California, Wyoming and the Caribbean.
Annie also travels as much as she can with her friend Sage Tourigny.
Annie has a large extended family that spans the country, and they are all very supportive of her riding career.