For most people starting out showing horses, the All American Quarter Horse Congress would not be their first show….but you haven’t met Alexandra Chavez of Paradise Valley, Arizona. The 29 year-old Washington native is known for going all out and doing everything with great passion, energy and most importantly, fun! Chavez is adamant that showing horses has to be fun, and, so far, she and her family are having a blast.
What would possess a relative newbie to make their debut at the Congress?
“I’m married to a professional baseball player. It didn’t really
phase me,” says the mother of three gorgeous children with her husband, Major League Baseball player, Eric Chavez. “I like traveling and always being on the go. I’m used to being
in the public and being around pressure situations,” says Chavez, who
has lived in Arizona the past 11 years for the weather and the close
proximity to baseball’s Spring Training facilities. “I think the
Congress is how all horse shows should be,” she says laughing. “My goal
is to have fun and just do a little better each time I enter the arena.
This is a hobby for me like golf is for my husband. My husband is scared
of horses, but he supports my interests and we are best friends and
have grown up together. There is a batting cage right next to my round pen and he uses my arena to practice chipping in the sand. I’m always
finding golf balls all over the place, so we have a lot of fun
together.”
Involved with showing horses for just over a year, Chavez recently experienced a thrill that few people will ever know. While in her quest for fun, Chavez also encountered some beginner’s luck when she purchased the hunter under saddle mare, Beautiful Maiden, right after the Congress. “AJ” who is by Allocate Your Assets and and out of Maid For Luke, won the Junior Hunter Under Saddle at the AQHA World Show with Stacy Huls who is from nearby Cave Creek, Arizona. Amazingly, Huls only had the mare two weeks before the World Show but the two immediately clicked and got along famously. The new duo earned three firsts and scored nearly 100 points more than the reserve champion. AJ was bred by Nancy Sue Ryan and shown by Katy Jo Pickard through most of this year’s show season.
“I was so excited that she even made the finals,” says, Chavez. “I was even more excited when I knew she made the Top 10 because I knew I could get a Top 10 jacket–but, then, it was an awesome feeling when she won. I gave Stacy the trophy and the buckle, because, even though I own the horse, she did all the work and won the class. I did keep the jacket though!”
Chavez’s hunt seat trainer, Stacy Huls, who won both the Junior and Senior Hunter Under Saddle titles at the World Show this year, adds, “Alexandra is such a giving and caring person and would do anything for anyone. She is so down-to-earth, and I am so happy to be able to help her with her new horse. I think they will be a good match, and I look forward to seeing them improve throughout next year’s show season.”
Growing up, Chavez and her sister Nicole (who is a professional barrel racer), got involved with horses on their father’s ranch in Washington. When Chavez moved to Arizona, she decided to purchase a few horses for her children, Diego, 7, Dolce, 4, and Cruz, 3, to play around with at home. Eventually, Chavez decided that she needed someone to come to her farm and help her with horses. She found local trainer, Christy Snyder, of Hold Your Horses, from a Craigslist ad.
“Never underestimate the power of the internet,” says Christy, laughing, referring to the Craigslist ad she placed. “Alex wanted me to come help with her Welsh pony, two miniatures, a thoroughbred, and a pregnant paint mare. Since the horses didn’t have papers and weren’t ever going to be career show horses, I ended up teaching them how to do tricks. The Welsh pony was my favorite, though, because it had some dressage training.”
Soon after meeting each other, Snyder says that Chavez told her that she wanted to start showing horses.
“We flew to California and bought a quarter horse mare, Hocus Boston Flame (Ellie), from Kerri McKay, and she has been a great starter horse for Alex,” says Christy, who now trains and gives lessons out of Alex’s barn. “However, nothing happens fast enough for Alex. I told her that she had no business showing at the Congress, being that it would be her first quarter horse show–but that’s Alex. We went and she did great. She didn’t make the finals in anything, but, considering it was her first breed show, she did amazingly well. That was in 2011. This past year, Rusty Green helped her with Ellie (pictured left) and they were Top 10 at the East Novice Championship Show in the Novice Amateur Western Pleasure and made the semi-finals this year in the Novice Amateur Western Pleasure at the Congress. Alex and Ellie have made huge strides in a very short time,” Christy says.
Chavez, who now prefers going to a horse show over her annual trip to Fashion Week in Paris with her mother (much to her mother’s chagrin), says that she enjoys the competition and the camaraderie with everyone at the shows.
“I love Ellie but I’m now just going to show her at the local shows with Christy. I have pointed out of novice in the western pleasure, so I needed a new horse to able to be competitive in Amateur. I just purchased, The Best Sign Yet, from Garcia Quarter Horses,” she explains. “I’ll have AJ with Stacy, and, then, my new roan pleasure gelding with Rusty and Katie Green.”
The Best Sign Yet, who is by RL Best of Sudden and out of Vital Signs Are Hot (Blazing Hot X Vital Signs Are Good), was the 2012 Congress Champion in the Non Pro Maturity Pleasure Stakes with Kerk Sanders as well as being Reserve Congress Champions in the Green Western Pleasure with Shane Dowdy.
Chavez adds, “I really love how the team around me is shaping up. I compare it to baseball where you have several different coaches including a first base coach, hitting coach, and bench coach. Everyone has their specialty, and they can help me reach my goals on the local as well as national level.”
So what is it like being married to a Major League Baseball player? Her husband Eric Chavez is a six-time MLB Golden Glove winner who played the majority of his 1491 career Major League Baseball games with the Oakland A’s. In 2012, Chavez hit 16 home runs while playing for the New York Yankees, and the day after this story was originally published, signed a one-year contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks for the 2013 season.
“Well, I don’t know anything different since I met him when I was eighteen,” Alex says. “It is a wild story how we met. I was watching a game at Safeco Field in Seattle with my parents when I was passed a baseball that had Oakland A’s Eric Chavez’s name and phone number on it. Eric wrote that he wanted to ask me on a date. We dated for a year and, then, we were married.”
Chavez adds, “I do enjoy being able to give back and the opportunity to meet a lot of different people through the charity work we do including the therapeutic riding program, Flying Manes and also, Make A Wish. My husband has been able to touch many lives and use his celebrity to bring attention to many charitable causes. I have been truly blessed and enjoy helping others.”
Watch for Chavez and Beautiful Maiden at the major shows in the Non Pro and Novice Amateur Hunter Under Saddle as well as Alexandra and The Best Sign Yet in the Non Pro and Amateur Western Pleasure events. Alex is definitely a breath of fresh air and we wish her the best of luck this coming show season.
Photos © Mallory Beinborn/Impulse Photography, The American Quarter Horse Journal
