Fennville's Addyson Brown building on third-place state equestrian finish

FENNVILLE - When Addyson Brown looked at the final scores, she could hardly believe it.

The Fennville equestrian rider finished third at the state championships and was trying to soak it all in.

"Getting third at state meant everything to me," Brown said. "When I first started equestrian team in fifth grade, I always saw the older girls go to regionals and that became my dream as a little kid. When I moved to Fennville in eighth grade, we didn’t have a team so my mom had one made just for me."

Brown showed the school what she can do, building her way to the state finals as a junior.

"Last year as a sophomore I missed out on regionals by one point and I was devastated," she said. "I told myself that I would work harder so that wouldn’t happen again. This year at districts I was first, and then at regionals I was second only behind who we now know are the state champs. Even getting to state was a huge accomplishment for me as that wasn’t even on my radar when I first started this year."

After her performances leading up to state, Brown finally was able to put into perspective how good she was in the saddle.

"Honestly the whole meet went well for me. I had two classes where I had a bobble so out of the 16, 14 went great for me. I know that the 14 went great for me though because of the support system I have behind me. If I didn’t have my parents and my assistant coach there it would have been a completely different story," Brown said. "They truly held me together through the whole meet and even if I came out of a class upset. Also the Hopkins equestrian team was the biggest help this year and I can’t thank them enough. They took me as pretty much another teammate, they let me come to all their practices and were huge helps at regionals and state. When they didn’t have a meet them came to mine to help me out, at regionals they stayed up late to cheer me on, and at state they stayed up until 11:30 p.m. just to cheer me on in poles even though they had to be up at 6 a.m. the next day to show."

That is the kind of camaraderie that makes the sport unique.

"I hope I showed a bunch of girls that are iffy about making or joining a team that you can do it and it’s not impossible like many people think," she said.

How you can help

The Fennville equestrian team had to pay everything out of pocket last year and going to state was very expensive. If you want to be a team sponsor, contact Chandra Brown at Bradandchandra@comcast.net.

Contact sports editor Dan D’Addona at Dan.D’Addona@hollandsentinel.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as  Twitter @DanDAddona or Facebook @HollandSentinelSport s.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Fennville's Addyson Brown building on third-place state equestrian finish