Twenty-six-year-old Lauren Love, of Dallas, Texas has a striking dossier of accomplishments in the horse industry.

She won the Amateur Horsemanship at the Quarter Horse Congress in 2011 and was AQHA’s Reserve World Champion in Amateur Horsemanship that same year with Invitemeforchocolate.

She competed on the University of Georgia’s Equestrian team and helped the Bulldogs win three National and three Southeastern Conference (SEC) Championships.

But Love had not shown a Western Pleasure horse – until this year that is.

Long-time trainer Robin Frid had been helping Love find a new project horse since the sale of Invitemeforchocolate in December of 2012.

Robin saw Angie Cannizzaro riding Wearing Only Moonlite, at the Congress last year.

“He took a short video of him loping like three strides and sent it to me,” Love recalls. “He was so excited about this horse and I didn’t text him back fast enough after he sent me the video, so he called me and said “get up here! I found your new horse.” When I got to Ohio the first thing I did was watch him show and I fell in love with him too.”

Love purchased the 2011 bay gelding by Only In The Moonlite and out of LDR Look My Way and has been having a blast showing him this year under the guidance of Cannizzaro, who shows him in open Western Pleasure events.

“Showing the pleasure is a completely new event for me and I’ve loved the challenge,” Love explains. “I’m definitely fortunate to have such a great horse to start out with.”

And a great start it has been. Love rode Wearing Only Moonlite to wins in the Limited and Open Divisions of the 3-Year-Old Non-Pro Western Pleasure at the Tom Powers Futurity. At the National Snaffle Bit Association’s World Championship Show and Breeders Championship Futurity (BCF), Love and Wearing Only Moonlite won the Limited and Open Divisions of the BCF 3-Year-Old Non-Pro Western Pleasure and the 3-Year-Old Limited Non-Pro World Show Western Pleasure class.

While Western Pleasure may be new for Love, she has had plenty of experience and success in other events. Love’s father, Dr. Charley Love is a veterinarian and equine reproduction specialist, who also enjoys roping. Her mother, Linda, also grew up riding. Lauren grew up in West Chester, Pennsylvania while her dad completed his residency at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. The family moved to Texas when Lauren was 10 and that’s when she got her own horse.

“I begged them to finally get me my own horse since we would be living out in the country and have a barn,” she recalls. “My dad’s colleagues at Texas A&M were involved in showing horses and through them we met a family with a great old show mare for sale. They were Nancy Cahill’s clients and suggested I go take lessons from her and have her help me at the shows.”

In 2006, teamed with RSVP Zippo, a black gelding by Invitation Only, Love placed fourth in the 14-18 Youth Horsemanship at the Congress.

But she says her biggest success inside a show pen was winning the Horsemanship at the Congress in 2011 with Invitemeforchocolate (aka Shaggy), a 2006 bay gelding by Invitation Only and out of Bettiluvchocolate.

“It was my very first ‘big win.’ I had been showing since I was 11 and this was something I had worked extremely hard for the previous 12 years,” Love says. “Horsemanship is and has always been my favorite class and Shaggy was great that day. He had only done the all-around for a little over a year before that and the quality of patterns would be hit or miss just because he was still learning everything. It was such a great feeling that it all clicked that day and so rewarding that Robin and I were the ones to find his potential.”

Love and Shaggy captured a Reserve AQHA World Championship in Horsemanship that same year. In 2012 they won a NSBA World Championship Non-Pro Horsemanship title and Reserve Championship in Amateur Horsemanship at both the Congress and AQHA World Show.

Love earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Financial Planning from UGA and works as a project manager for Jolly Science, a digital/web design and consulting firm. She is taking classes to earn a web design certification as well.

“It is really fun because we are a small firm that works for a lot of very high-profile companies,” Love says. “”Many large agencies outsource website, web application and mobile application construction to us, as well as the management of the business’s customer service and social media accounts. I enjoy working for this company. I am able to work from home, manage my own schedule and travel.”