Fifteen-year-old Emily Drew of Houston, Texas, likens her show partner, Cadets Honor, to a 5-year-old boy with Attention Deficit Disorder.

“He gets bored so fast that when we jump, we have to do jumper turns and tight corners just to keep his mind out of la la land,” she explains. “Same goes with the pattern classes. I can’t warm up too much otherwise he will memorize the pattern and can do it completely by himself. Around the barn he is always trying to eat my hair or dig in my pockets to find ‘gold.’ He won’t leave you alone unless you give him your 100 percent attention but when he is done receiving his attention, he wont let you even play with his nose.”

Drew shows the 2001 sorrel overo gelding she calls “Pancho” in 14-18 Youth Hunter Under Saddle, Hunt Seat Equitation, Showmanship and Horsemanship, as well as 18 and Under Hunter Hack, Working Hunter, Hunt Seat Over Fences and Jumping at American Paint Horse Association shows under the direction of trainers Wes Stallings or S2 Performance Horses, Nada Wise and Brynne Davis.

At the 2013 APHA Youth World Show they won the 13 & Under Horsemanship, 13 & Under Hunter Hack, 18 & Under Equitation Over Fences, 18 & Under Jumping.

They were also Reserve Champions in 13 & Under Equitation, and Trail and placed third in 13 & Under Hunter Under Saddle and Showmanship

They captured 13 & Under Top 20 All-Around honors from APHA.

“It was a long road to this achievement and it felt amazing to finally tell people ‘we did it!’ It was something I had wanted to do for a very long time and I finally found the horse that could take me there,” Drew says. “This honor actually didn’t sink in until I finally got back on Pancho a month later after giving him some well-deserved time off that I wasn’t in a rush to get back on the road and hit the next big show.”

Drew became involved with horses at an early age after her grandmother gifted her a bouncy horse. She named the horse Midnight and soon after Drew’s parents were taking their young daughter to lessons at a hunter jumper barn.

She remembers clearly the first time she set eyes on Pancho.

“I used to ride with Rockin Bar S show horses and he was out in one of their pastures,” she recalls. “Peyton Weldon used to show him and so did a couple of their clients, but he had not had someone riding him for about a year and half to two years. Mom loved him. Pancho and I at first did not click at all. When I first pulled him out of the pasture he bit me…. and somehow we finally starting becoming a working partnership that became a friendship.”

A ninth grade student at Tomball Memorial High School, Drew says she enjoys going to shows to have fun outside of school and see all of her “horse crazy” friends.

“My trainer, Wes, and my family motivate me to show because they know I am good at it and I really enjoy it,” she says.

“My goal in horse showing is to find a new project horse and teach it to jump and drive and hopefully try to run for number one in the 14-18,” she says.

Drew’s goal outside of showing is to graduate high school in the top 10 percent and get accepted into an engineering school at a college with an equestrian team.

“I would like to become a chemical engineer because I would like to work in an interesting field but also have some sort of variety in my life away from animals,” she says.

But for now she is just enjoying her friends at school and the shows and spending time with her family.

Over this past Easter vacation, she had the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica with her mother and father, Jessica and Nick Drew.

“I am not an art girl and I definitely am not a big fan of museums so getting to go and surf and see wild animals in the parks was really cool,” she explains. “My favorite animals were the monkeys. They would come up to you and beg for food, and they were so cute!”

At home, Drew says that while she is borderline Obses sive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) about her horse equipment, her bedroom is another story.

“I make sure my equipment goes in the trailer the same way every time, yet I can not even fully walk around in my room because I have so much stuff on the floor,” she admits.

Although she has no brothers or sisters, Drew shares her home with two yellow labradors, Maggie and Tessie and she loves to watch Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, Deadliest Catch and The Blacklist on TV.

“The school kids mostly think im a horse crazy girl that lives in her boots, Drew says. “But my true friends know how much work I put into my horse and know that I have the chance to take this to the top and be the best I can possibly be.”