The Built Ford Tough AQHYA World Championship offers more than just horse showing.

You don't have to ride to compete at the Built Ford Tough AQHYA World Championship Show -- horse judging is one of the many featured contests.

No, Lauren and Kayla Wells are not sisters – they’re not even related at all. But that didn’t stop them from pairing up and entering the team demonstration contest at the 2010 Built Ford Tough AQHYA World Championship Show.

This is Lauren’s third year competing at the Ford Youth World and Kayla’s second. And even though they’ve never shown at the Ford Youth World, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t fearsome competitors – the pair are experienced public speakers and horse judgers.

“This isn’t my first rodeo, I guess you could say,” Lauren laughs.

The girls are impressed with the skill building that public speaking requires of them and have found that the team demonstration contests will pay off in the future.

“Public speaking is going to help you in all parts of your life, whether you have to give a speech in college or in a meeting,” Lauren says. “An important part of life is learning to work in a team. We get to learn from each other, and we work well in a team together.”

The girls both compete in prepared and impromptu speech contests, and they say that team demonstrations don’t vary too much from prepared speech contests.

“[Team demonstration is] an eight- to 10-minute speech that contestants give,” Lauren explains. “You’re basically on a team – two different people. At Youth World, you are able to pick any topic related to horses. This year, the topic that Kayla and I picked was called ‘Higher Education for Your Horse,’ and it was all about preparing not only yourself but also your horse for college, and we thought that was a perfectly suitable topic for us because we’re both heading out to college in a few weeks with our horses.

“But the possibilities are endless with speech topics – you can pick anything from nutrition to training to anything with horses and that’s the beauty about it – that you’re able to pick your own topic. It’s just a lot of fun.”

It’s no secret what they’re looking for. You can learn how AQHA judges score halter classes in this FREE report, Judging Halter. Download your copy today.

Kayla explained that contestants must also incorporate some kind of visual prop into their representation – the girls used a PowerPoint presentation and poster boards.

The girls have spent the summer preparing themselves and their horses to attend Black Hawk College – East Campus, in Kewanee, Illinois, meaning that their research for the team demonstration has been ongoing all summer. But it wasn’t until the past week that they put their research into speech format.

“We’ve both been really busy this summer between horse shows, vacation and just getting ready for school,” Lauren says. “We actually met up last week and wrote the speech and practiced working on it, and we actually spent this whole past weekend working on it.”

Aside from the team demonstration, the girls are also competing in prepared and impromptu speeches.

For the prepared speech contest, they need to practice and memorize their prewritten speeches, but impromptu is a whole other ball game – the contestants are given the chance to draw two topics and then chose the one that they want to speak on, Lauren says.

The girls note that impromptu speaking in no foreign concept for the two of them – the act of speaking on the fly is very similar to giving reasons in horse judging.

While at the 2010 Ford Youth World, the girls will also compete in horse judging. They were able to watch several halter and performance classes before they judged, which helped them prepare by giving them a chance to score the classes out as they watched them. They especially like the new schedule of classes at the 2010 Ford Youth World.

“In years past, with the way that the halter was set up, we weren’t able to watch any live halter,” Lauren says. “Our method of practicing halter before the contest is watching videos in the hotel room. It’s really nice to be able to look at the horses and see them, and we might even think, ‘Wow, those horses might actually even be in the judging contest.’ But it always helps to have those live horses in front of you instead of watching horses on tape.”

The girls are especially impressed with the quality of horseflesh and competitors at the Ford Youth World.

“That’s what’s nice about being at this show – you get to see the best of the best and the best quality,” Lauren says, “And that’s the kind of horses we like to judge – the best of the best.”

The American Quarter Horse Journal is in Oklahoma City for the Ford Youth World’s online coverage. Check out the slide show below (click on each photo to see the caption).

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