CHIMACUM – Sasha O’Meara Crowell, 14, and her horse competed against 126 other youngsters at the 2007 Washington State Fair and came back champions.

The Jefferson County 4-H Rising Star horse club member brushed the brown coat of her closest companion, a pinto horse named U Bet Your Assets, in the dim barn on her family’s 12-acre Chimacum farm on Friday afternoon, and remembered what it was like to win last month at the fair in Puyallup.

“It was really exciting when I heard my name,” O’Meara Crowell said.

“It almost made me cry. I knew that I did a good job. We had a pattern that was posted before the championship event, and I learned it in my head.

“It had to be perfectly memorized and executed to win.”

She competed against sixth, seventh and eighth graders in her intermediate level.

Her titles include grand champion in stock seat equitation, grand champion in bareback and reserve champion in hunt seat equitation.

She also took fourth place in herdsmanship and eighth place in trail.

Getting to the state fair meant she had to do well at the Jefferson County Fair in August. She was a top performer there.