Three Conejo Valley women, dedicated to keeping the Western traditions of horsemanship alive, will compete at the American Quarter Horse Association World Championship Show in Oklahoma City in November.

For Carol Gibbons, 46, of Thousand Oaks, this will be the first time she's attended the event. She's the only amateur rider from Ventura County to make it to the World Championship Show this year in her chosen specialty, trail competition.

She trains at Dunbar Performance Horses in Moorpark, which is run by professional trainer Brenda Dunbar.

Dunbar, 44, and her daughter Ashley, 19, have been to the World Championship Show as spectators for the past several years, but this will be the first time either of them has taken part in the competition. In the Open World Championship, they will be showing several horses that they board and train.

The World Championship Show is the largest single-breed horse show in the world, with more than $2.5 million in prize money, according to the association.

Around 1,000 amateurs qualify each year. Gibbons will be competing against about 40 other riders from North America in trail competition, said Jennifer Hancock, a World Championship Show official.

Brenda Dunbar said that for an amateur like Gibbons to make it to the competition is a huge achievement. "It's taken her years to get to this level," she said.

Ojai-based trainer Jamie Breuklander, who trains horses and riders at Judy Ovitz's Aspen Grove Ranch, agrees.

"It's a payoff for all the hard work, time and money," she said.

What the horse can do

Gibbons fits in her training and competitions around her full-time job as an office administrator for an accounting firm in Westlake Village. She has been riding since she was 3, but it wasn't until four years ago that she decided to devote herself to American quarter horses and Western show competitions.

She boards her horse Cash, known as Whos Zat Pro when he's in the ring, at Dunbar Performance Horses and trains several days a week with Ashley and Brenda Dunbar. To qualify for the World Championship Show, she was in trail competition at five shows, one in Arizona and four in California.

She bought Cash, a 19-year-old sorrel gelding, two years ago and readily admits he has far more experience than she has.

"Cash has been to the World Show several times. He's had several owners," she said. "I am hoping that will help me deal with the pressure and the competition."

Gibbons says she often has to explain to people why she's so passionate about Western riding and her specialty category, trail.

"People relate more to jumping," she said. "There's more media interest in jumping, because of the Olympics, and so people are more familiar with it."

For her, it's what an American quarter horse can do and the traditions of Western horsemanship that inspire her.

In trail competition, riders have to navigate their horses over poles and through cones and bushes without touching them. They have to open and shut gates, pivot in a small space, back out through cones placed in an L-shape and walk and jog over poles on a soft rein.

Ranches becoming rare

Brenda Dunbar boards and trains 40 horses at her stables, and she and Ashley will be showing several of them in the open competition at the World Championship Show on behalf of their owners who didn't qualify to ride in amateur competition.

Brenda Dunbar, who's been training American quarter horses for almost 30 years, says that the Western heritage of the Conejo Valley is gradually being squeezed out, partly because hunters and jumpers are more popular than quarter horses and partly because of the huge surge in land prices and housing tract developments that make it almost impossible to buy and maintain ranches in Ventura County.

"There's no room for horses anymore," she said, pointing to the multimillion dollar estates that have sprung up on the ridges around her stables.

With just under three months to go, Gibbons confesses that she's already pretty nervous about going to the World Championship Show.

"My goal is just to have a good ride," she said. "My biggest thing is that I have to mentally prepare for it. If I can just keep my wits about me, I think I'll be OK."

Brenda Dunbar says the World Championship Show , held in a huge covered arena in Oklahoma City, will be a challenge for Gibbons that's unlike anything she's faced before.

"Once she goes down that tunnel into the arena, we can't help her, and she has to figure it out for herself," she explained.

"At other horse shows, we can be on the rail and as she rides by, we can say things to her. At the world level, it's not the same thing. It's the coliseum!"