Wow! What a crazy, but fun, month of Congress I have had! Before I competed in Queen Week, I was able to enjoy the show as a Ranch exhibitor. My horse, Yesiree Its Me, had never been to a major before, so we went to learn and see the sights. He handled everything so well and I am excited to show him in his last Junior year next year!
After my ranch classes, I went home for a few days to prepare to compete for the title of All American Quarter Horse Congress Queen! I arrived back to Columbus on October 4th to kick off the week with an orientation dinner and gift exchange. For the gift exchange, each girl brings a small item as a token of friendship. This year, my gifts were a pair of gloves and boot wallets. While at dinner, we also receive many of our sponsored items, such as clothing and jewelry. After a great night, we were released back to the hotel to prepare for the next week of activities!
Queen week consisted of a couple of full days of taking pictures with vendors and giving them autograph cards to show our appreciation of their support, creating our own hat at the trucker hat bar, touring the Nationwide Children’s Hospital, picking scents and making our own candles, and crowning practice. As for the judged portions of the contest, we had the test (which consisted of questions over the 400 page rulebook, OQHA history, and queen history), the interview (this is a 10 minute interview with a panel of 4 judges), and finally the horsemanship. While my ultimate dream was to win the crown, my minimum goal was to win the knowledge test and place in the middle for the horsemanship and interview portions. This would hopefully put me in the top 3 overall. Going into crowning on Friday night, I knew I had done what I could to set myself up to achieve those goals, and only dreamed of exceeding them. At the conclusion of the crowning ceremony, I came home with a 7th in interview, 7th in Horsemanship, 1st in the test, and the title of 2026 Congress Queen. When the 2025 Queen, Ashlyn, put the crown on my head, I never could have imagined what the following two weeks would hold.
I started off the first day of my reign picking out my Schneider’s Queen jacket, doing vendor pictures, exchanging a handful of items for the photoshoot that evening, and awarding my first Congress Champions. After a quick lunch break, we were off to beat the rain and do my official photoshoot. The photoshoot was definitely an “all hands on deck” situation! We had two golf carts loaded with items and 6 people trying to sort things and get me changed into various outfits and moved into different locations. We finished our shoot just in time, because as we were driving back, it began to rain! After our photoshoot, it was time for me to award a couple more classes and wrap up my first official day on the job.
The following two weeks proved to be just as busy as the first day! Throughout the following two weeks I was on the 6am news, spoke at the EWD lunch, attended the Horse Judging Awards breakfast, served pancakes at the OAQHA Annual Pancake Breakfast (which raised $6,800 this year!), did my official walk during the PBR, spoke to many state government representatives, and handed out awards to over 200 classes! I had someone ask me if I knew how many award pictures I had been in, and that struck my curiosity. Assuming I made it to 200 classes for awards, and handed out 15 medallions to each one, that total comes to 3,000 pictures!
Before I knew it, my last day of the 2026 Congress had come to an end. I have so many amazing memories from just a few short weeks that I will carry with me forever! Rather it’s singing the Congress Champion song (you have to admit, it's pretty catchy after you hear it a few times a day for a couple of weeks), nearly handing out the wrong finalist ribbons, hanging out with the awards team, taking dozens of pictures with guests, making new friends and making connections, or drinking entirely too much coffee, this was by far the best time I could have had! I am already looking forward to my next event.
I hope to see you each down the road!
Your 2026 All American Quarter Horse Congress Queen,
Riata Rouch
