FINALLY! Finally. I don’t know long I’ve been waiting for this moment, but the rain here in the UK has, after about a solid year, stopped. Okay, yes, it’s now so cold we can all barely function; okay, sure, we’ve now got intermittent snowfall to deal with — but it’s dry. And man, I’ve not been hit with such a burst of motivation in a hot minute. I think we all feel like we can crawl out of our caves and actually start planning the year ahead now, and that’s a really great feeling.
You might have seen the Landmark prefix out and about at events. But where do all these talented eventers come from? Go behind the brand at Jacqueline Mars’s breeding program with the USEA and find out more about how the team is hoping to create a source for super horses at home in the USA.
In the mood for just, like, a lot of reading today? Thoroughbred news hotspot The Paulick Report has been going back through their most-read stories of 2023, and there’s some real doozies in there. Dive on in and remember the year that was.
Lunging at shows can be a pretty fraught sort of venture. The solution? Everyone committing to getting a little bit better at doing it properly and understanding the actual benefits and risks of it (and no, the benefits don’t really include ‘tiring him out so he behaves in the ring’). Tune up your skills with this video tutorial.
Alas, we won’t get to see India’s Fouaad Mirza and his incredible Seigneur Medicott in Paris. The former Bettina Hoy mount, with whom Fouaad shot into the spotlight at Tokyo, has been retired from competition at the age of 18 after contributing so much to building the profile of equestrian sport in India. Relive his sparkling career here.
Sponsor Corner: A New Year means new stickers from Kentucky Performance Products! Check out the gorgeous sparkly horse you can collect for Winter 2024. Plus, get a free infographic on winter horse care.
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If anyone needs me this week, you can probably just find me watching the FEI Vaulting World Cup Final: a sport I do not understand in any way, but am deeply, deeply fascinated by. Probably because I’ve never even managed to do a cartwheel successfully, let alone any of this.
Do you ever see a meme and fail to see it as, well, a meme, but rather as a guide to life? Because look, I’m going to be real with you: when my EN teammate Allie posted the above in our group chat with a cry-laughing emoji, I was like, ‘wait, am I okay? Because right now, I’m halfway out the door with all my horse’s manky saddle pads to go see if I can get away with this’. Is it a slow news day? Maybe. But maybe it’s time that we all accept that sometimes, social media designed to mock us is actually guiding us towards the light. Also, NAF leg clay makes a great purifying face mask. Take that for what you will, and please, please pass your own dubious horsey life hacks on to me, too.
National Holiday: It’s National Bubble Bath Day. Fight off the sudden chill in the air with a good post-barn soak today. You’re worth it. NAF leg clay mask optional, obviously.
US Weekend Action:
Sporting Days Farm January Horse Trials I (Aiken, SC) [Website][Results]
Your Monday Reading List:
It’s a fond farewell to Possible Mission, who has been such a stalwart part of Britain’s 5* scene for so long. Tom Rowland’s sweet, game, gutsy partner will now enjoy a semi-retirement to the hunting field and the junior classes, having stepped down sound, fit, and well at the age of 17. Look back on his sparkling career with Horse & Hound’s retrospective here.
Okay, maybe it’s not totally relatable, because I, for one, am definitely not in the market to purchase a property. But if you are, or if it’s something that’s potentially on the horizon for you, maybe you just need a bit of a positive push to dive on in. Let this one be the one for you. It’ll be hard, sure, but it could be the best thing you ever do, right?
A lot of folks are struggling to get their hands on good hay at the moment. This time of year is the worst for getting good quality forage, especially if you live in an area impacted by crap weather (hi, hello, it’s rained for about a year straight here in England; send help). But forage is also the most important part of your horse’s diet, so what can you do, really? The answer may lie in forage alternatives – and here’s a handy primer into your options.
David Doel was one of the real stars of 2023. But, frankly, he’s quietly been a superstar since long before then: after all, his second-place finish at Burghley wasn’t even his first five-star top ten finish with Galileo Nieuwmoed. Get to know the ice-cream-making, cow-milking, incredibly hard-working chap behind the results – and find out what he’s hoping to aim for in 2024 – in this interview.
Morning Viewing:
Enjoy this slightly bonkers BBC Archive clip, in which Hutch learns to ride at Hickstead. Britain! In the 80s! What a time. A weird, permy time.
Laura Collett and London 52 prove their class over a tough Badminton track to win in 2022. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.
This year’s MARS Badminton Horse Trials marks a very special occasion indeed: it’ll be the 75th anniversary of the world’s first five-star, which began in 1949 as a way to build strength in depth in British eventing. Not only that, but it’s also the first year that we’ll see equestrian benefactor behemoth MARS Equestrian in the title sponsorship role – and already, the positive effects of this appointment are in evidence. This year, we’ll see the prize pot increase by a chunky 12%, making the total purse an impressive £425,000 – the richest in eventing. For the winner, that’s excellent news; they’ll take home £117,600, and we’ll see prize money increases throughout the line-up, too.
The spring five-star season in an Olympic year is always particularly interesting: for those horses and riders who have something to prove for selection, events like Badminton become even more important, while many of the ‘shoo-ins’ for selection will be notable in absentia as they keep their horses on ice for Paris. That means that the competition is particularly fierce as competitors vie for selector attention, and it can also mean that the horses and riders that may have snuck under the radar previously get their opportunity to take the spotlight and swing upwards into superstardom.
And, of course, it’s particularly fitting to have an anniversary year of this special event tie in so neatly with the Olympics – after all, it was the 1948 London Olympics that inspired the formation of the Gloucestershire fixture. That Olympics marked Britain’s first-ever three-day event, but the home nation didn’t cover itself in glory – and Henry Somerset, the 10th Duke of Beaufort, offered forth his estate as a way to improve upon their performance by creating an event at home in England that would provide all the experience necessary to compete on the world stage. It’s pretty safe to say that the job was done, and admirably: in 1956, the British team took the Olympic gold in Stockholm, and since then, they’ve been one of the most formidable nations in the sport. They’ll head into Paris as the reigning team champions, and no doubt we’ll see some previous winners of Badminton among the line-up.
“Badminton is the competition all riders aim for and competing there has undoubtedly played a big part in my career,” says the 2023 winner Ros Canter, who a few months later went on to become the European champion riding Lordships Graffalo. “I think we are all really excited to be part of its history this year.”
“We are very much looking forward to welcoming everyone—riders, owners, officials, spectators, sponsors, tradestand holders and contractors — to Badminton’s big birthday,” says Event Director Jane Tuckwell. “We are delighted to be able to increase the prize money across the board, as befits such a prestigious occasion. We have some exciting plans to make this a really memorable occasion and are particularly delighted that it coincides with Mars’s first event as title sponsor.”
Badminton TV will be screening plenty of historic and preview material in the run-up to the event as well as livestreaming all the action. All details can be found here.
Priority booking for the event is open and 10th January will see the general release of tickets. All tickets for the event must be purchased in advance – there will be no tickets available on the day at the gate.
We’ll be bringing you plenty of extra content in the run-up to Badminton this year, including in-depth insights into the history – and the impact – of one of our favourite events. Keep it locked on EN, and join us for all the action.
December’s London International Horse Show isn’t just the destination for festive vibes, great shopping, and top-class showjumping – it’s also a seriously cool opportunity to learn a thing or two from some stars across the disciplines, an endeavour that’s growing year on year. One of those learning opportunities in the showcase arena, which is tucked into the shopping village, came from British eventing team Performance Manager Dickie Waygood, who spearheaded a fascinating demo that criss-crossed the levels. One of his riders, Olympic gold medallist and three-time five-star winner Laura Collett, showed off how to produce and school a top-level horse — in this case, the handsome Dacapo — while seasoned vlogger Meg Elphick showed how to translate those exercises to the lower levels, riding her Badminton grassroots partner, Jam. So many masterclasses feature riders and horses with heaps of international experience, so this rare opportunity was a very welcome one indeed. Relive the whole shebang with this great video, posted by Meg, and take plenty of inspiration for your next jumping session.
Fun in the sun: early-season eventing in Portugal returns for 2024. Photo courtesy of Shadow Film/Mato do Duque.
Up until its final running in 2022, Portugal’s Barroca d’Alva was the place to be for eventers looking to gain early-season runs and qualifications – and almost legendary communal barbecues ahead of the year to come, too. It’s been a much-missed fixture, but now, the team at Mata do Duque is bringing this multi-week tour back for 2024, offering riders the chance to nail down their Paris qualifiers nice and early, and give their less experienced horses valuable exposure and runs, too.
Mata do Duque is set in Canha, close to Lisbon – and close to Barroca’s venue, too. While this is its first time hosting the season starter, it’s not a totally new event: we saw it run successfully last October most recently, and, in fact, its history within Portugal’s eventing season goes back way further than that, too. It was the host of Portugal’s first-ever FEI three-day event back in 2000, and continued on the next year, too, before passing the reins to Barroca.
Now, with a new team of organisers, several of whom are international competitors themselves, the event marks an exciting start to a busy season. The first week of the Portuguese Spring Tour will run February 17–20, with international classes held at CCI1*, CCI2*-S, and CCI3*, while the second week, which runs from February 28 to March 3, will host CCI1*, CCI2*-L, CCI3*-L, and CCI4*-S classes, the latter of which is the first Northern hemisphere Olympic qualifier of the 2024 season and a useful opportunity for picking up a ‘confirmation’ result, required at this level or above, to tick the final boxes for Paris, or to solidify the list of MER results required for selection.
To take a closer look at the venue and get a taster of the event to come, check out this preview video – and for more information on the event itself, head over to the Portuguese Eventing Association’s Facebook page.
Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo: your 2023 Badminton champions. Photo by Nico Morgan Media.
Off-season blues, be gone: the start of the international season might still be a little ways away, but it’s never too early to start planning the highlights of your year. And if that includes a trip to the MARS Badminton Horse Trials – which, let’s be real, we highly recommend – then you’re in luck this week. The box office is now open for priority bookings for this year’s event, which is set to take place from Wednesday, May 8, to Sunday, May 12 at the incomparably beautiful Gloucestershire estate.
Though Badminton, the world’s longest-standing five-star event, is always well worth the trip, this year is particularly exciting for a couple of reasons. The first of those? Simple logistics: while we’ve gotten used to seeing Kentucky and Badminton run on back-to-back, truly helter skelter weeks, this year, we’ve got a week off between the two events, which means you could feasibly recover from one, get yourself across the pond, and be fully energised to take in the next, too – and the same holds true for riders, who’ll find it easier to enter horses in both competitions this year. The other, of course, is the Olympics. While some of the very obvious Paris candidates probably won’t come forward – we’re likely to see, for example, Ros Canter’s 2023 champ Lordships Graffalo kept on ice, rather than running again – there’ll be plenty of riders who know they need a super spring result to make themselves frontrunners for selection, and so the tension and the excitement will be at a fever pitch.
Priority ticketing, which opened yesterday, is available for anyone who has previously purchased Badminton tickets and, as such, created an account on the event’s ticketing server. If that’s not you, don’t worry – general sales will open on January 10 (that’s next Wednesday!) and you’ll be able to get your mitts on a number of different access options, from daily general admission passes to week-long members’ badges, reserved grandstand seating, and much, much more. We like to think that after last year’s wet weekend, we might be treated to a bit of glorious sunshine this year. Perhaps. And if not: Badminton truly is every bit as fun in the rain. Just pack your waterproofs, and get your tickets here.
I don’t know about you guys, but for me, the 2nd of January feels much more like the first day of a new year than the 1st, which is traditionally spent sleeping, eating, recovering, and dissociating (look, I used to work with horses full-time, and now I lean hard into lazy girl life when I can). Today, though, I feel like I need to actually get up and do something useful, even if that something is just planning and getting excited about the year to come. And what a year it’ll be, for us here at Team EN and for you, our expansive family who come with us on all our adventures. It might be a bit of a cliche to say it, but I really do reckon this year’s going to be our biggest and best yet. Buckle up and let’s get this rollercoaster ride going!
The King’s New Year Honour List has been released, and it’s got a horsey heroine of sorts on it. Jilly Cooper — bestselling author of showjumping bonkbuster Riders and saucy polo epic Polo, among her many brick-sized books — has been made a dame, proving that sticky bushes and horses who eat the fruit from the Pimms jar are the UK’s true national treasures. That’s what I call jolly super.
The term ‘long and low’ gives me the fear. That’s probably unfair of me; after all, my trepidation comes from spending my early teens riding at an Appaloosa show barn in rural Maine, where long and low meant catatonic, nose-dragging, four-beat jogging two-year-olds and certainly not anything that would be productive or good for the horses. But despite its dodgy associations — and yes, it remains debatable in the dressage world, too — a good, balanced, back-lifting stretch that lengthens the neck can be a really good thing to utilise in your rides. Here’s how to do it properly, avoiding a wrestling match and, well, rollkur.
It’s resolution time, and if yours is to tackle a traditional three-day event this year, you’re in luck. US Eventing has just released its 2024 Classic Three-Day calendar, plus info on ensuring you’re qualified and ready to take on this incredibly fun challenge, which is such a super goal for riders across the lower levels. Check it out and get those dates in your diary.
British 5* rider Izzy Taylor’s year began… well, a touch more dramatically than most. This morning, she received sentencing for a case that’s been ongoing for what feels like forever, following a breach of fire safety regulations at her Oxfordshire yard. The good news? She won’t be going to jail — but she will be downsizing to a smaller property going forward. Find out more about it here.
Sponsor Corner: The best source of vitamin E is fresh green grass. In the winter time, it’s easy for our horses’ Vitamin E levels to drop low. Signs of low vitamin E include neurological problems, a damaged coat, and eye & muscle issues. Learn more in this graphic from Kentucky Performance Products.
Watch This:
I’m always keen to try new disciplines, and side saddle has been on my list for a long time — so I’m living vicariously through grassroots eventer Lucy Robinson as she gives it a go:
Happy New Year, EN fam — and good riddance to the last one, frankly. This year, I’m all about setting goals and aims — but I’m also learning that setting intentions and making space to give myself the grace I’d afford other people is even more important than trying to tick boxes. My best friend has been a great resource in teaching me how to prioritise slower, gentler joy — and make the most of my time with my horse — and I’m excited to follow her lead throughout 2024 as she launches her equine-assisted therapy centre, which focuses on improving mental health, aiding adults with ADHD, and much more. Give her account a follow, and join me in committing to being a more positive force in your own, and other people’s, lives in 2024.
National Holiday: It’s New Year’s Day, in case you missed that. And that means… we’re officially in an Olympic year! My stress levels are rising already.
Your Monday Reading List:
Further research is being undertaken into the murky subject of judging bias. Can it be overcome or balanced out, or is AI the future of dressage judging? Read some salient thoughts on the matter here.
One of the most useful things you’ll ever learn is how to wrap a hoof. But depending on the nature of the injury and the use of the bandage or poultice, you might need to adjust how you do the job — so if you want to ensure you have at least five functionally educational minutes today, give this handy primer a skim, because you KNOW your horse will give you a reason to need it soon.
On the first day of the year, most people are dwelling on their resolutions for 2024. Looking beyond that, though, what should the horse world at large be aiming for over the next 365 days? From increased diversity efforts to improved horse welfare, here are some resolutions we’d love to see us all collectively stick to.
Morning Viewing:
It’s always useful, as an amateur rider, to see a professional on your horse occasionally — and it’s also, oddly, quite educational to see it when it’s not even your horse:
It’s all I can do, really, to muster up a tiny scrap of energy in my post-Christmas Day food coma to share the sentiments above with a hearty “same”. I hope you’re all enjoying a bit of down time after a hectic season — and if you need an excuse to take five, enjoy my pick of the reads of the day.
Every year, The Chronicle shares this tear-jerker of a Christmas story, and this year is no exception. It’s a sweet read on helping others’ dreams come true and grabbing your own by the horns, too, no matter how late in the game you might find yourself. It’s fine if you have a tiny little cry.
There are few eventers as ineffably cool and effortlessly glam as Ginny Elliott, and I never, ever get bored of deep-diving back into her horses and escapades of years gone by. If you, like me, want to be even a quarter as cool as this sporting pioneer, you’ll love reading some of her memories this morning as you get that first coffee of the day in.
And finally, Christmas Day might be behind us, but I’m stretching my festivities out for another few weeks. I mean, it’s going to take me at least that long to bother taking the tree down, so might as well, right? That’s why I’m telling myself that it’s not too late to share this horsey version of the Night Before Christmas.
Sponsor Corner: The best source of vitamin E is fresh green grass. In the winter time, it’s easy for our horses’ Vitamin E levels to drop low. Signs of low vitamin E include neurological problems, a damaged coat, and eye & muscle issues. Learn more on this with a handy graphic from Kentucky Performance Products.
Watch This:
Catch up with Elisa Wallace and mustang Dior as they tackle their first show together:
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours from all of us here at Team EN! It’s been a year of extraordinary highs and crushing lows, with major victories and also plenty of sad goodbyes dotting the year gone by. Now, we hope you can all take a moment — or more — to celebrate all you’ve accomplished (or, perhaps, survived) this year and raise a glass to a new one to come. Eat, drink, be merry, and if all else fails, we’ll meet you in the barn!
Your Monday Reading List:
For some towns and cultures, horses aren’t just a part of the Christmas morning chore list — they’re a major player in the traditions of the holiday, too. Get to know how horses help make Christmas complete around the world in this round-up guide.
Is your New Year’s Resolution to buy the young horse of a lifetime at an elite auction? Great plan, if so — we’re huge fans of heading to Ireland, say, for a jam-packed couple of days of analysing quality horses and bloodlines and then losing our minds on auction day. But the whole thing can seem pretty intimidating, so it’s worth checking out this guide to getting it right as a buyer at your first auction experience.
Merry Christmas to everyone, but mostly to Sidelines Magazine’s Hot Horseman of the Year, Woods Baughman. Here at EN, we take this accolade and accomplishment very seriously, and definitely aren’t planning to get a series of comedy T-shirts made for Woods to don at trot-ups while we continue to bully him mercilessly on the internet. Definitely not. Anyway, you can read more about our favourite walking stud muffin here.
Got an unhorsey other half in need of a crash course in, well, horsing? Perhaps the time has come to sign them up for a comprehensive online learning course — or, I guess, you could just hand them a shavings fork and let them learn the hard way.
Morning Viewing:
Sneak in some festive polework with this set-up, the installation and execution of which should get you away from your family for a good hour or so:
Tokyo Olympic individual gold medallist Amande de b’Neville will not return to eventing after a break from the sport that began after the Pratoni World Championships last year, at which she won team gold and individual silver with Germany’s Julia Krajewski in the irons.
“I suppose many people are wondering how Mandy is doing and what’s next for her,” writes Julia in a statement on her Instagram. “First of all she is doing absolutely fine, spending her life in the most horsey way (lots of field time) and being her usual proud self.
“About what’s next for her — to be able to give a reliable answer to that question has taken quite some time and consideration… She is an incredibly special horse to us and every decision about her has to do her the best justice possible! To make it short, she will not return to sport but hopefully become as wonderful as a mummy as she was in eventing.”
Julia Krajewski and Amande de B’Neville. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
The decision, Julia continues, “was taken together with her part owner Professor Dr. Bernd Heicke, who is the most supportive owner in these difficult topic, always having the horse’s best interest in mind!”
The 13-year-old Selle Français mare’s (Oscar des Fontaines x Perle de b’Neville, by Elan de la Cour) absence from the sport began with “a hoof issue […] which in itself is not very dramatic”, but despite the dedicated ministrations of Julia and her team, including head groom Sandra Decker, it “simply didn’t improve as we hoped since then, despite all sorts of approaches in treatment. While it does not make her uncomfortable in normal life, there is a risk that it might get way worse when the pressure of performance is put on. Even though there also is a little chance it could work, we decided against trying it.”
Julia Krajewski and Amande de b’Neville. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
For Julia, co-owner Bernd, and all of the special mare’s connections, it’s been a labour of love and a major decision to retire Mandy from sport and begin her career as a broodmare.
“Everyone is to judge himself what chances are right to take, but I felt that Mandy gave me so so much, being the most outstanding horse, making all my dreams come true, that my biggest fear would have been to fail her in return and not deciding in her best interest,” says Julia. “Honestly though I’m feeling ambivalent about this final decision… while I am very sad that I will not feel her incredible power, clever mind, scopey jump and sheer determination, which then sometimes peaked into this unreal connection I felt in Tokyo or Pratoni at the last day, again, I am very much at peace with the decision to retire her now and hopefully have some nice foals from her in the future.”
If those foals live up to half their mother’s talent, they’ll certainly be worth getting excited about. In her FEI career, which began in the latter half of 2016, Mandy tackled 31 international events, finishing in the top ten 21 times and winning four times. Though she spent the early part of her upper-level career in the spotlight of her stablemate, the five-star winner Samourai du Thot, she blossomed at exactly the right time: in 2021, just before the German team’s final selections were made for Tokyo, and just as Julia had to retire ‘Sam’ after he lost an eye.
“At the beginning of the year, I deleted all of the Tokyo deadlines and cancelled flights and things, because I thought, ‘okay, well, it’s not for me this year,’ and then we went to Saumur and I had to say, ‘oh, maybe we can go — better cancel the holiday!’,” Julia told EN at Luhmühlen that summer, just weeks before she took the gold in Tokyo. “She’s really come into her own this year — she’s stabled next to Sam, so perhaps he’s telling her a few things. She’s so cool — she’s a real princess, and sometimes a queen. She’s quite a fighter, and a real machine.”
Happy retirement, Mandy – we look forward to covering the successes of your offspring in the years to come.
Apparently the lead-up to Christmas is also ‘vlogmas’ for those thus inclined — and that means plenty of horsey hijinks over on YouTube, some of which are actually pretty fascinating. For example, this video from British eventing vlogger Meg Elphick, who headed up north to Nicola Wilson’s Yorkshire yard to get a lesson from the former European Champion — and to catch up with her about life on the other side of a major accident. It’ll certainly make you feel grateful for all you’ve got as we head into the holidays proper.
It’s been an admittedly tumultuous period for the Irish eventing team, at least as far as leadership is concerned: after the temporary suspension of team manager Sally Corscadden, who was cleared after an investigation into training practices concluded in July, the team has been operating under the interim management of Swedish Olympian Dag Albert. While the outcome of the case against Corscadden went public in September and HSI, at the time, said that it had not yet confirmed whether or not she would return to her role, in early November, it was announced that Corscadden and HSI would be parting ways, ostensibly amicably, with each thanking one another for a fruitful period spent together — one which saw Corscadden lead the team to team and individual silver medals at the 2018 World Equestrian Games in Tryon.
Now, though, with the Paris Olympics inching ever closer, the Irish can sleep a little easier knowing that they’ve once again got a permanent team in place to steer their ship at the Games. Dag Albert has been confirmed as Corscadden’s official successor, taking on the title of High Performance Director for Senior Eventing, while double Irish Olympian manager Sue Shortt will step into the role of Junior Manager, alongside managing Ireland’s Junior and Young Rider eventing teams.
“I am delighted to lead the HSI High Performance Eventing Team to Paris next summer,” says Albert, who stepped into the role in an acting basis in 2022. “Having lead the team to qualification in Pratoni, Italy at the 2022 World Equestrian Games, it is a great honour now to build on that success, and lead the team to the 2024 Olympic Games.”
HSI Chief Executive, Denis Duggan, says: “We are delighted to have secured Dag’s services as High Performance Director for Senior Eventing in what is a very exciting period for Irish eventing. Equally, we are pleased that our existing Young Rider Manager, Sue Shortt will assume additional responsibilities for the Junior Programme while Dag focusses on the Olympic programme over the months ahead.”
“Dag has done a fantastic job at underage level and in the role as Acting Director over the last 20+ months and he has the utmost trust of the organisation and the athletes as we build towards Paris. He has outlined his plans and hopes for the team and has had really productive conversations with our Acting Head of High Performance Sport, Bernard Jackman – we’re really excited for the future and delighted to have him leading the programme, with support from Sue in the Junior and Young Riders programme along with Jane Kinsella who continues as the Eventing Pony manager.”
All High Performance contracts will run until October 2024, after which a review will take place following the closing of the Olympic cycle — but Ireland, which claimed its first five-star win in over fifty years when Austin O’Connor and Colorado Blue took Maryland in October, can head into the pivotal season to come with a real hope for an uptick in Olympic fortune.
Some of my very favourite events are those that really create a family of the wider team around them — and one of the ways they do that is by treating their volunteers as the essential workers they are and showing their appreciation accordingly. I love that Stable View in Aiken makes sure that their volunteers get a celebration to acknowledge all they do — and boy, are some of those goodies and prizes appealing! If I lived on that side of the pond, doing some volunteer hours there in 2024 would definitely be on my priority list.
News from Around the Globe:
It’s a good day to be a Canadian Mounted Police Horse. When the RCMP put out a call to action to find retirement homes for its Musical Ride mounts, they didn’t quite expect the deluge of interest they’d receive — over a thousand applications in 24 hours, as it happens!
We’ve said some sad farewells to some great horses this year. From Olympic gold medalists to rising star stallions, the logbook of losses covers a wide gamut of talent — and Horse&Hound is looking back at six of them in this piece.
Few things thrill me quite like an unlikely mount succeeding at the upper levels. Or, to put it simply: PONIES. In DRESSAGE. So naturally, all I needed to do was read the first paragraph of this COTH piece to know that I was truly, irreversibly in love with The Hot Topic of SpringSong, who has definitely made himself the hot topic of the sand school. Join me in the fangirl clique.
Hot on Horse Nation: Speaking of dressage, and speaking of things that thrill me — an op-ed, this one on the prolific output of classical dressage armchair quarterbacks on the internet, and why many of their suggestions might be… well, not necessarily rooted in the modern reality of the sport. Give it a read and join in the conversation with your thoughts.
Okay, okay, I know I’ve given you two days in a row of London International Horse Show chat now — but for us UK-based horsey folk, the show is the one true herald of the holiday season. Now that it’s wrapped, as of yesterday evening, I feel like we’re zooming at full speed into Christmas, with all its joys and stresses. It’s only the 19th and I’ve effectively been tied to the oven for two days straight, so my top priority today is buying my horse a Christmas present and getting some quality barn time in — make sure you find a moment to do the same (the barn, not necessarily the present) in all the madness. You deserve a fighting chance at keeping your sanity over the next week. If you can’t actually get out of the house? Take some time to watch 68-year-old John Whitaker jumping nearly two metres to win the Six Bar competition. What. A. Legend.
Grubby eventing types (it’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me) in both Ireland and the UK have something to celebrate this week. Both countries’ governing bodies of eventing have confirmed that dark breeches will be allowed in all three phases of competition next year, which means no more hoof polish marks and, way, way more blissfully, considerably less fear about wearing white breeches while on your period. Hallelujah.
PPEs — totally essential, right? Well, maybe — but for one writer and horse owner, they’ve become a thing of the past. I’m still all for a comprehensive vetting myself, but with a crucial caveat: I’m not looking for perfection, but I do want to be able to manage the horse I buy within the requirements of the role I’m buying it for, illness, injury, or unforeseen circumstances notwithstanding. Check out the argument against them here.
I think that for all of us, 2023 has been one heck of a year: whether because of extraordinary highs or crushing lows or, as seems to be the norm among most of my social circle, a weird and exhausting mix of the two. The start of this year’s season feels like it was both five minutes and five years ago, and so today, I’m sticking on the latest episode of the US Eventing podcast to recap what actually went down while I’m frantically attempting to get through the Christmas baking. Maybe it’ll soothe me — but really, when has eventing ever?
Sponsor Corner: Does your horse have EPM? Or do they have another disease that just masks as EPM? Getting a definitive diagnosis for this life-changing disease can be harder than it looks. Read more from Kentucky Performance Products.
Watch This:
Live vicariously through a lesson with the legend that is Lucinda Green as she teaches 4* rider Ashley Harrison:
Just in case you’ve ever fancied seeing Tom McEwen with tatas, the London International Horse Show is here to sort you out. Last night saw the return of the fancy dress relay, which featured stars including Gemma Stevens, Laura Collett, Austin O’Connor, our Tommy boy, plus a whole load of show jumpers, all gathered to tackle a highly competitive jumping class in the most ridiculous outfits possible. Find out how it went down here, and please do join us in petitioning Land Rover Kentucky to add a similar class next year.
National Holiday: It’s International Migrants Day, which began two decades ago as a way to raise awareness of, and solidarity with, the extraordinary number of displaced people forced to leave their homelands due to persecution, war, famine, or poverty. This year’s theme is ‘Act Today’, and the UN has some bold, bright ideas on how embracing mobilisation can actually help us in the ongoing battle against climate change. Read more about it here. (And an honourable mention to tomorrow’s national holiday, National Emo Day. That’s every day for me, frankly.)
Have you ever utilised visualisation to help improve your rides? It’s a big part of my own riding; the last thing I do before I mount up to head to the cross-country warm-up is visualise riding the whole course perfectly, without any misses, and it really does put me in the right headspace to go out there and find forward, positive distances into fences. But it can be used for so much more than that, too – right down to nailing your transitions.
There’s no one who can maximise the power of a set of cavaletti quite like Ingrid Klimke. Heck, the woman’s so keen on the benefits of raised poles that she even sells her own branded set! Now that I’m deep in equine rehab life, I’m definitely taking all her tips to heart, though, because pole work and cavaletti work is incredible for building strength and has a serious list of knock-on benefits, whatever your discipline or competitive aims or if, like me, you just want to bring your horse back from time off in a sensible, sustainable way. Check out this debrief from her recent California clinic to get some inspiration for your own schooling sessions this week.
How far would you go for your horses? Would you, for example, lie to your husband to the point of divorce? Take a wild ride through one woman’s questionable decision making and then, like me, show the story to your partner so they think you’re really sane and sensible and a great partner.
Looking for an exciting new role in 2024? Want to learn more than you ever thought possible and take your riding to the next level with your horse? Good news: Mr Stickability himself, Andrew Nicholson, is looking for a working pupil. Find out more about the opening here.
Morning Viewing:
There is nothing – NOTHING – that thrills me more than watching non-horsey men attempt to ride horses. Dressage ride Anna Buffini has really given us the goods here.
There’s few things I’m missing more right now than a day out eventing, whether that’s on reporting duties or with my sweet, recalcitrant mare Bella Boo Boo Bopsy Pops (to use her full and official name). While I’m stuck in rainy, dreary England, there’s little chance of any of that sort of action before March — so I’m living vicariously through Elisa Wallace instead. Join her — and me, indirectly — for a spin around the Open Intermediate at Rocking Horse with Renkum Corsair.
Courtney Cooper and Excel Star First Class. Photo by Shelby Allen.
It’s long been a topic of conversation. Amateur riders – the many cultural definitions of that term – have long been identified as the most overlooked subset of equestrians. This is a dilemma that transcends discipline, and within the sport of eventing there remains a yawning gap between the developing rider pipeline and the professional ranks and the amateur rider.
To be fair, options for the adult amateur community do exist. The USEA also has an Adult Rider Committee dedicated to ensuring amateur riders, who make up the bulk of membership, have a voice and a seat at the table. The USEA also offers some grant opportunities for which amateurs are eligible, including the newly-formed Kim Meier “Kick On” Memorial Grant.
In the opinion of many, however, there can never be enough opportunity for everyone – and Courtney Cooper of C Square Farm and Excel Star Sport Horses agrees. Last week, Courtney sent out an exciting press release: she’s decided to offer two amateur riders the opportunity to come and train with her for 7 days throughout the upcoming year. To make the award as amateur-friendly as possible, Courtney’s offering the option to split the training up into multiple weekends or other agreeable chunks of time.
“The time can be spread into multiple long weekends, or taken all at once,” Courtney wrote in the release. This will provide an opportunity for learning and mentorship with a five-star rider. The riders will have access to all Courtney’s program and facilities have to offer, including full courses of Jump4Joy jumps, top-of-the line footing, cross country schooling, dressage training, and horse management.
Courtney knows the grind of the amateur. Sales has always been Courtney’s jam – she first started out selling Cutco knives during college, following that up with a full-time career as an insurance agent.
Courtney Cooper and Who’s A Star. Photo by Leslie Threlkeld.
“I know what trying to balance everything is like, because I’ve done it. I’ve done trot and gallop sets on the shoulder of the road, in the dark, with a head lamp,” she says. “I had a full time career before I did horses full time, and I can’t imagine being a mom or dad and trying to do that as well as a full time career and ride and the balance needed for all of it. A couple of my amateurs get up at 5 am to ride their horses before they go to their day jobs so they can be with their kids after work for their children’s activities. I just felt like amateurs needed a break and some support.”
Amateurs are a vital part of the sport, and supporting them should be second nature to the professionals. “They keep the sport somewhat affordable in this country. Without them, there are a lot of FEI classes that wouldn’t run because they don’t have the lower levels to protect and finance the upper levels. The amateurs may not be filling the entries of the upper FEI level classes, but they support all the upper levels with their entries and therefore support the upper level riders — not to mention they do the bulk of volunteering .”
So what’s the skinny on this opportunity?
Courtney will provide lodging for the recipients and board for one horse for a total of 7 days, taken a week at a time or over multiple shorter periods. The scholarship can take place either in Aiken, SC or Nottingham, PA The recipients will receive daily lessons from Courtney on their own horse(s), with a potential to ride some other horses if appropriate. Recipients may also compete during their time and get support at the competition
More details below.
Who’s Eligible:
Anyone who makes the majority of their living through means other than horses. We will not hold to the strict definition of an Amateur held by the USEA/USEF, so if you teach some lessons but have another career, please apply! You should be actively competing in the last 12 months at the BN level or higher.
Applications should be submitted by December 15, 2023. Courtney and a panel of her Amateur clients will review applications and choose a winner by December 31, 2023.
I can already feel myself inching towards that post-holiday period of absolutely ZERO motivation, which is why I, to steal a phrase from my colleague Abby’s mouth, am high-key excited about this new course offering from our pals at Equestly. A chance to improve my existing skills and add new ones will maximizing the warmth of being indoors? Sign. Me. Up. This might actually encourage me to make the most of dreary January — especially because they’re beginning with a course on self-care rituals for exhausted horse girls. I know we all fit that bill.
Researchers reckon they’ve found the oldest saddle ever yet discovered. The Mongolian saddle was found in a tomb (no confirmation either way whether they released a curse and/or the spirit of a Mongolian warlord in the process, but watch this space) and dates back to the 5th century. Now, everyone’s nerding out in a big way over the construction of the saddle and stirrup rig.
Sponsor Corner: Are you team round bale or small bale? Kentucky Performance Products is debating the pros and cons of round bales in their latest blog. Decide for yourself at this link.
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More from Geneva today — and this time, it’s combined driving, the most indecipherable and bonkers sport going.
We all hope we’ll never need to rely on entities such as the British Eventing Support Trust, but that’s the thing about eventing: no matter how much you plan ahead, don the highest-rated safety kit, and invest in lessons to keep you secure in the saddle, shit happens — as it did to Britain’s under-25 champ and 5* competitor Bubby Upton, who’s recently got back in the saddle after major spinal surgery and rehab. She was helped throughout by the BEST, and we reckon a donation in someone’s name might make quite a nice functional Christmas pressie this season, if that sort of thing is what you’re into. Find out more about their work here.
National Holiday: It’s International Mountain Day. It’s okay if the closest you’ll be getting to a mountain is pushing your wheelbarrow up the frozen muck heap ramp. Solidarity, my friend.
At this time of year, I get much more into things like jump-off lines. And so what a treat it was to follow the Rolex Grand Prix at Geneva in Switzerland, where Richard Vogel and United Touch S gave a masterclass in turns and tight lines to ace the jump off by 2.5 seconds. Scroll down to check out the video, and click here to find out more about how they did it. Interesting, if not necessarily relevant, is this stallion’s breeding: he’s got the same grandmother on both sides, and while this level of inbreeding has obviously worked for him, I sort of hope they don’t plan to breed him. Or at least, I hope they avoid any cousins.
I began reading this story about Bob Giles because of proximity: he grew up in the foster care system in tiny, rural Lubec, Maine, just two towns over from the poverty-riddled area I lived in from the age of 12 to 19, too. But I found so much more in it than just a fellow horse-lover who managed to rise above that rough, tough place. Bob’s a man who’s built to survive, and with a smile on his face — and his incredible story also saw him push through a botched spinal surgery and subsequent paralysis to get himself back to his beloved horses. Imbibe a bit of inspiration to start your day right.
Strangles is something that every horse owner fears. But what happens when your barn is actually hit by it? Ontario’s Tessa Laughton, who runs a busy show, sales, and livery barn, first discovered signs of the disease on September 5, and has since been on lockdown with her team, aggressively tackling the outbreak. She shares the story of how they did it here.
Lillian Heard Wood and Dassett Olympus. Photo by Erin Gilmore Photography.
We’re sad to share the news that David O’Connor and Darrin Mollett, co-organizers of Great Meadow International, have announced that the August FEI fixture in The Plains, Virginia will not run in 2024 due to issues with the extant late-summer date and ground conditions.
“As GMI organisers for the past eight years, we have made the difficult decision not to run the August event at the Great Meadow Foundation in 2024,” said O’Connor and Mollett in a statement released on social media today (December 9). “The last two years have been a struggle with the date in late August. Although we originally were able to control the footing on our tracks, recent events have made that impossible. Although we attempted to move our date, this date change was not granted for 2024. We have also attempted to work with the landowner on improvements to the facility to allow irrigation of the course, but those will not be possible for 2024.”
This year’s Great Meadow International was plagued by withdrawals due to hard ground conditions: just seven of the 22 entrants in the CCI4*-S feature class opted to go cross-country, while 31 of 50 in the CCI3*-S left the startbox – and this was a major driving force behind GMI’s team’s commitment to change at the venue, whether through ground management or a shift in the calendar.
“In fairness to our competitors, our sponsors, our all-volunteer organizing committee, our dedicated volunteers, our local community, and all stake holders in this sport, we wanted to let you know as soon as we did that we will not run at Great Meadow in 2024.”
It’s not all bad news, though, for the GMI team, who ordinarily host classes from Preliminary through to CCI4*-S in August, and have previously been the US host of the FEI Nations Cup, too: they’ve been granted a CCI1*, to run August 24–25, 2024.
“We are working on alternative venues for this date and hope to have an announcement soon,” continued the statement. “In the meantime, we would like to thank everyone for their commitment to this event.”
We hope to see GMI return to the calendar in 2025, and will be bringing you more information and updates as they happen.
With the international season behind us, we now know the full roster of teams qualified for the eventing at next year’s Paris Olympic Games. But until the close of the year, this isn’t actually set in stone – and although the chance for change at this late stage is slim, there’s still some opportunity for wiggle room in the final line-up that’ll come forward at Versailles.
The sixteen qualified teams, as they stand at the moment, are as follows:
FRANCE – automatically qualified as host nation
GERMANY – qualified at the 2022 World Championships, where they won gold (Championship level – CCI4*L cross-country with CCI5* dressage and showjumping)
USA – qualified at the 2022 World Championships, where they won silver (Championship level – CCI4*L cross-country with CCI5* dressage and showjumping)
NEW ZEALAND – qualified at the 2022 World Championships, where they won bronze (Championship level – CCI4*L cross-country with CCI5* dressage and showjumping)
GREAT BRITAIN – qualified at the 2022 World Championships, where they finished fourth (Championship level – CCI4*L cross-country with CCI5* dressage and showjumping)
IRELAND – qualified at the 2022 World Championships, where they finished fifth (Championship level – CCI4*L cross-country with CCI5* dressage and showjumping)
SWEDEN – qualified at the 2022 World Championships, where they finished sixth (Championship level – CCI4*L cross-country with CCI5* dressage and showjumping)
SWITZERLAND – qualified at the 2022 World Championships, where they finished seventh (Championship level – CCI4*L cross-country with CCI5* dressage and showjumping)
POLAND – qualified in a Group C qualifier at Baborowko in May (CCI4*-L)
AUSTRALIA – qualified in a Groups F & G qualifier at Millstreet in June (CCI3*-L)
BELGIUM – qualified at the 2023 FEI European Eventing Championships in Haras du Pin (CCI4*-L)
THE NETHERLANDS – qualified at the 2023 FEI European Eventing Championships in Haras du Pin (CCI4*-L)
ITALY – qualified at the FEI Nations Cup finale at Boekelo for being the highest-placed unqualified team on the series standing (CCI4*-S/CCI4*-L)
CANADA – qualified at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago (CCI3*-L)
BRAZIL – qualified at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago (CCI3*-L)
Notable in the above list is the late substitution of Japan for China – a case in point that nothing is set in stone until the final paperwork is stamped. That eleventh hour celebration for Japan, who were our last Olympic hosts, came after the elimination of leading Chinese rider Alex Hua Tian, whose mount, Chicko, was retroactively eliminated from the competition after testing positive for trace amounts of altrenogest, thus pushing China, who fielded their first-ever eventing team at the Tokyo Olympics, to fourth place at Millstreet and out of contention for the Olympics.
But swapping teams doesn’t always come at such a high cost – and, realistically, doesn’t often happen at all. Now, each qualified nation has until the 8th of January, 2024, to confirm an NOC Certificate of Capability with the FEI, which effectively serves as proof that, when the Games roll around next year, the nation will have enough depth and breadth to be able to field three qualified combinations. For now, they just have to submit a list of at least three horse-and-rider combinations who are already sufficiently qualified — and these combinations don’t have to be the ones that end up going to the Games, they can just be any three combinations, as long as they’re qualified by December 31st of this year. Qualifications can be gained at either a CCI5*, or a CCI4*-S and a CCI4*-L, and require:
a dressage score of no higher than 45 penalties
a clear round or a maximum of 11 jumping penalties across the country, plus not more than 75 seconds on the clock at four-star or 100 seconds at five-star (that’s 30 time penalties and 40 time penalties, respectively)
no more than 16 jumping penalties in showjumping
For the majority of nations, this is a mere formality; a deadline that won’t cause any stress beyond ensuring that the list has actually made it to the FEI. Hosts France, for example, have a huge swathe of sufficiently qualified four-star combinations to pull from; likewise Germany, the USA, the Brits, and many more of the qualified nations have a large pool of contenders to pull from.
But for smaller, developing eventing nations, this can be a slightly more Herculean task – though one that, generally speaking, tends to be pulled off by hook or by crook. Ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, China and Thailand both needed to make good on a mid-November trip to Pratoni in Italy to secure some much-needed CCI4*-L results, and both, with the pressure ramped to 100, managed it, earning themselves that coveted trio of qualified combinations apiece and booking their ticket to the Olympics.
And if they don’t? It goes down to a system called composite teams. If a nation hasn’t, or cannot, submit their Certificate of Capability by January 8, or declines their team place by February 5, they’ll be granted an individual place instead and their team spot will go to the unqualified nation that has the best aggregate score on the Olympic rankings. That’s an individual ranking board, so the aggregate score is taken by adding together the ranking of the three best-placed riders for each unqualified nation. The lowest number gets the spot – and if that were to happen in this cycle, we’d see Spain be granted a team spot. They sit on an aggregate score of 643, miles ahead of any of their nearest competition – but they, too, would need to prove that they had three qualified combinations by December 31st of this year. If they couldn’t do that (they can, for what it’s worth), the composite team would be offered to the next highest-placed team on the composite rankings – in this case, China.
There are three countries on this cycle’s list of qualified teams that look, at first glance, as though the Certificate of Capability might be tricky for them. That’s Poland, who fielded a team at Tokyo but have just 104 riders globally registered to compete in eventing with the FEI — a significant number of which are riding at 3* and below — and Brazil, who, likewise, came forward at Tokyo but have just 26 FEI-registered event riders across the levels, and finally, Japan, who are extraordinarily high flyers in the world of upper-level eventing despite having just 20 FEI-registered event riders worldwide.
Poland’s Malgorzata Korycka and Canvalencia. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
The State of the Nation: Poland
Poland, notably, has ‘lost’ a couple of its prominent riders since the last Olympic cycle: Pawel Spisak, best known for his partnership with the excellent Banderas, hasn’t been seen at the top level since Tokyo, where the pair were eliminated at the first horse inspection, and since then, Banderas has been competed twice by Pawel’s longtime mentor Michael Jung. University student Malgorzata Cybulska, who was part of the nation’s Tokyo team, hasn’t competed internationally since that Olympic debut.
But — perhaps against the odds — the Polish team is safe, though just. They have four combinations who picked up qualifying results between January 1 of this year and now: Julia Gillmaier and Red Dream Princes, who finished ninth in both the CCI4*-S and CCI4*-L at Strzegom in September and October, respectively; 24-year-old former Polish Junior team member Wiktoria Knap and Quintus 134, who were seventh in Sopot’s CCI4*-S in April and fifth in the CCI4*-L Olympic qualifier at Baborowko in May; Malgorzata Korycka and Canvalencia, who rode as individuals at last year’s World Championships and picked up qualifying results in the CCI4*-S at Strzegom in March and the Olympic qualifier CCI4*-L at Baborowko in May; and former Young Rider and Senior Europeans competitor Pawel Warszawski, who qualified Lucinda Ex Ani with a number of eligible CCI4*-S results this year and the CCI4*-L clincher at Baborowko in May.
Marcio Carvalho Jorge and Castle Howard Casanova. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
The State of the Nation: Brazil
Brazil’s footing here is on slightly shakier ground, not least because we’ve not seen the excellent Goliath since he competed at the World Championships with Carlos Parro, which means that the British-based rider hasn’t been able to get out at the required levels this season. But they do still have three riders qualified, and one with multiple horses. That’s Marcio Carvalho Jorge, who ticked the boxes with eight-year-old Royal Encounter at Sopot’s CCI4*-S and Boekelo’s CCIO4*-L, with World Championships ride Kilcoltrim Kit Kat at Sopot CCI4*-L in May and Lisgarvan CCI4*-S in August, and with Pan Ams individual silver and team bronze medallist Castle Howard Casanova at the same events as Kilcoltrim Kit Kat.
He’s backed up by British-based Ruy Fonseca, who’s been exclusively competing at FEI events with Ballypatrick SRS over the last couple of seasons, and who earned his qualifying results at Mallow CCI4*-L in July and Strzegom CCI4*-S in September, and 26-year-old Rafael Mamprin Losano, who qualified his Tokyo mount, Fuiloda G, at Strzegom’s September and October CCI4*-S and CCI4*-L, respectively, after bringing the horse back in August from a period of time out that began after Tokyo in 2021.
Kazuma Tomoto and Vinci de la Vigne. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
The State of the Nation: Japan
For many, if not most, nations, funding for athletes — whether that’s used to buy competitive horses, travel to competitions, or train intensively — is based on Olympic participation, and though we can only really speculate on how Japan’s funding situation changed after they initially failed to qualify for Tokyo at the F&G qualifier at Millstreet, we can be reasonably confident in suggesting that many of the opportunities that had been presented to these riders ahead of Tokyo, where they hoped to win a home medal and spent voraciously on horses in pursuit of this goal, where thin on the ground throughout much of this season. Because Japan hadn’t really put their hat in the ring for the Nations Cup series, their chances to qualify as a team were nonexistent after Millstreet in June; after all, no one can predict a situation like the one they found themselves in, nor would anyone wish that on their competitors.
The relevance of this becomes clear when you peruse the results of the very talented Japanese contingent, the foremost of which have all been based in Europe over the last couple of Olympic cycles. Yoshiaki Oiwa, who led the dressage at the London Olympics and has been a huge presence on the European scene, has had a tricky season and appears to be struggling with horsepower; as such, he can’t be counted for Japan’s Certificate of Capability.
Fortunately, there are three men who’ve managed it for their nation, despite all finishing their seasons in September. Chief among them is Toshiyuki Tanaka, who’s based with trainer and FEI ground jury member Angela Tucker in Gloucestershire, and who clinched qualifying results at Blair Castle CCI4*-L and Hartpury and Mallow’s CCI4*-S classes with former Chris Burton and Bubby Upton ride Jefferson JRA, purchased at the start of the year for the rider, and Tokyo mount Talma d’Allou. Then there’s William Fox-Pitt’s protégé Kazuma Tomoto, who finished fourth individually at Tokyo and qualified the same horse, the former Astier Nicolas ride Vinci de la Vigne JRA, at the Group Qualifier CCI4*-L at Millstreet and picked up qualifying CCI4*-S results at Lisgarvan and Little Downham, where he finished second and first, respectively. Finally, Ryuzo Kitajima got it done with his sole remaining FEI horse — World Champs mount Cekatinka JRA hasn’t been out since withdrawing after cross-country at Pratoni — pulling out qualifying results in the CCI4*-S classes at Chatsworth, Mallow, and Little Downham, and in the CCI4*-L at Blair.
It would certainly have been a whirlwind of consecutive plot twists had China taken their team spot back from Japan on the composite system – but for now, unless something truly bonkers happens in the next few weeks, it looks enormously unlikely. This is the Olympics, though, and all sorts of unforeseen things can happen, so keep it locked on EN for updates as each milestone deadline is hit – and tune back in soon for a look at how individual places are likely to be allocated, and for a full refresher on the three-to-a-team-with-substitutes format we’ll be diving back into in Paris. Àtout à l’heure, horse nerds.
Keeping event horses on the go isn’t a cheap prospect, and riders and owners alike are going in for increasingly creative methods to make it work for themselves. One of those methods? ‘Experience syndicates’ and membership clubs, which are much less costly than traditional syndicates and allow for a group of like-minded people from all over to come together and make great friendships while getting behind the scenes with a horse they love. Britain’s Steve Heal has one such club on the go, helmed by dynamo owner Heather Chapman, and The Holly Hub, which supports newly-minted 4* horse Hagonda, has already sparked some lifelong friendships. We’ll be bringing you the full story of this unusual, very cool horse this week on EN — but for now, try for your own membership in the Holly Hub by entering their festive raffle!
Intrepid Olympian and 5* phenom Gemma Stevens is no stranger to discipline-swapping. She’s spent the last few years tipping much more than a toe into the international showjumping scene, and this month, she managed to secure ownership of Envoy Merelsnest Z, the horse she catch rode around her first Hickstead Derby this year. Next on the agenda? A Puissance debut, at the festive London International Horse Show.
The 2024 Eventing Coaches Program Symposium is swiftly approaching! This next edition will take place at the Florida Horse Park in Ocala from January 30–February 1, and you can find all the info you need to attend here.
Look back on a year’s worth of Classic three-day action with US Eventing’s retrospective. Is a classic three-day on your goals list for 2024? If not, maybe it should be — I hear that once you’ve tackled steeplechase, you’re never quite the same again. Get inspired here.
Farewell to Harald Herzgsell, a much-loved member of Austria’s eventing community, who tragically died while schooling a young horse last week. A full-time farmer and farrier, he only took up eventing after losing a bet — but quickly fell in love with his ‘accidental’ sport, going on to compete for his country at the Rural Riders’ European Championship. Find out more about, and say goodbye to, this great character here.
Sponsor Corner: In honor of Kentucky Performance Products’ 25th Anniversary, you have a chance to win KPP swag or products until December 31st. Here’s how you can win!
Watch This:
Catch up on the finale of the Agria Top Ten Indoor Eventing at the Swedish International Horse Show with this winning round video:
