Colleen Rutledge – A Class Act, Part 1

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Colleen Rutledge and Shiraz (Luke) making light work of the Bughley CCI**** cross-country course, the biggest in years. Photo used with kind permission of the incomparable Nico Morgan.
If Colleen Rutledge and Shiraz had slipped under your radar despite finishing 12th at Rolex this spring, then their impressive cross country round Burghley surely must have caught your eye. 
In what was widely described as one of the biggest courses in years, this pair skipped round it as if they were at their local pony club hunter trial, lowering just one rail the next day. Colleen wrote a wonderful, and very frank, blog about her journey, and juggles her equestrian endeavours with three children, two of whom face extraordinary challenges. As if we needed any more proof of her grace, strength and class, she is in the news again recently because her name does not appear on any of the USEF Training or even Developing Rider Lists.  Colleen kindly talked to me this week, about Luke, what drives her, and her immense gratitude and surprise at everyone’s reaction to those lists. 
First things first, how on earth did she find Luke, an OTTB with a bit of a difficult streak?
“He’s unlike any horse I’ve ever had before. A really good friend of mine had found him in a barn being marketed as a jumper. He came on the market in June, and it took me about six months to figure out a way to buy him, and he actually stayed on the market that long, and I ended up buying him in October, but the funny part is, I had never sat on him! I never rode him before I bought him because I was nine months pregnant with my youngest!  The girl who had found him was such a good friend of mine though, that I rang her up, and ran through about a thousand hypotheticals, and she assured me that he was very similar to another horse I had, and it was as if I knew him already. I drug my mum down to see him, I was grossly pregnant, we actually bought him one month to the day before my daughter was born.  That was the only thing my mother was worried about – that the first time I rode him I would be coming off my pregnancy and not having ridden,  and Luke hadn’t been ridden for six weeks either and didn’t know me. The first day all we did was walk, and he threw a temper tantrum like you wouldn’t believe; it took him a little while to figure out that I really didn’t care and ever since then he has constantly tried to figure out what he is supposed to do. Instead of seeing what he can get away with, he tries so hard, and that’s why he’s an amazing horse.”



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“I loved him from the first moment I ever saw him but I knew that he was always going to be tough in the dressage – his confidence level is not high in the dressage. He’s always been so confident about his jumping and I knew that I was always going to be playing catch-up in the dressage.  When we went into the ring at Rolex that was the first time we’ve ever had him go into the ring and have him relax in a dressage ring and I was thrilled with him. At Burghley we turned up the fire on him a little bit more to see if we could get a bit more out of him, and he was better. My score didn’t reflect how much better he was; my dressage trainer Linda Zang has watched the test and also feels that he should have scored much better, and I believe her!”
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Colleen trains with Jimmy Wofford, and told me they started thinking about Burghley fairly soon after such a good run at Rolex,
“After Rolex I sat down and talked to Jimmy for a while about what the plan was and what he thought, and my biggest concern was how much money it cost because I have to pay for it myself. My goals have always been to ride at Burghley and to ride at Badminton because, come on, they are what they are….!  That’s always been a dream so when I had a horse that I thought could possibly do Burghley then I was totally for it, it was just a matter of figuring out the logistics.”
Check back tomorrow for part 2 from Colleen, including her quest for Badminton, more from Burghley, and her wonderful family.  See you then!
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