Richard Picken schools Megan O’Donoghue on a nice young OTTB at the Kentucky Horse Park.
As riders converge upon the Kentucky Horse Park for this week’s North American and Junior Young Rider Championships you might be forgiven for thinking it would be a quiet weekend in preparation, but absolutely not! There was still plenty of action taking place as the Champagne Run Horse Trials wrapped up another busy weekend, as well as the Ichthus Christian Music Festival in the Campgrounds, and the USMGA (Mounted Games) World Team Championships in the Rolex arena!
Leo and I decided to head over to the Horse Park on a whim to try and stave off the jet-lag doziness, and could hardly keep up. Practically the first person we saw was Megan O’Donoghue riding a very striking, grey five year old, an OTTB that she found a couple of years ago. After watching her jump him with Richard Picken we went down to the barns to say hello.
Megan showed me some pictures of several other young OTTBs she’s found and they are all pretty stunning, and of course there’s Pirate — three clear rounds at Rolex Kentucky CCI4* in the last three years!
Richard Picken admits to a fondness for the thoroughbred, especially for eventing, “I love the thoroughbreds, because I grew up with them really. When I got more into the show-jumping and went and rode with Ian Millar for six years, and rode for Graham Fletcher and people like that, then I got more into the warmbloods but if I had the choice, for eventing, definitely the thoroughbred.”
Richard has been steadily increasing his teaching workload lately, cutting back slightly on his shipping business and going back to his first love — show-jumping. The timing couldn’t be better as he and his wife Joanie (Morris) are in the process of closing on a 32 acre farm minutes from the Horse Park which they hope to move into within a month.
“It’s too good to be true really; we plan to build a cross country schooling course on it and hopefully next year we’ll build an arena and hold schooling shows and things like that, and give people somewhere to go; it will be a quality facility and I’ll also offer some training.”
The property has a ten stall barn and a house, and although Richard foresees himself perhaps filling a few of the stalls with sales horses, the plan is to keep several open and available for clients to ship in for training. Yes, you may have seen Richard’s name pop up associated with some upper level riders recently, he’s been helping Boyd Martin and Phillip Dutton, and Clark Montgomery in England but you don’t have to be four-star level to be taught by him, you just have to be committed to the job.
“If somebody has a good work ethic and they want to learn then I’m quite happy to train them regardless of how talented they may or may not be, but they’ve got to want to learn. Boyd always wants to learn, and the same with Phillip — he’s a gold medalist but he’ll sit down and listen because he wants to get better. They both still want to learn and I think that’s what makes them great riders.”
Neither does Richard put any restrictions on levels of horses he’ll train, “It gives me a lot of satisfaction to see a young horse come through and progress; I’ve always maybe done more of the younger horses with the jumpers and got a lot of satisfaction from that especially if they go on to a bigger stage.”
Richard has been helping Bill and Rebecca Hoos and proudly mentioned Becca Hoos’ two “beautifully ridden” clear stadium rounds at Champagne Run this weekend on horses they’ve been working on together as a highlight. Richard’s trademark is probably his quiet, gentle manner which he manages to convey to his students.
“It’s the same as the rider to a horse, so if you can keep a rider calm, even if things are going the worst they possibly could, you’ll make them think it’s all good because there’s no point in them going in the ring with that preying on their mind. You always have to think positive. It’s the same as riding a horse, you have to have confidence; without confidence in you they’re not going to do well. You have to train a rider the same way you’d train a horse.”
And what are the chances of seeing Richard himself back in the ring? He did a Mark Todd and came out of retirement after fourteen years in England but then got busy again, “I don’t know if I’ll ever go back in the ring again but I’m really enjoying schooling the horses; we’ll see, never say never!”
Emily Beshear’s Kentucky-bred OTTB Here’s To You grazing with Emily’s mother Linda at the Kentucky Horse Park. He was supposed to be “babysitting” Shame On the Moon, showing the the way up to the Rolex arena as preparation in case they’re here next year, but actually Delta was extremely well-behaved, and Quincy was much fresher and feistier!
Pirate wasn’t the Rolex veteran at the Horse Park this weekend — it was a wonderful surprise to see Emily Beshear’s Here’s To You, fondly known as Quincy, also hanging out in the barns. Since being diagnosed with EPM Emily told me they’re bringing him along to a few things now to see if he can handle the stresses of travelling with an eye to bringing him back to competition in the future, something she told me Quincy is longing for.
This weekend has been a real family affair for the Beshears as Emily and her husband Jeff’s son Nicholas was competing the Junior Beginner Novice Division, his very first recognised event, and he did brilliantly, finishing in 6th place. Emily had a horse in the training division (they won, naturally!) and Jeff was also competing after a long lay-off, and but for a unfortunate fall a couple of weeks ago Jeff’s mother Jane would also have been in the line-up.
We caught up with Nicholas after a lovely clear round cross country and he kindly stopped to chat about his round and what it’s like to compete amongst such an eventing dynasty.
We look forward to more great things from both Nicholas and Sunshine — look out, Mum! In fact, Emily is preparing Shame on the Moon for Blenheim after receiving a Land Rover USEF Competition Grant, and the plan is to run an intermediate at Fair Hill 0ne-day “to get her out and about”, then go to Richland CIC3* and head to England shortly thereafter.
Shame on the Moon (Delta) had a week off after Bromont CCI3*, then a week’s hacking and looks super already so with such a good base of fitness Emily wants to spend the summer concentrating on her show-jumping.
“I think she’s getting better and better but that’s obviously still our weak link, and I think a lot of it is just her learning a little bit of a different technique and getting a bit stronger; she wants to be good, it’s just a matter of timing. I love it at Blenheim and the funny thing is her best show jumping rounds have come on grass so I’m actually quite excited to go there and jump on the grass. I just feel really good about where we finished our cross country at Bromont and knowing what’s in store at Blenheim, I couldn’t think of a horse I’d rather go there on.”
Emily Beshear walks Shame on the Moon up to the Rolex arena with Here’s To You (just seen) as a prep in case they’re here next spring in the CCI4*. Before that they’ll compete at the Blenheim CCI3* in England in September.
Before then though Emily will be coaching the Junior Area IV team this week here at the horse park, substituting for Jon Holling, “It’s very last minute. When I was their age there weren’t many riders doing NAJYRC in my area, we didn’t have a team going and the program just didn’t seem to go in the same direction I was going so it was tricky.
“We didn’t get to train with the coaches beforehand and then we came in and were with someone we’d never met before, so I’m really trying to be cautious with these girls because I have a full understanding of someone new coming in at the last minute, and I want to help but I don’t want to rock the boat. They all got here doing what they’re doing, I’m just trying to help fine-tune a little if we can at this point.”
Wishing Emily and her team the best of luck, and congratulations again on not only surviving such a chaotic weekend, complicated by thunderstorms and rain delays, but coming out on top and with such a fantastic attitude.
“It definitely keeps you grounded having to focus on all those different aspects; the highlight of my weekend was running around the cross country chasing my son around; there’s nothing better than watching the people you care about having a great cross country round, it’s so exhilarating.”
And isn’t that why we do it?! Looking forward to a busy week with the Juniors and Young Riders at the Horse Park. Go Eventing!
