Will Faudree and Mama’s Magic Way. Photo by Liz Crawley Photography.
While many Florida-based pairs have an Advanced run under their belts already at this early stage of the season, others hold back for Pine Top’s Advanced offering, typically known for its pipe-opening, Jeff Kibbie-designed cross country and challenging show jumping on grass. Many the Aiken or Southern Pines-based pro uses Pine Top’s early season competitions as a springboard into other usual spring stops such as the Grand-Prix Eventing Showcase at Bruce’s Field (Aiken, SC) this coming weekend or the CCI4*-S legs at Bouckaert Farm (Chattahoochee Hills, GA) or Carolina International (Raeford, NC) on the East coast.
The entry list at Pine Top is typically a mix of newer Advanced horses as well as those on the CCI5* track. Our two Advanced winners this weekend fall into the latter category.
Will Faudree came out of 2025 in a pensive state of mind. He’s whittled his string of horses down recently — he’s got just two horses (Mama’s Magic Way and Armandio, both owned by Jennifer Mosing / Sterling Silver Stables) actively competing and he says, barring a serendipitous turn of events, his all-consuming team aspirations have receded. Now, with his focus on a return to MARS Badminton with Mama’s Magic Way, who is 15 this year, Will says he’s got little to lose and much yet to learn, despite the accomplishments of his career to date.
“Mason” has always been a tricky horse to ride, Will will be the first to tell you. Last month, after a visit from his longtime coach, Bobby Costello, Will took Mason out for a hack. “I just started thinking about all of the people — Boyd and Silva [Martin], Tim and Jonelle [Price], Jennie [Brannigan] when she based at Phillip [Dutton]’s — and how they always had some sort of eyes on the ground to ask ‘hey, does this look alright?'” Will said. “And the other part of me was, ‘what do I have to lose?’ I have this incredible horse. I’m fairly accomplished in what I’ve done, but the results aren’t what I want them to be, so I need to – how can I make these results better?”
At that point, Will asked Bobby — to whom he credits all of his career success — for more presence. Fortunately, Bobby’s just down the road, so between his visits to Will’s Gavillan Farm and Will trailering his horses to Bobby’s, he’s now been eyes on the ground for every ride outside of a fitness set this year to date.
“It’s been so incredibly helpful because he is a tricky horse with a lot of quirks, and I love every one of them but just having Bobby’s mentorship on the ground has been really great,” Will explained. He used an example of Bobby telling him to almost “over-exaggerate” the release of pressure with Mason, instructing Will to “slow the saddle down, not slow the mouth down” when he was looking for a harmonious response to an aid.
“It’s funny, you can see it in the video of my test where I could feel that Mason was getting ready to kind of grab the bridle and go against me,” Will laughed. “And in my head, my first reaction was ‘don’t you run off with me,’ but then I had Bobby’s voice in my head telling me to over-exaggerate the giving of my hand, and then you see me literally have a loop in the reins in the video. But you know what? It worked.”
So it’s just the pursuit of that tenth of a point better that keeps these guys coming back for another try, and then another. It’s what Will’s really come to appreciate at this stage of his career, especially. “No one can ever become a master in this job because we’re always learning and always trying new things.”
Will plans to route through Carolina International in March before his trip to England for Badminton in early May.
Arden Wildasin and Sunday Times. Photo by Sherwood Holmes for Liz Crawley Photography.
Arden Wildasin is also experiencing her own ongoing evolution of learning, and the first fruit of that labor emerged this weekend in an Advanced personal best dressage score and the win in Pine Top’s other Advanced division with her longtime partner, Sunday Times, who is 19 years young.
Arden and “Mumbles” scored a 34.0 from judge Sue Smithson, and Arden says her work between the white boards this winter has been all about the details and even the relearning of some foundational skills. Her longtime coach, Heidi White, is a proponent of foundational knowledge, so the work you can find Arden and most of her professional peers doing isn’t all that novel or groundbreaking — because it doesn’t have to be.
“I definitely spent multiple tests going in the ring and doing it over and over again, but I think mentally I’ve also changed and realized fast is not the best option,” Arden said. “I’m reframing my brain of feeling too slow versus active, so my brain is changing to realize slow is my best friend — while still riding forward. Which is hard because I’m a fast cross country rider, so it’s hard to be present within each step and mentally thats been the hardest thing. But it’s paid off dividends. Mentally, the patience of each stride slow is your best friend.”
Arden says she’s gone back to counting the footfalls of each gait, working to gain a real understanding of the partnership and acceptance that creates a true execution of what we all know as a training scale. Arden, though, says she likes to think of the scale more as a spiral.
“I see the pyramid as a spiral where you’re always evolving and improving and finding strengths and what was weak is now strong, it balances out,” she explained, using an example of this ‘slow is your best friend’ notion. “Heidi is always a preacher of the basics. We have to have the outside shoulder, be straight, have the back coming up – but also, the realization of what it actually feels like and what the following hand — the acceptance of the hand — is partnership. It’s not, by any means, riding backwards to be slow, but it’s being present and relaxed, which gives you more energy and gives you a bigger stride, so you’re covering more ground and your brain is slower because it’s bigger. It’s not tight, not jammed where everything feels frantic. And then you learn that you can work on something, move on and then come back to that first thing with more strength and a better education. That’s why it’s a spiral, and thinking of it that way keeps you from getting frustrated.”
And she was anything but frustrated this weekend. “If that wasn’t my personal best, it certainly felt like it was,” she said.
Sunday Times was top 10 at the MARS Maryland 5 Star to end his first season at the 5* level last fall. This year, Arden’s aiming for a second run at Defender Kentucky, as long as he tells her he’s feeling good for it. “He owes me nothing,” she said. “He loves his job and his life, and his mentality really helps his body, so he’s really stayed sound and he’s getting stronger and stronger.” Arden’s based out of her family’s Fox Nation Aiken home base for the winter, a facility that hosts boarders year round and also works with organizations such as Detroit Horse Power for an annual hunter pace fundraiser (spoiler alert: anyone can take part in this event on March 15! Click here for more information and support a great cause if you’re in the area). Fox Nation and the Wildasin family are quiet supporters of the sport through multiple efforts, including their recent support of the MARS Bromont Rising program in Canada.
The top three for both Advanced divisions at Pine Top is as follows:
Advanced Test A
1: Arden Wildasin and Sunday Times (42.0)
2: Allison Springer and Vandyke (44.1)
3: Bruce Davidson, Jr and True Belief (45.4)
Advanced Test B
1: Will Faudree and Mama’s Magic Way (39.2)
2: Mary Bess Davis and Imperio Magic (47.5)
3: Alexandra Knowles and Montpellier Scais (55.7)
Pine Top Advanced: [Website] [Scores]
