Become an Eventing Nation Blogger
ving a super round and I was eagerly awaiting him near one of the big plain fences in the middle to get his photo when I heard he and rider had been eliminated for three refusals at the cannon combination.
d and I was eagerly awaiting him near one of the big plain fences in the middle to get his photo when I heard he and rider had been eliminated for three refusals at the cannon combination.
Hannah Sue has made the transition this year from being ensconced in the O’Connor Event Team to striking out on her own in the Eventing world, although she definitely hasn’t cut the ties completely. With a couple of shiny new sponsors and a successful early Spring season under her belt, I caught up with her briefly at Poplar in the rare moment of quiet between prepping herself and her horses, and riding dressage,
Hannah Sue has made the transition this year from being ensconced in the O’Connor Event Team to striking out on her own in the Eventing world, although she definitely hasn’t cut the ties completely. With a couple of shiny new sponsors and a successful early Spring season under her belt, I caught up with her briefly at Poplar in the rare moment of quiet between prepping herself and her horses, and riding dressage,
Last week saw the launch of Experience Eventing, a website that has been a labour of love and a work in progress for some years. The brainchild of a core of people within the Event Owners Task Force who want nothing but the very best for US Eventing, it’s purpose is to simplify the process of owning a US horse – whether you’re a rider, enthusiast or eventually, a breeder. Our series continues today with Part 2, click here for Part 1.
“The anticipation of going to London, and watching a horse that I own a piece of succeed with a rider of the quality of a person such as Boyd Martin. It’s just as much fun to own a tenth of an Olympic horse as it is to own the whole horse, it’s even more fun because you can link up with other people, and if you have a rider that communicates well, it works very well. A great owner does not have to have deep pockets: with syndication for a relatively small amount of money you can own an eighth or a tenth of a very top horse, or an emerging horse.”
The EOTF’s affiliation with the USEF means it can pass on some very nice exclusive bonuses to Experience Eventing members – there is already an owner’s house booked in a prime location at Greenwich for this summer, course walks and dinners are often organised to be co-ordinated with riders and coaches, and planned photo opportunities with your horse whilst he’s grazing or before warm-up for example, so that owners never feel like they’re being short-changed for time with their horse, or rider. Whereas perhaps it’s true that ten owners might not get individual stable passes, ten owners might not want to hang around the stables feeling in the way, and instead can enjoy themselves as a group and take advantage of the camaraderie and all the other special perks syndication has to offer.
Available for syndication: Ringwood Magister with rider Tiana Coudray at Gatcombe last year
There may also be substantial financial perks available too as a result of the way the LLC is set up, although that should never be the incentive to become an owner. Dr. Holekamp again,
“We don’t want an owner to see this as a tax dodge or a profit-making proposition because it’s neither one, it’s an opportunity to be right up close and personal as a supporter of one of the ‘real-est’ horse sports left on earth. It is absolutely the most real thing I know of that you can do with a horse.”
Dr. Holekamp’s wife Cheryl still competes and judges in dressage, but being members in three syndicates gives them a different perspective altogether,
“It’s a way to be an owner at an international competition, it’s a way to stay in touch with people who are on their way up, it’s a way to have a real connection to a horse that is one of those rare talents that can do upper level eventing.”
Owners in a syndicate need two things, according to Dr. Holekamp, both of which the EOTF delivers. They are,
“To be protected from horse liability: owners have virtually no control over what happens with their horse and yet as owners they have potential legal liability – that’s been pretty thoroughly solved with carefully written LLC structures.”
“A limit to how much support they’re going to be required to give. Sometimes when the sky’s the limit and there’s an unforeseen incident – for example, lots of vet bills, it can turn into astronomical numbers. We don’t want that to happen, we want everyone to know going in that there’s a maximum they’re going to be exposed to. The only really good answer in the absence of federal money to support international eventing, such as in other countries, is to create small bills for people instead of big bills.”
Both Dr. Hart and Dr. Holekamp, as well as all the members of the EOTF have spent countless hours out of their incredibly busy lives making Experience Eventing a reality, with no personal gain except hopefully the satisfaction of improving the lot of US eventing, and I have to wonder why they would bother. Dr. Holekamp tries to articulate it for me,
“I find drama and irony every where I turn in eventing and I never find it in dressage, and I work in both worlds! That’s part of why I love eventing, it’s amazing how exciting some of the things are that happen in this sport and the fantastic excellence you’ll see as a result. It’s one of the last sports in the world where top level horsemanship is consistently rewarded – not occasionally, not accidentally but consistently.”
Many, many thanks to Dr. Hart and Dr. Holekamp for taking extra time to talk to me, and congratulations on the fabulous new website, and of course to Boyd who’s on his way to Southern Pines for the Syndicates’ horses first run of the year. Good luck and Go Experience Eventing!
PS: Boyd told me I was welcome to post one of the Syndicate update videos on here for my story, they are all available on Youtube, so I’ve duly embedded it below for you, but I tend to agree with Dr. Holekamp, it does feel personal to the syndicate members and I felt a bit squeamish watching it, as if I was reading someone’s diary or prying into something I shouldn’t, and I have to admit, as much as I love Boyd I stopped after less than a minute!
Go Neville and Otis this weekend, and keep up the good work Boyd!
“Syndication is a door that allows hundreds of people in eventing in the US to walk in and become part of the sport at the upper level, and the Task Force, without exception, has that as it’s mission. They’re all people who have already passed through that door and would like to have others join them,” Dr Timothy Holekamp, an Event Owner’s Task Force Member told me.
Experience Eventing is absolutely not a service just for the elite though, and nor are the options offered on the website set in stone; EOTF Chairman Dr Mark Hart explained that the website assists in making the process of syndication simpler and more complete and available to all those interested. Anyone wanting to get involved can customize their own agreements in a way that fits their specific situation,
“As task force members we want to make sure we help provide the resources to do the legal research, get specific questions answered, set up the syndication structure to protect everybody and then we let people know that this is what’s available so they don’t have to recreate the wheel. We just want to facilitate these relationships and expand the ownership base, and bring everyone together to help our sport be successful on the world stage. We’ll learn new things as we proceed and discover what needs improvement, what makes sense from a more global perspective, and help these ideas gain traction. We have created a template which is like the model syndicate, which is constantly evolving – we’ve been involved in approximately twenty syndications already, and every time new questions and issues arise. By having a basic outline of what you need to do and a working model,. this can significantly reduce the legal costs to put your specific agreement together benefitting from the work others have already done.”
For example, if you wanted to split a horse into two shares or a hundred, or even five hundred shares, the website has resources to help you do that. Or if you have a horse that you’d like to syndicate and find a rider for, likewise that’s what the website is there for, and eventually Dr Hart hopes it will also showcase US breeding, highlighting exciting, available US bred prospects. Dr Hart stressed however, that some points have to be rigid for everyone’s best interests,
“The LLC model is incredibly important to maximize legal protection for all involved parties.. The website also talks about how eventing syndications are not created for potential profits, it’s for the thrill of participating as an owner in the sport, and the second part of the LLC very clearly states the intention of the syndication and therefore minimizes the risk of security law issues. “
“In many ways Boyd Martin has done exactly what the EOTF was hoping, in sense of being a model – he communicates with his owners, takes good care of his horses, looks out for his own business, and is very, very reasonable in regards to money. Boyd understands, and other people do now too, that the new paradigm of ownership is going to require riders to have some stake in it, instead of simply being employed by the owner (s). Boyd led that way, it was his idea.”
I caught up with Boyd to see what it’s like to be part of a syndicate from a rider’s point of view,
“I owned Neville Bardos in 2010 when he went around the World Equestrian Games, and I was in a financial dilemma where I either had the choice to sell him for a great deal of money, or to try and figure out a way of having the ability to keep him with me throughout his four star career, and so I chose to syndicate him for a lesser number than his actual value just with the idea of getting a little bit of the money back that I’d put into him, and also having ten people come along and get behind him and help me get him to these big events around the world.”
Both Boyd’s A Listed Horses, Neville and Otis Barbotierre are owned by syndicates,
“In 2009 I’d been doing a lot of clinics up in Millbrook,New York and there were a couple of people from the clinic who wanted to help me out a little bit and started making noises about possibly getting involved with a horse, so I jumped on a ‘plane and found Otis in France, and came back to the group with a video, and a proposal with a price and the costs.”
There are now a number of owners who have shares in several of Boyd’s horses, including Ron and Densey Juvonen, who originally came to know Boyd as Remington’s owners,
” At the WEG in 2010 when Remington was probably on just as good a form as Neville was, I always felt a bit awkward that their horse missed out and Neville went, not that they ever made me feel bad or anything, but I often wondered if Remington had been with another rider if he would have got a start giving the Juvonens a horse on the US Equestrian Team. Now, though, they own a share in Otis, a share in Neville and of course Remington, so it doesn’t really matter! “
Obviously this takes the pressure off Boyd somewhat – if he has owners coming to watch two or three horses and one has an off day, chances are the other one will pick up the slack. Similarly, riding for a syndicate is much less maintenance for a rider – Boyd makes the decisions and manages the horse himself,
“The syndicated horses to me are there for my career, to enable me to do what I dream of, they are absolutely not profit-motivated. I don’t intend to make money out of training or shipping or anything like that on a syndicated horse. They are hopefully horses that are going to allow me to compete at the biggest competitions all over the world and make teams on. I actually enjoy the syndicate because it’s more like a big club, and they’re a good, fun group of people; it gives them all a reason to hop on a plane and go overseas, Otis went to Boekoelo and Neville went to Burghley and they’ve all become good friends and will go out to dinner together, and we’ll all go on a course walk, and it feels like the horse has got a bit of an entourage there, so for a rider like myself who enjoys that sort of interaction with people it’s a lot of fun because you’ve always got interesting characters in the syndicate, and it’s nice to feel like you’ve got a heap of support behind the horse.”
The relationship between the rider and the owners in the syndicate is one that must be first chosen carefully, and then nurtured. Boyd took pains to stress to me that as well as vetting his owners carefully, he felt equally certain about the horses he was asking them to invest in,
“It’s got to be a horse that you think is going to take you as far as you can go. It’s got to be as good a horse as you can find. I think it’s important that your intentions are correct, that it’s the absolute right horse and you’re not just trying to pull a “swifty”. Also, there’s 310million people in America and I think you have to use your imagination as to people who might want to be involved in the syndicate – try and find supporters of you as a rider, or the horse or the sport. I actually knocked back a couple of owners who were already supporting other riders, I felt that I could find my own group of owners. I think it’s very important that we as riders try and connect with people who’ll support individuals, or the horse, the team or the sport who haven’t yet been involved with owning horses, we need to find a way to introduce some new people into the sport. I know that the twenty people who have come on with Otis and Neville are having the time of their lives and really enjoying the journey of supporting a horse on the international stage.”
As one of those owners Dr Holekamp receives monthly updates about his horses from Boyd, and he tells me he looks forward to them like a child waits for Christmas,
“They’re video and they’re perfect, I keep them all. I never show them to a single person. Boyd has never made a rule about it and I don’t know if the other owners in the syndicate show them to anyone else, but I feel like I want Boyd to continue to talk to the ten of us like friends, privately, like you would on a telephone call, and that’s how he does it, he’s really good in front of the camera, in fact he’s excellent. I do know that all of the other ten owners in the syndicate feel the same way about one thing though, we’re all awfully proud of him. “
Stay tuned for part two of our Experience Eventing series coming soon and be sure to check out the Experience Eventing website here.
EN would like to thank Kimberley Beldam for sending us this report of the Maryland Horse Trials cross-country derby. Derby-style competitions are a great way to get back in the swing of things early in the season, and are so much fun! Thank you Kimberley for the write-up and photos, and thanks for reading.
What do you get when you combine the technicality of stadium fences, the boldness of cross country obstacles and the amazing facility at The Maryland Horse Trials? The Maryland Horse Trials Cross Derby!
Carolyn and her intrepid crew put on a fun filled two days of show jumping and cross country questions weaving their way through their three all weather footing arenas. Saturday, March 17, began veiled thick in fog, but that didn’t dampen or slow down the enthusiasm of the competitors one bit. Intro through BN levels showed on Saturday, with Sunday ramping it up for BN through Training. This was the first time a Cross Derby was held at MDHTs and the team at MDHT handled the new event in the professional manner we’re all accustomed to.
The event was very spectator friendly, with the three rings being in close proximity, and the crowd and competitors alike rallied through the fog to cheer on their friends and fellow competitors.
The crew at MDHT will be offering a fall/winter series of Cross Derby this year. It’s a great chance to expose new riders and horses to the sport of eventing in a low stress, fun environment, or an opportunity to expose your horse to the next level. Either way it made for a fun filled day!
Canadian dressage rider Kimberley Beldam and her 5 year old Cheval Canadien gelding “Showtyme” thunder through the early morning fog to a 2ndplace finish, showing that dressage riders can indeed jump (if the fences are tiny and no one but the jump judge can see you)
(photo credit: Christine Ganassa)
Christine Ganassa and Best Revenge a 17 year old OTTB gelding rocking it out TB style at BN
(photo credit: Mike Smallwood)
Glenda Player and Irish Draught/Sport Horse stallion PL Diamond Hill at Novice
(photo credit: Mike Smallwood)
Full results will be available on MDHTs website http://themarylandhorsetrials.
It seems like only yesterday when Meg and the Tater Team landed in sunny Slowcala. Alas, the winter season has come to an end, and it’s time for the snowbirds to head home. We wish Meg & company a safe trip north, and we look forward to following them through the spring. Thanks for writing, Meg, and thanks for reading!
Hello long lost friends. I am sitting here in a barren apartment attached to a barren barn full of patient ponies in barren stalls awaiting their steel chariot to take them to 3 different destinations.
People have apparently been asking about what is happening down in SHE-ville – and firstly I would like to apologize for being a bit scarce. It has been a wild few weeks here and I have had little time to sit down and write a note. Usually by the end of the increasingly long days, if I am sitting it usually means #1 there is a giant margarita requiring use of both hands , or I am too tired to remember how to speak English. Such is the rockstar life of a groom.
So what on earth have we been doing????
Ridin’ Around and Getting it.
Last week Sinead and I headed out to Wellington for a final little jaunt with Lauren Hough. We brought Taterball and BWFurlong’s Classical King. Lessons with Lauren are really starting to pay off and we are excited to finally enter the ring next weekend at Southern Pines.
A highlight of the Welly trip for myself (and Tate) was seeing an alligator. Now, normally I am pretty cool and calm, but I went into full Chinese Tourist mode. Pictures and Peace Signs in the middle of the lesson. Apparently for people residing next to canals in tropical Florida, this is an everyday occurrence. WILD.
After less than 24 hours in Welly, we headed back to Baby Sarah who was high on gummy worms and green tea pills. … and she had nearly packed up the entire barn.
Then 24 hours later, here we sit, waiting for the big rig to take our Pony Tonys. I also just found out (as I was faxing an important document to sinead who was stuck at the florida boarder…woops My Bad!) That the one and only Barbaro trained here at Winter Quarter South. That is a wicked COOOOLLLL fun fact. Cool stuff.
Alas, I have to go load up 8 more horses, and everything we own….including a dressage ring … my shipper is not the most excited man right now. I have been trying very hard to convince him that I am NOT a DQ and I promise people travel with WAY more stuff.
We are going to be at Carolina Horse Park for the week. Training sessions with CMP Monday and Tuesday. My good friend Irish Sarah is coming into town to help Coleman so I am excited. I also turn 27 on Friday, which means I am officially old. My Hip! I found a hotel, albeit sketchy, 7 miles from the horse park (which is close for SP). Tate and Foxy are in the Intermediate for their first true outing of the season. I am so excited and nervous I will probably look more like 67 on my birthday from lack of sleep.
Sarah is doing her first “real, road-dog event” as I like to call it. And then we have 4 other ponies also competing. So, all in all, we are a mobile barn. I suppose this is what it feels like to be Buck Davidson.
After SP2, we head to Norwood, NC to take up residence at the Fork for 2 weeks. It should be a fantastic time, and I should be able to update you all from there. As long as I don’t get shot in my 0 – star rated hotel I found outside of the horse park with not one single positive review.
I will leave you with this WellyWorld montage of Tater and Kingman. I bid you all adieu from Florida –
2012 is officially underway.
-Meg
Sinead schooling with Lauren Hough
The EN mailbox blew up on Sunday with photos, videos, and first-hand accounts of Snowmageddon 2012 at the Event at Three Day Ranch. Yes, it snowed four inches in “sunny” California, while most of us to the East were sweating with 80-degree temps (in MARCH!). The weather is nothing if bizarre, and as eventers we just learn to shake our heads and get on with it. Competitors wish to extend their thanks and appreciation to the organizers, officials, and volunteers at Three Day Ranch who did a super job continuing the competition to allow riders and horses the chance to achieve needed qualifying scores.
