Last night saw CHIO Aachen 2022 — also known as the World Equestrian Festival — get underway officially, with a grand, slightly chaotic, occasionally fully weird opening ceremony and party. Though the CHIO has already technically been running for a few days with some jumping classes and vaulting, too, it’s now definitely kicked up a notch in the competition stakes at the German venue. We’ll be bringing you plenty of content from the show this week, with a venue walk-through on our Instagram stories and highlights now and lots more to come, but first, let’s relive the best bits of the opening ceremony, including the retirement of Isabell Werth’s Bella Rose, lots of ponies, the most terrifying inflatable horses you’ll ever see, a hobby horse army, a German rockstar, pyrotechnics, and much, much more (though we recommend turning on translated captions if you want to understand what’s going on!). Welcome to the horse world’s ultimate fever dream.
Energy is traditionally supplied by cereal grains such as oats, corn, and barley. These feedstuffs deliver energy as carbohydrates or starch. But what if you want to supply more energy to your horse without increasing the feed intake? Feeding a fat supplement is an excellent way to achieve this.
Fat is considered a source of “calm” energy and is thought to modify behavior in some horses, making them more tractable. This, in turn, allows horses to focus their energy on work rather than nervousness.
Two Tims and a horse who changed their lives. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
We’re sad to report that Keyflow NOP (Colonel Collins x Amatrics, by Alicante), the former championship mount of Dutch Olympian Tim Lips, has died at the age of 26 after an incredible career and a happy — though not entirely drama-free — retirement.
We were lucky enough to meet Keyflow last year at Lips Stables in The Netherlands, and even luckier to be part of an exciting reunion: due to travel restrictions at the time, Kiwi duo Tim and Jonelle Price were using the Breda yard as a stopover en route to Luhmühlen, which gave Tim, the ex-racehorse’s original rider, the chance to see the horse who arguably helped springboard his career after nearly a decade apart. For both Tims, it was also a chance to share in the happy memories of an elderly Thoroughbred who had changed both their lives in very different ways.
For Tim Lips, the impact Keyflow had was as a competitive partner. He was Keyflow’s final, most successful rider, and together, they tackled two European Championships, picked up a bronze medal at the World Equestrian Games, and finished in the top ten at Badminton – even though Tim didn’t originally think the horse was suitable for the task at hand.
“I was lucky to work with a horse like that in my life. In the beginning, we didn’t think that we could have a picture like this” — he gestures around him, at walls of expressive competition photos — “and I’d had Concrex Oncarlos [as my previous top horse], who had come to us as a good dressage horse. So after two weeks I said to my father, ‘I think we should send him back, because this horse is really nuts and he can’t jump!’ But because we’d got him from very good friends, we kept going.”
“For me, he was a really, really special horse, but in the beginning, if I hadn’t been paid to ride him, I would have given up. But because his owner Peter Eck did this, and it was my first time riding for an owner, I had to try — and actually, all my best horses have taken that time. You really need to learn each other and how to work together. With Keyflow, he had so much quality — but that didn’t make it easy for himself, as well. I always say that I need to respect the horse, but the horse also needs to respect the rider; he always wanted to go back to the stable, even in the outdoor arena at home. And out hacking, going away from home was okay, but coming back wasn’t so easy – my father went into a ditch with him one time, and I think 80% of horses would have fallen, but he was so brave to jump out again. But he could be a bit dangerous, too, and so only me and my father could go to gallop him or anything like that.”
Once they made their first competitive starts, though, Tim started to see what the horse was really made of — after getting an abortive first run out of the way in a national two-star class, in which they picked up a score of around 50 and two technical run-outs when Tim had to circle to regain some semblance of control.
“He was a bit crazy, but then he really surprised us. I never forget our second competition, which was just a low level competition, but that feeling… he had so much power. He really had something, and all the good horses I’ve ever ridden have had something that average horses don’t. They have to be capable in the body, but it’s also a mental thing — and it’s hard to train that. Either they’ve got it or they don’t.”
Part of what complicated the process was Keyflow’s pre-existing bank of knowledge and experience: by the time Tim took the reins, the gelding was already fourteen, and had stepped down to run at now-two and three-star level for a couple of seasons with Germany’s Anna Siemer in the irons.
“I think it took two or three years for us to really figure it out, and in the first two years, we didn’t have the results we really wanted. I’m a really different rider than Tim Price is; I’m probably closer to Anna’s style than to Tim’s, but you still have to take the time to get to know each other and get confident with each other.”
In getting to know one another, Tim found Keyflow’s Achilles heel: left-handed corners. On the flip side, though, he also discovered the horse’s greatest strength.
“Maybe it started a little bit in my head, but I knew that it was always a big risk for a run-out – and because he was fast, I also knew I could take the alternative route and still not lose to much time,” he says. “So then he didn’t run out anymore, and that was the moment where I finally felt I could start to jump bigger, more technical questions. I think if I’d kept trying to fix the left corner issue, we never would have the results we did. If you’re sitting on a Thoroughbred horse that can gallop and you know you can go from 30 seconds down to eight seconds down, and things like that, why wouldn’t you use that? It’s the sensible thing to do — and then I felt like I had the whole toolkit, and the results started to come.”
Tim Lips and Keyflow N.O.P. at the First Horse Inspection at Longines Blair Castle European Champs – could there be a more beautiful backdrop for an event? I don’t think so! Photo by Samantha Clark.
“We never won an international, but he was always reliable, especially for the Dutch team — you could really count on him,” remembers Tim. At his very best moments, Keyflow thrived by showing his grit and gumption – most memorably at an extraordinarily tough and wet Badminton in 2014, where he was seventh, and a similarly tough, bottomless week at the Normandy World Equestrian Games that summer, where he helped the Dutch team to a bronze medal.
“We live in a very different country to England, so we can’t make the horses fit with only hacking — we really have to gallop our horses and know how fit they are, and so we’ve trained with heart rate systems since 2010 or 2011. That meant that I knew exactly how fit he was, and it also meant I always knew exactly when I could go fast in the course and when I couldn’t. With Keyflow, I felt that he was produced to jump courses like Badminton – with a horse like Bayro, he was produced to jump Belgian courses with a focus on safety and profiled fences and things, but Keyflow was a horse that wouldn’t care if it was very vertical fences on a mountain. He knew how to jump it, and he made it feel very natural.”
That natural aptitude for cross-country was what helped Tim take colossal steps forward over the toughest of tracks.
“At Badminton in 2014, I was actually walking the cross-country for three days, and I still didn’t really know how to jump it because it was really, really tough,” he remembers. “And then when the first riders didn’t even finish, I thought, ‘oh, no, I’d better retire and go to Luhmühlen instead. It’s more fun, because I think this is not so fun’. But then my dad was the Dutch team coach at the time, and he was like, ‘this could be your day — you have a horse that can do this’. And he was right; it was the best course I’ve ever ridden. It felt so good, and now I’m always hoping I can have that feeling one more time. It’s not that I haven’t ridden nice courses on other horses, but nothing has ever felt so easy on the toughest track I’ve ever ridden. I look back, and there’s not one jump I would have done differently. It was really perfect.”
At the end of that extraordinary day of competition, which saw just 35 of the 83 starters cross the finish line, Tim and 18-year-old Keyflow would record the second fastest time — behind Tim Price and Ringwood Sky Boy. At that point in Tim’s career, the Badminton result was his biggest, best, and most hard-won moment – but he would top it just months later when he and his intrepid horse stepped onto the podium at the WEG.
“That really was such a special moment,” he recalls. “And with these incredible horses, the greatest thing they give us is the chance to collect memories.”
For Tim Price, Keyflow was an accidental purchase that became a lifeline, arguably springboarding the careers and livelihood of the sport’s most prominent power couple.
“Way before the idea had even been conceived of coming to the UK, I was down the bottom of my family’s farm in the South Island of New Zealand,” he remembers. “It was just a normal day on the breeding farm, but the day, we had a hedge trimmer there that was doing all the big hedges around the boundary of the farm. Down at the bottom, our farm bordered a neighbour’s that we didn’t have much association with on a daily basis; we’d see him maybe every month or so, just in the supermarket or something.”
“The horses in that field were hooning around and being larrikins, and Keyflow was one of them — although he was called Rocky back then. He was just a racehorse, four or five-years-old, by a well-known racing sire called Colonel Collins, whose offspring are known for being very tricky. He was in that category, and the guy who was training him had all but given up on him.”
“I was helping hold the horses while the trimmer was on the other side of the hedge, and the one I was holding was Keyflow,” says Tim. “The guy was telling me all about how he’d been a fairly disappointing racehorses and a bit troublesome in general to deal with, and then the conversation kind of finished with him saying, ‘well, you can have the bloody thing if you want.’ I was there in bare feet holding onto this horse and not really in that state of mind, but I was like, ‘sure!’ And I led him just by his halter, in my bare feet, all the way back up to our farm and chucked him on the yard and went to tell mum and dad what had happened.”
From the get-go, Tim found plenty to like about the sharp, smart gelding.
“He’s exuded athleticism all through his career, and at the beginning he was a typical Thoroughbred who wants to go and wants to do. We had a good couple of years in New Zealand before I decided it would be a good idea to put him on a plane.”
By that point, the idea of going to the UK had been very firmly conceived of: it was the early noughties, and Tim and then-girlfriend Jonelle had put all their limited resources together to travel with their horses, first around New Zealand and Australia, and then on to the UK, where they each bought a horse to tackle Burghley.
“There was a lot of back and forth in those days; we’d each bring a horse over, compete, leave the horses there, and then come back to New Zealand to earn a bit more money and deal with the other horses, and then we’d go back to England again to make another bid for the next six months — another Burghley, and then home again, regroup, and go back for Badminton. During that time, I was producing Keyflow and he was one of three of four I decided to put on a plane and bring over.”
Unlike the other horses Tim had been moving over, Keyflow wasn’t yet a Badminton or Burghley contender — instead, Tim had spotted a trend in the market that could suit his talented gelding.
“The last event I did with him in New Zealand, he did just enough to show that he had a bit of talent and was willing to be good enough,” he says. “The plan was very vague: I knew that there was apparently a market for New Zealand Thoroughbreds in the Northern Hemisphere, and he was the perfect example of a Kiwi Thoroughbred. He was sensitive, light, athletic, a great galloper and jumper, so I wanted to get him over and produce him to Advanced and four-star.”
“This was really the ducking and diving period of our careers, and he was one that we owned 100%, so of course he was always one we were thinking we could make a bit of money out of just to survive. So after Boekelo, we put him on the market — and although he went through a couple of riders before he got to Tim, it was really a cool experience to follow them once he did. It was the first time I’d been able to watch a horse I’d sold going under the hands and guidance of another top rider. That was fun.”
Like Tim Lips, Tim Price found something unique in Keyflow: he had the scope, ability, and brains to make even the toughest challenges feel manageable, setting a high bar for later horses to follow.
“I think he just found it easy at every level, and that’s always a fun thing to have in any horse. At that point, we thought that was something that was quite normal, but we’d since learned that that’s not always the case,” he says. “He was probably more limited by me being early in my senior career and not really knowing how to train a horse, especially in the dressage side and the jumping, although he was a good jumper. There’s definitely a few rails on his record that he wouldn’t have had if I’d known a bit more as a rider.”
“I always thought of him as a very beautiful horse; he moved better than your average Thoroughbred and he was very sensitive and light in the hand, but I liked that. He was just a pleasure to ride every day, and he did something for us, which was what we came over with in our pocket. It paid our debts, and it helped us stay alive for a bit longer. It gave us more solid footing, and a bit of a breather. It was so, so important for us.”
The Price family went on to commemorate Keyflow in a way that certainly lives on in the UK: Tim’s brother, Cam, runs feed company Keyflow, which sponsors a number of riders and events, giving the gelding a truly unique legacy in the sport.
Keyflow says hi, making this overtired journalist very happy indeed. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Remarkably, Keyflow continued to compete at the top level until he was twenty years old, bowing out from international eventing at Boekelo CCIO4*-L in 2016 with a top twenty finish. The busy-brained Thoroughbred wasn’t ready to hang up his horseshoes just yet, though: he continued to compete in 1.10m jumping classes for the next couple of seasons.
“Then we said, ‘okay, he’s 22 — we need to let him enjoy the field’,” says Tim Lips, who turned him out with then-25-year-old Oncarlos and another retiree. It wasn’t a success. “He really didn’t like it. The other two horses were together and then he’d only be walking the fence, like ‘I want to come in’, even though the old horses always come in at night.”
Tim and his team rejigged the situation, putting Keyflow in the paddocks reserved for competition horse turnout.
“If he was there between the competition horses, it was fine — he just felt like it was what he was used to, and he wanted to stay there,” says Tim. In 2020, though, the situation took a turn for the worse: Keyflow developed a problem with his left eye, losing much of his vision.
“He wasn’t totally blind on it, but he didn’t see so good, which he really struggled with in the beginning. We had a moment where we thought, ‘what shall we do with him?’ He wasn’t eating so well at the time, and he didn’t look well, and then I had a staff member who said, ‘well, why don’t you just put him down?’ I think they didn’t know how special he was; of course, you never want them to suffer, but I also wanted to give him a chance to live out his retirement.”
The solution came, as it so often does, in finding a solid female life-partner: Keyflow was turned out with four-star mare Wadolca, who’d been retired at fourteen after an injury, and the pair bonded immediately. Then, he got a second ‘girlfriend’ in the form of a young mare owned by Tim’s head girl Jillian Giessen, and after meeting her over the fence line, he was a new horse completely: “he’s sometimes screaming like a three-year-old stallion for her; you think, ‘where has this horse come from?!’ He never did this before.”
“At the age of 26, we had to let go of our very precious Keyflow,” writes Tim Lips in a statement on his social media channels. “He was known to the public for his great achievements, and personally, our strong bond together was the most special thing. I am so grateful to him that he gave us that. Thank you, Keyflow, and a special thank you to his owner Peter Eck for this unforgettable time.”
Getting the chance to see Keyflow living his best life as a pervy old man with a very young girlfriend was truly one of the highlights of this journalist’s year last summer, and all of us here at Team EN send our most heartfelt condolences to Tim Lips and Tim Price, and all those connected with this one-of-a-kind Thoroughbred who had such an enormous heart. We hear there are no left-handed corners in horsey heaven, old boy.
We’ve got some more changes to report in camp USEF, and they’re exciting ones: on May 1, 2022, Max Corcoran was appointed as the Eventing Elite Program and Team Facilitator. In her role, Corcoran will support the areas of communication, logistics, and management of the teams for the Eventing Programs to deliver sustained success at World and Olympic Games level. As the Facilitator, she will work closely with the interim Chef d’Equipe/Team Manager Bobby Costello and eventing staff to build solid lines of communication with athletes, grooms, owners, coaches, veterinarians, and all stakeholders linked to the athletes and develop the structures around the Elite Program and senior U.S. Eventing Team.
“I am really honored to be working with USEF and the Elite Program as the Eventing Elite Program and Team Facilitator,” said Corcoran. “The hope is that my years of experience grooming internationally and event organizing can help U.S. Eventing horses, athletes, grooms, and owners. I am looking forward to the exciting challenges ahead of us!”
Max has long been a huge part of US Eventing: she built her reputation as one of the world’s best grooms in her years on the road with the O’Connor Eventing Team, and actually began her career working for now interim chef Bobby Costello when she was 12. She’s been the USEA President since 2020 and also sits on a number of committees, is involved in event organising, has been an Olympic technical official, and continues to work in a hands-on capacity with many riders, most recently travelling to Luhmühlen with the US competitors. We look forward to seeing her tackle this exciting new role with the same wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm she has done with the rest of her roles. Congratulations, Max!
Nicola Wilson and Erano M. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Nicola Wilson continues her recovery from injuries sustained in a fall near the end of cross country at Badminton Horse Trials on May 7, and while the road ahead remains long her spirits remain intact and she’s generously provided her supporters with another update on how she’s feeling:
Here’s a little video update of what Nic’s been up to in the last week. We can’t thank the staff in the Spinal Cord Injuries Unit at James Cook enough for what they’re doing for her, and also to everybody for all of the lovely messages and gifts; Nic says it really is overwhelming! Thanks also to sister-in-law Hannah for putting the brilliant video together! Team Wilson x
Last Monday saw the start of Nicola’s physical therapy, which has been challenging but positive as she works to regain balance and body control. She’s not able to walk at this moment but, as Nicola puts it, “we’re all allowed to dream”.
“We’re improving daily and really, really pleased with how I’m getting on,” Nicola says. The team at the Spinal Cord Injuries Unit at James Cook University Hospital have been instrumental in aiding her recovery, as have her ever-present support network of family and friends. “Bit by bit, things are coming back. And I couldn’t be more grateful to the team here, who are doing an amazing job,” she continued. “How they all work together is truly fantastic. They’re inspirational, and I’m so grateful to be here.”
Nicola’s unbreakable desire to carry gratitude and, well, carry on, is nothing short of incredible and we wish her the most positive of recoveries. We’ll continue to provide updates as they are shared.
This training tip posted by the Optimum Youth Equestrian Scholarship page last week got me thinking: one of the greatest skills a horsewoman/horseman can have is that of perception. It might have been Kate Samuels who wrote on this topic at some point, but the ability to understand a horse’s personality and how to adjust your training accordingly vastly outranks only viewing the horse through our own personal judgements and emotions. With these filters removed — effectively removing ourselves from the picture to ponder, “what is it my horse needs right now — for them, not for me?” — it becomes clearer that horses are constantly providing feedback and communication.
Of course, there remains a difference between empathetic listening and failing to establish leadership (and, by association, safety and security for your horse) and set boundaries. In the sweet spot between the two is the space for a true partnership to be built.
Helmet safety is the focus of the latest US Equestrian educational video, in which Dr. Lola Chambers discusses causes and symptoms of traumatic brain injuries and concussions and why it’s so important for riders to mind their melons. [Concussions: Signs, Symptoms, and Helmet Safety]
Time for a rules refresher! If you’re considering a move up to Training or Modified, take a few minutes to review the rules for each level as there will be some differences from their lower counterparts. Always better to be over-prepared! [Rule Refresher: What Will Be Expected of Me at Training and Modified?]
Curious about how the development pathway for show jumpers and eventers works? For athletes with aspirations to compete at the elite level, there is a long path from competing at the national level to representing the U.S. at international championships. The USEF development pathways for each FEI discipline help bring promising athletes along each step of the way, ensuring the best chance at success. [How Jumping and Eventing Athletes Move Up the Development Pathway]
Hot on Horse Nation: In the latest edition of “Equestrian Girl Bosses”, journey back in time as we meet a few badass women from the “greatest shows on Earth” slash my worst nightmare, the circus. [Horses in the Circus]
Sponsor Corner
Go behind the scenes with the Equatic Spa, Rehab and Conditioning facility in California.
There's nothing like winning on home soil – and Shane Breen finally did it 🏆 The Irishman was the ONLY rider who went clear in the iconic course and took the Derby trophy! That's what a world class rider & a world class horse look like. Make sure not to miss the sweet moment at the end between the two – Can Ya Makan getting a well deserved hug 🥰
You could really feel the trust between him and his fantastic ride Can Ya Makan, giving an absolutely legendary performance! And listen to those crowds 🔊
It was such a thrill from start to finish and we couldn't be happier for this well deserved win 🍾 Congratulations The Breen Team 🔥
The Al Shira'aa Hickstead Derby Meeting 2022 is an event like no other and this year's action was extraordinary! Make sure to check out all the highlights on our archive ➡️ watch.clipmyhorse.tv/Hickstead-Derby-2022
That feeling when you’re the only clear round in the Al Shira’aa Hickstead Derby: Irish rider Shane Breen now knows exactly what this feels like, having delivered an impressive clear with the 16-year-old stallion Holsteiner Can Ya Makan.
We love the Hickstead Derby for it’s traditional, cross-country-esque feel and challenging tracks, which this year were designed by Phillip Kelvin Bywater — a second cousin to cross country, we’ll call it!
“When I jumped over the last with Can Ya Makan, something inside of me got quite emotional,” Shane said. “Thankfully, it was my day today. I live here and walk around that showground every day, so it’s nice to know that I had my moment in that arena.”
Relive Shane’s win — his first after nearly two decades of coming tantalizingly close — in the clip above, then head over to ClipMyHorse.TV to rewatch all the Hickstead action.
#ICYMI, we’re in the midst of accepting first-round entries for the return of EN’s popular Blogger Contest. This is the ninth edition of the contest, which had been held every year until the pandemic. We’ve sorely missed this contest and are excited to have it back for another year!
Entries are open for this first round until July 8. If you are ready to enter, you can click here to use our entry form, or you can email your submission directly to us at [email protected]. We’re also thrilled to announce that we’ve added a cash prize to this year’s contest: $300 will be awarded to the winner, and two runners-up will each receive $100.
I thought it might be useful to put together a few helpful hints on writing for EN. We don’t take ourselves too seriously here, so neither should you, but some best practices always help bring clarity if you’re on the fence about entering.
1. Showing your creative side is a sure way to get our attention.
If you haven’t noticed, we tend to let our personalities show in our work here at EN. We believe there is a healthy balance between professional work and creative expression, and most of us work here because we wanted to combine our love of the sport with our love of writing. We try to put more “spice” into our reports, and while we don’t always hit the mark we would rather tell the stories than only report the figures.
So, don’t be afraid to send us something wacky or out of left field. Here are a few previous years’ entries to give you an idea of just how out there things can get:
2. When in doubt, tell us a story (or make one up — we don’t know the difference!).
If you’re a writer at all, you know exactly how it feels to carve out some precious time to put some words on paper/screen…only to find that every ounce of creativity you thought you were in possession of has suddenly decided to pop out for a beer. Or, on the other side of the fence, you have too many ideas swirling about at once in your head, making it difficult to sort through and find the best one to focus on.
But I bet you have a few good stories in there, just waiting to be told. Maybe it’s the story of what gave you the “eventing bug” or the first time you jumped a cross country jump. Maybe you took a trip to Kentucky and left a lifelong eventing fan. Or maybe you made a complete fool out of yourself waiting in line for Michael Jung’s autograph and can never set foot in the Kentucky Horse Park again. Whatever your story may be, we want to read about it!
3. Don’t feel pressured to “know” a ton about the sport.
Yes, we want you to be an eventing fan and know the ins and outs of the sport, but we don’t expect you to have an eventing encyclopedia stored away in your brain. All of us here have grown our knowledge of and network within the sport organically over time, and you will too! All you need — just as with any good horse with potential — is a desire to be here, and the rest will take care of itself.
4. Be individual. The sport is better for it!
We talk often about embracing diversity in equestrian sport — the backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives of riders are richly unique. We are not all cut from the same cloth. In seeing ourselves represented in others, in the public space, we create a world that’s more welcoming to those who hesitate to dip a toe in. We recognize that the onus remains on us to be better in everything that we do, and we want to give voice to all experiences here on EN. We encourage you to also be your most authentic self in your entries.
Your first round entry can be focused on any eventing-related topic you prefer! From that point on, finalists will be moved forward to Round 2, for which you’ll be given a writing prompt. The third final round will be a creative challenge yet to be announced.
Ready to enter? Click here to get started! Good luck and Go Eventing.
Heather Morris and Get Rowdy. Photo by Ellie Leonard Photography.
While we love following horses at the height of their eventing careers, what we love even more is seeing them thrive as they continue to move through life thanks to the understanding of caretakers that sometimes one job isn’t the best fit. Event horses have found ongoing success in many aspects of equestrian sport, and today we’re catching up with former Heather Morris ride, Get Rowdy (Baltic VDL – Z. Unellie), a 12-year-old KWPN gelding who competed through the Intermediate 3* level until about 2017.
Heather Morris and Get Rowdy. Photo by Sally Spickard.
Get Rowdy was named the 2016 USEA Preliminary Horse of the Year, never finishing lower than fifth in ten starts at the level or then-CCI1* that year. But speed would prove to be the limiting factor as Heather eyed the upper levels of eventing; this eventually prompted her to send the gelding to well-respected hunter/jumper trainer Archie Cox in the Los Angeles area.
“Rowdy” would eventually make his home in the hunter ring, owned by Teton Farms LLC and moving up the ranks to eventually be named USEF High Performance Hunter Grand Champion in 2019 with rider Karli Postel. He’s also played professor to up and coming riders such as Kyra Russell and most recently was cleaning up at Thermal with pro rider Jamie Sailor.
Now, one of the ultimate honors for a horse has been given to Get Rowdy, who’s well-known for his snuggly nature and “go with the flow” attitude: he’s been made into a Breyer model.
A well-deserved honor for a perfect stamp of a horse of a lifetime. The Get Rowdy Breyer will be ready to ship in July, and you can keep an eye out for stock updates here.
A long career (and, more importantly, a long and healthy life) is always a goal for our horses. Ask your veterinarian about Zoetis’ line-up of health support options that can help support your horse for a long-lasting and comfortable career and life.
Jennie Brannigan and Twilightslastgleam. Photo by RedBayStock.com.
It’s that time of year to be craving fresh mountain air and booking your travel to beautiful Kalispell, Montana for this year’s running of The Event at Rebecca Farm. Also hosting the USEA American Eventing Championships this year, over Labor Day weekend, the Montana venue is one of the most beloved for diehard eventers, firmly stamping its spot on bucket lists all over the country as THE event to visit at least once in your life. This year’s event will run July 20-24.
The headlining CCI4*-L division will feature 12 horses and riders as of now (entries close next week, on July 5), including:
James and Helen Alliston will compete three horses between them, including the 8-year-old Nemesis, who was a surprise third in the Lexington 4*-S in April
A handful of East coast representatives have booked their tickets to Montana: Lucienne Bellissimo will bring Atlantic Vital Spark, as will Allie Knowles and Business Class, Alyssa Phillips and Oskar, and Chris Talley with his OTTB, Unmarked Bills, doing his first Long event since Burghley in 2019
Tamie Smith has what might be considered to be a “light” weekend in the 4*-L with just one horse entered to date: the Elliot V Partnership’s Elliot V, who will look for his first completion at the level after an early ending truncated his debut at Galway last year
Ocala Horse Properties stepped up to provide two Rebecca Farm Flight Grants this year, awarding free transport out to Montana to Allie Knowles in the 4*-L and Brittany Crandell in the 3*-L — we’ll be catching up with these two as they prep for their travels, so stay tuned for more!
If you’re attending Rebecca Farm this year in any capacity, there are ample opportunities to volunteer and it’s always useful to sign up early for what you know you might want to do. Click here for more information on volunteering. If you’re in the mood for a premier experience, you can also purchase a Patron Package to take in the event with more perks, and donations for these packages are put to support Halt Cancer at X.
We’re welcoming a new Tuesday News & Notes sponsor this week: Ocala Horse Properties! We’ve enjoyed working with Chris and Rob Desino through the years and are proud to welcome Ocala Horse Properties back to EN as your official source for property, farms, and beyond in Ocala, Wellington, and other horse-centric areas of Florida.
We’ll have much more coming your way from Ocala Horse Properties in the coming weeks, but for now a very hearty congratulations goes out to Chris Desino and Dilan Bower on their wedding in an absolute drop-dead stunning location: Aspen, Colorado. The wedding looks to have been a proper celebration in the mountains and we absolutely need more photos immediately.
A 5 acre farm-to-be just a short way from the famous World Equestrian Center – Ocala awaits your dreams, already equipped with an incredible house and a pool, and ready to build your dream barn and bring the horses home.
Tuesday News & Notes from Around the World:
You’ve no doubt encountered genetic testing when looking at horses for sale or stud. But although we’ve relied on the same tests for many years to spot the likes of PSSM, are they actually accurate and helpful or simply flagging up red herrings? [Find out here]
They don’t always get the attention and headlines they deserve, but our sport’s owners are a pretty cool bunch. Meet Steve and Vicki Sukup, who own a thriving business, a Belmont Stakes winner – and shares in Renkum Corsair, the exciting mount of Elisa Wallace. [They always bet on the rider]
We’ve all embarrassed ourselves at some point while competing. (If I’m honest, I do so pretty much every time I go out in one way or another – like the time I went to walk my course and fell flat on my arse in the mud right in front of the busy dressage warm-up, and then Francis Whittington asked me if I’d poo’d myself again every time I saw him for MONTHS.) Anyway, take some comfort in knowing that you’re not alone – the pros have got some pretty good blunders to their name, too. [Oops, I did it again – horse edition]
Though we’re still mourning the loss of Ireland’s Tattersalls International, the George Mernagh Fund is about to be put to very good use. Created in honour of its namesake, the founder of that great event, it’s now being used to provide training bursaries to young riders to help bolster Ireland’s eventing legacy. [Check this out if you’re young and Irish]
Ever wondered what it’s like to work for Aachen champion and all-around good egg Will Coleman? Tag along with head groom Erin Jarboe for the day and see what she gets up to. [Bring coffee.]
Watch This:
Elisa Wallace catches us up on a weekend practicing at Barnstaple South with Capo dei Capi:
