With the behemoth that is the AEC taking place last weekend at Galway Downs, and the iconic ‘big, bold, beautiful Burghley’ starting Wednesday morning, it would be easy to let the Kentucky Classique Horse Trials, a summer staple at the Kentucky Horse Park, slip under the radar. If so, you’d be sleeping on several of the USA’s top combinations who were beginning their preparation for their Fall campaigns at this popular venue, the Area VIII Championships, and divisions running all the way from Advanced down to Starter level.
Jay Hambly (CAN) designed the cross country courses for the higher classes, and organizer Mary Fike did the tracks from Starter through Training. Brody Robertson was in charge of the show jumping.
The 20-strong Advanced division belonged to Phillip Dutton, who was literally unbeatable and swept the board. He led from start to finish on the Possante Group’s Possante, and then for good measure took second and third with his two other rides, Caroline Moran’s Denim and Deborah Kuhn’s Mr. Cash van de Start, respectively.
Team mate Boyd Martin was right behind Phillip in fourth and fifth on Ocala Horse Properties’ Cooley Nutcracker and the Barney Rubble Syndicate’s Barney Rubble, and it was great to see Lynn Symansky back at the top level with Bounce 6, finishing sixth. Tim Bourke added an international flavor, finishing seventh with the mouthwateringly beautiful grey, Monbeg Libertine. Kate Sand and Top Shelf were eighth, local rider Colin Gaffney stormed round on Baymax for ninth place, and Margo Goldfarb rounded out the top ten on Ridgetop Pirate.
Phillip’s top two rides were both having their first outing back since running at Aachen earlier this summer, “so it’s good to see that they’re back in good form,” he remarked, ever the master of understatement! Possante led the dressage on a score of 24.1, followed closely by Denim with a 25.7 and Phillip declared himself generally pleased.
“In the dressage there are always things that you feel you could have done better,” he shrugged. Bettina Hoy continues to help him on the flat when geography and schedules allow, and Christoph Hess travels to the U.S. for team training and has also been working with him a bit. “It just takes time,” Phillip commented, “and also getting to understand each horse and what to work on on a day-to-day basis to get them better. Obviously they are a lot more seasoned and they’re both very talented horses so now it’s more a case of just preparing them right and trying to shave off a couple of marks each week.”
Jay Hambly’s track was generally popular, but the hard ground was definitely an issue, “I was a bit disappointed in the ground yesterday. I thought that there might have been a bit more effort gone into it,” Phillip shared, “I wanted to come here because at this time of year, the ground can be not very good,” he continued, “and they usually have the facilities with the water and the aerating here to improve it.”
Accordingly, riders were conservative. No one made the time in the Advanced, and Phillip came closest with 12.4 penalties on both Possante and Mr. Cash van de Start. Phillip is deputizing for Sarah Kuhn, Cash’s regular rider, while she recovers from an injury. “I thought the course was good,” he said, “it wasn’t overly difficult and it was a good prep for the horses for the Fall.” Possante and Denim are both aiming for the CCI4*-L US Open Final at Morven Park.
Dressage and cross country both ran on Friday, with the show-jumping phase wrapping up the division on Saturday morning. “It is unusual and I’m not the biggest fan of doing it all the time,” Phillip said, “but it’s not a bad practice for us to to be able to do it when the horses are a bit more tired and not quite as easy to manage after the cross country, so I wasn’t disappointed to do it.”
Possante had one fence down, Denim had 0.4 time fault and Mr. Cash van de Start jumped double clear. The Dutton Eventing team moved their winter base to Wellington from Aiken a few years ago to concentrate on the jumping and dressage phases, and it’s clearly been paying dividends. It’s not unusual to see Phillip and his daughter Olivia walking courses at the Winter Equestrian Festival with U.S. Olympian Lauren Hough, less common to see Lauren hanging out at a regular horse trial.
“I’m fortunate that she’s been mentoring me now for a while with my show jumping,” Phillip acknowledged. “I hired her to come in for this weekend because it’s good to get practice rather than just bringing the people in at the bigger events or the long formats, and it’s good get to know each horse so I thought this was ideal for us to have a practice run at it.”
Only 4 of the 15 horses that show jumped Saturday morning were inside the time allowed. “The jumps were jumping quite well but the time was a bit harder to get,” Phillip nodded. “and the footing in there actually felt a bit deeper, so I think that the horses weren’t getting across the distances quite as easily as well.”
Phillip had one other ride this weekend, again stepping in to substitute, this time for his daughter Olivia as she comes back from an injury earlier this season. Olivia competed Jewelent in the Preliminary division, her first outing back since her fall, but her dad was reunited with Sea of Clouds in the Intermediate, as she explained “Socs” is a little sharper and can be unpredictable. “She’s done a great job,” Phillip smiled. “he’s much more mature on the flat now; he’s not a big mover by any means, but he understands it all and goes about his job in a very workmanlike way and hopefully Olivia can be on him next start.”
Boyd Martin Dials It Back for Fall Prep
It was a year ago, almost to the day, that Liz Halliday fell while competing at the AEC here at the Horse Park, and there is no doubt that she has been in everyone’s thoughts more than usual this weekend, especially locally where she is sorely missed.
Boyd has been slowly getting to know a few of her rides while she recovers, and now he looks to have formed a real partnership with Cooley Nutcracker; “the legendary Cooley Nutcracker,” he smiles. “who’s been there and done that, a seasoned veteran” and couldn’t be more different to his second Advanced ride, Barney Rubble.
“He’s massively quirky,” Boyd says. “He’s taken forever to produce. I love him but he’s a very difficult horse. He’s highly strung and could jump the moon but anything he does he just wants to go, go, go! I think he’s going to be a great five-star horse but I’ve had to spend so much time at the Prelim and Intermediate level, and again here at the Advanced level before we even think about going five-star. So I hope all the the years and years of patience pays off, he’s a machine of an animal and the bigger the course, the easier he is to ride.”
In fact, they had a slight ‘miscommunication’ before the show jumping. “He ran off while Steph was throwing me on so I was sort of hanging off the side of the saddle,” he admitted, but they went on to jump clear nonetheless; but for the 0.8 time penalty they accrued Boyd was faultless in this phase with all of his five rides.
Regarding his decision to bring them to Kentucky: “Number one, it’s a great cross country course,” he said, “It’s a big open park and Jay Hambly builds a pretty decent track and they do have the ability to irrigate here. The ground was pretty bad,” he continues. “and they did make a pretty good effort to aerate and water but obviously I was disappointed when I got here to see how brown it was, I’ve never seen it this dry.”
Both horses did very nice dressage tests, and jumped clear albeit slowly cross country. Cooley Nutcracker is going to Stable View next, with Pau as his ultimate fall goal, and Barney Rubble is aiming for the CCI4*-L at Morven Park.
Boyd Martin brought his big guns to Kentucky, but was playing the long game rather than trying to be too competitive. As well as his two Advanced rides he competed his Paris Olympics mount and consistent 5* campaigner Federman B in the Intermediate.
“I just think if you look at the last two years, we’ve just been to big event after big event after big event and pushing him hard,” he explained. “So I sort of took a bit of a backward step and had two easy Intermediates – we just coasted around Millbrook and then here this weekend with the idea of trying to just make it a little bit easy and not have him at his limit. He’s a very careful jumper and I just felt like, in the cross country, especially at Kentucky this year, he was quite empty at the end of the course and he really showed his guts and determination to battle through the last couple minutes. I thought, ‘You know what, I don’t want to take him to that place again for a long, long time,’ so I’ve tried getting him ready for a five-star, but trying to make his preparation events very comfortable for him.”
It seems that the mission has been accomplished. “It was a walk in the park! I reckon I could do it with one hand,” Boyd grins, “He’s such a seasoned horse. Even for the Intermediate test, I warmed him up for 15 minutes and he goes in and does a 23!”
Indeed, Boyd and Bruno led the dressage in the Open Intermediate Division A on 23.4, cruised round the cross country for 26.4 time, adding nothing to those combined scores to finish third. Christina Henriksen ultimately won the division on her own 10-year-old Cisco’s Calor Z who was very impressive in all three phases, and definitely a horse to keep an eye on for the future.
Boyd had two rides in the Open Intermediate Division B – one, an exciting chestnut who oozes scope. “I’ve got a green one called Mo Chroi that Christine Turner owns and that’s a work in progress” and Commando 3, the reigning Defender/USEF National 5* Champion.
“He was still a bit buzzed up from Aachen in the dressage and nearly got me off but I had a good ride around the cross country!” Boyd laughed. This is “Connor’s” first run back since finishing fifth individually and bringing home a team silver medal for the USA in Germany in the beginning of July.
Mo Chroi led the dressage on a 22.6 and just added 17.6 time penalties cross country to finish second to Isabelle Bosley on Karen Martin’s Conner. Commando 3’s dressage left him slightly lower down the order and a steady cross country saw them finish in sixth place. All Boyd’s horses this weekend looked very well, and always immaculate of course, thanks to Stephanie Simpson. They also seemed very fit and quite fresh, which Boyd shared, is intentional. “I’ve tried to get them very fit early in their preparation with the idea that if something goes wrong I have the luxury of backing off them at the end,” he said. “I’m a bit ahead of where they need to be, but with the idea that I could taper off a bit at the end.”
Lynn Symansky and Bounce 6 are Back in the Mix
Lynn Symansky and Bounce 6. Photo by Samantha Clark.
The top six places in the Advanced class all went to U.S. team Championship riders, and it was a real treat to see Lynn Symansky back in the mix at the Horse Park, this weekend on Alice Lawaetz’s and Linda Graves’ Bounce 6. “It hasn’t been on purpose,” she said of her absence. “Just, you know, you have a lot of horses at the level and then you don’t, and life happens!”
Bounce’s last Advanced/4* run was at Terranova in the spring, where they activated a frangible pin jumping into the last combination, resulting in a rider fall and a broken arm that needed plates and leaving Lynn was out of action for a few months. Now they’re working their way back to a fall CCI4*-L, probably at Terranova again. “I think he’s a little light on gallops because we missed some time this spring and summer, and he’s a pony and he needs a little bit of extra fitness work anyway,” Lynn smiles fondly.
Bounce is slightly chubby, for an Advanced event horse, I tentatively suggest — “I know, I know!” Lynn laughs. “He wears a muzzle and he gets like four kernels of grain! He has his dad bod right now! He’s always had that little bit of a frame, but yes, he is a little softer than he should be this time of year so he’s not ready for the fitness test of Morven and I think I’ll go and do the CCI4*S there and then go to Terranova.”
Despite being very suspicious of everything around the arena before they started their test, Bounce behaved beautifully inside the white boards and posted a score of 28.2 for third place after this phase. “He’s a careful horse,” Lynn described him. “he’s really a pony and he rides a bit like a pony. It’s been a little bit to get to the level and get confirmed. He’s so spooky, he’s actually harder to ride in the show-jumping on the final day than if it’s before the cross country.”
One fence down on the final day here dropped them a place to eventual sixth, but it was overall a good showing, and Lynn also has a bigger picture in mind. “He’s a very, very careful horse,” Lynn elaborated. “And so it’s taken a while to get him to differentiate between the cross country and the show jumping. He’s so incredibly careful but along with that he’s also quite spooky. Once you upgrade to this level it’s a big effort and sometimes the quite good jumpers lose a little confidence along the way and you have some bumps, so it was nice yesterday. [On the cross country], I’ve been playing around with some ridability and different bits and honestly just giving him some time to mature and he’s much better.”
Better but of course not quite the finished article yet: “I mean, it’s always a work in progress, isn’t it? Until they’re retired and then you’re like, ‘I just got him trained’!”
Bounce accrued 24 time penalties cross country and Lynn explained, “I think you got to just take care of them this time of year, if you have long-term goals with them”, but she was appreciative of efforts of the ground crew, I thought they did a good job.”
“I mean, they try,” she continued. “It’s so hard this time of year everywhere. They were out there watering and punching the ground, and it was a good fitness run. I wasn’t really kind of planning for it to be quite as long, but it’s Kentucky and that’s why I came here instead of running local: because you know you’re going to get a good track and Jay does a good job.” Plus, she added, “it’s nice to come to the Horse Park and get the atmosphere.”
Other Notables
Tim Bourke and Monbeg Libertine. Photo by Sally Spickard.
Tim Bourke, in seventh place with Lisa Takada’s Monbeg Libertine, agreed. “The footing was a little bit hard,” he conceded. “but what can you expect at the end of August? It’s going to be hard everywhere. They did as good a job as they could with aerating it.”
Tim traveled to Kentucky early so that he could teach a clinic at Katie and Jim O’ Brien’s farm, Valley View, where Allie Knowles is based on the Monday before the event. He schooled Fish there on the Wednesday, the first cross country jump he’d jumped on him since finishing sixth in the CCI4*-L at Tryon in May, not that Tim was worried.
“He’s a pretty good boy,” he assured me, “he’s good at that job. So had a little school there on Wednesday and then came in here [to the Horse Park]”, he continued. “ I bridged my reins and just let him have a canter round, I didn’t even look at my watch once and he had fun, he enjoyed it, it was good!”
Fish’ exertions didn’t seem to bother him the next day for the show jumping. “He was wild this morning!” but Tim maintains it’s good practice to do the show-jumping as the final phase, “I always like jumping after cross country. I think it’s really good for the horses. That’s originally what the sport was all about, you know, so I’m a huge fan of it.”
I lost count of how many horses Allie Knowles rode over the course of the weekend but she had three in the Advanced division alone. Two of them, P.S I Love You and Leo Santos (both owned by Katherine O’Brien), had run the weekend before at Bouckaert Farm for qualifications and in case the ground came up firm here, so she elected to jump a third of the course and then retire them. Her third horse, Montpellier Scais, jumped around clean and slowly to finish 11th. I later looked it up and she had a whopping eight entries over the course of the weekend!
The Area VIII Intermediate Championships only had four entries, and when three of them failed to complete the cross country it opened the door wide open for Jordan Riske to claim the spoils on her own Mm Irish Clover. Jordan made the trip from Manchester, Michigan with ‘Liam’ as part of their preparation for Maryland CCI3*-L in the fall and jumped clear cross country and show jumping to win.
Their journey to get here has been a story of patience on Jordan’s part. “I got Liam three years ago from a lady who was having some trouble with him,” she told me. “So I basically had to completely restart him because he was bolting and bucking off his old owner.” After some time competing at the Beginner Novice level. “He really showed that he was wanting to do this as a career,” Jordan said. “so we took our time with him. We moved him up to the Intermediate level last Fall, and he’s been excelling and we’re building quite a partnership now. I couldn’t be happier with him.”
Local rider Jesslyn Woodall from Georgetown was a popular winner of the Area VIII Prelimary Championship on her own OTTB, Diamond Dog. She’s had him for about two and a half years, about the same time as she started watching Ted Lasso, “He’s named after the show, that’s why I call him Ted! His name is Diamond Dog but he’s tall, dark and goofy looking: he’s a Ted!”
Jesslyn got Ted as a three year old and did the Thoroughbred Makeover with him “and just brought him up the levels and he’s getting better and better,” she beams. Their next goal will be the CCI2*-L at the Hagyard Midsouth Three-Day Event, “so I’m going to work on getting his passport,” laughs Jess. “I don’t believe it yet. I don’t feel like I’m awake yet, I think I’m still asleep!”
Jess and Ted just beat out legendary jockey Rosie Napravnik on her OTTB Army Ranger, also known as Ted, in second. Third placed Dinner at Malones, owned and ridden by Laura Crowl is also a Thoroughbred that was in training for the Keeneland Sale, she told me, but had a cough and didn’t end up going. Then, in a stroke of luck for both her and the horse, the owners “decided it was easier to just give him away!” It feels like a perfect ending for three Thoroughbreds to rise to the top of leaderboard and excel right here, galloping around the Kentucky Horse Park.
As the sun sets on Kentucky Classique 2025, a last mention and thanks to the organizers, volunteers, judges and support crew – the event ran incredibly smoothly for three full days, even 10 minutes ahead of schedule most of the time. Without exception everyone I interacted with was friendly and/or helpful, and I’m looking forward to a day to recover, Burghley next week, and returning again next year. Go Kentucky, and Go Eventing!
