We hear all the time about horses at the top of the sport, but what about the next generation of equine talent? EN’s Got Talent introduces the future superstars of the sport, interviewing riders about how they’re tackling training with these youngsters. Have you spotted a spectacular young horse at an event you think should be highlighted in this column? Tip me at [email protected].
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Dr. Kim Keeton and Accolade won the 2009 4-year-old East Coast Young Event Horse Championships at Fair Hill.
Eventers dream of breeding and training their own superstar, but not many get the chance to actually do it. Dr. Kim Keeton bred Accolade, a 7-year-old Swedish Warmblood stallion, as her first frozen insemination as a junior vet student at the University of Georgia. He was born into Kim’s lap at Coyote Creek Farm in Watkinsville, Ga., which she owns with her business partner Hope Thomas. Bred to be an event horse — he is by Olympic dressage stallion Amiral and out of Swedish-approved Her Elegancy (xx) — “Bear” quickly proved that he possessed the athleticism and determination needed to win. “He was the only baby we had that year, so he grew up with the big horses,” Kim said. “He was turned out with the OTTBs and he used to race them around the pasture and outrun them. Then he would do a fancy trot at the end like he was showing off. We were hoping he had the speed and desire to gallop and then could go do the fancy trots in the dressage ring.”
Kim and Bear competed in the Future Event Horse competition at Sporting Days Farm in 2008, where he won first place 3-year-old colt and was named reserve champion 3-year-old colt. Bear went into his 4-year-old year with Kim intending to participate in the Young Event Horse series. He won his first YEH class at Cedar Ridge, finishing with a 78.79% — the highest score awarded in all the YEH and FEH classes at that event. Bear had the qualifying score he needed to attend the YEH East Coast Championships at Fair Hill, which he ended up winning. “It was typical Fair Hill weather: rainy and muddy,” Kim said. “He was just spot on. The harder the conditions, the better he goes, it seems. I was very intimidated going into it knowing that Leslie Law and Buck Davidson and all the big-name trainers would be there with their very fancy imports and homebreds. I definitely didn’t expect to go and come out on top.”
Accolade as a 3-year-old on his way to winning his FEH class at Sporting Days Farm.
At the end of Bear’s 4-year-old year, an opportunity opened up for Kim to take her vet practice across the pond for two years. “I think every eventer dreams of competing in England,” Kim said. “When Mike and Emma Winter moved to England, I joked that I would follow them over to compete.” Thanks to Roger Haller’s contacts and a series of serendipitous events, Kim got the chance when a position opened at a prestigious vet practice near Mike and Emma’s yard. “The goal was to take my Intermediate horse, who ended up having some lameness issues,” Kim said. “So I took Bear as an afterthought, but it ended up being the best thing for him to do his 5-and 6-year-old seasons in England. The way British Eventing presents the course questions, the superior tracks and footing, and the opportunity to run every weekend — it was all just such excellent exposure for him.”
Kim believes Bear benefited tremendously from being introduced to the different course designs in England, which tend to be shorter and ask more questions in quicker succession. “His first event there was at BE 90, which is equivalent to novice in the U.S., and there was a corner with no options,” Kim said. “You had to ride your line and you had to ride it correctly and accurately. So from the very beginning he was learning about more advanced questions like corners. I don’t think he ever saw a bank without something before it, or a down bank without a narrow after. That prepares them for questions they’ll see from their very first drop, and it certainly develops their cross-country skills from day one. The tracks are also shorter. I ran a novice track over there, which is the equivalent of preliminary in the U.S., and the optimum time was 3:40. It was a short track, but you had to be able to gallop at 520 (meters per minute) and get it done. The horses learn that from beginning.”
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rkuzlz7e38
Accolade’s first event in 2009 at Champagne Run
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Next week on EN’s Got Talent: We’ll hear more about Kim and Bear’s adventures in England and how she struggled with bringing him back to the States. “I ran a CCI1* and came back when he was 6 turning 7, and it was very hard for me to run him preliminary after all the experience he gained,” Kim said. “I struggled with his age and how talented he was, because I didn’t want to push him to intermediate too soon. I did find that some of the preliminary tracks didn’t hold him, just because he’d been in such a different environment. In England, questions come up very quickly because you don’t have the long galloping tracks. Here we have a lot more gallop, jump, gallop, jump, with a little bit of a gallop to get them back. Even moving up to intermediate, I struggled to grasp how to gallop so that he was prepared for the questions.”
