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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Steph Rhodes-Bosch and Seahawk. Photo by Lisa Barry.
Steph Rhodes-Bosch met Seahawk when he was better known as Mighty Mariner, a gangly 2-year-old Thoroughbred colt just beginning his race training in Ocala in early 2010. In preparing to ride Port Authority at Rolex that spring — where the pair ultimately finished in fifth place — Steph galloped six to eight racehorses at the track every day. “He just stood out from the crowd for two reasons,” Steph said. “One, because he wasn’t trying to turf me all the time, and two, he had this fantastically well-balanced movement. He really didn’t look like anything, and he was very unattractive as a baby. But the first time I cantered him in the round pen as a 2-year-old, those first three canter strides were the best I’ve ever sat on.”
Steph rode “Mosby” for three more months until April, when she decided galloping baby 2-year-olds at the racetrack was a bit dangerous for just three weeks out from Rolex. She told the trainer, Jeffrey Tucker of Stone Bridge Farm in Saratoga, that if Mosby didn’t turn out to be a successful racehorse, she would be thrilled to take him on as an eventing project. “About a year later, I got a text that said, ‘Your horse looked beautiful at the back of the pack. When can I drop him off?’ Jeffrey has rehomed a lot of his racehorses that don’t work out because he doesn’t believe in running them in low-grade races and breaking them down. He believes they all deserve a shot at long and healthy careers. Most of his horses go into the hunter/jumper world, but I was just in the right place at the right time. I’m very grateful for that.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AouZVzocqfA
Steph and Mosby at The Fork 2013
Mosby arrived at Steph’s winter base in Ocala in February 2011 and had an extensive period of time off to be let down. “He had been locked up in a stall and was race fit, since he had spent the prior six weeks of his life in Tampa focusing on training as a last ditch effort to see if he would run. I turned him out, only touched him to change his blanket and just let him be a baby.” Steph traveled north to compete Port Authority and swears Mosby had grown three inches by the time she returned, ultimately topping out at 16.3 hands. “When Ollie got hurt that fall, I needed something to make me feel like I could get out of bed in the morning,” Steph said. “It was October then, so he started his training when he was almost 4. I had sat on him a few times throughout the summer because staring at him in the field was killing me. He was so uncharacteristic of a 3-year-old right off the track. I could get on him after six weeks and just go for a hack on long reins.”
Steph quickly discovered that Mosby wanted a job and loved to work. She started working right away to encourage him to move forward and accept the bridle, and she anticipated it would take all winter to get him ready for his first dressage show. “But by the time I got to Ocala in late November, I was taking him to David and Karen O’Connor’s and riding him in the dressage arena. He was so far ahead of the curve of a horse just about to turn 4. He was ready to do a beginner novice test when he was still 3. And he is still such a pleasure to ride.”
Next week on EN’s Got Talent: We’ll learn all about Seahawk’s competition career, which he started in January 2012 by winning a beginner novice combined test at Longwood Farm in Ocala. “He loves to go into the competition arena and do his thing,” Steph said. “I don’t know how he knows, but you point him down center line and take him into the show jumping ring, and he just gets bigger and taller.” I also have the scoop on Steph’s syndication plans for this horse, which will give some very lucky shareholders a chance to be involved with the career of one very cool OTTB.
