The Fair Hill International guest blogging series presented by SmartPak gave riders who are entered to compete at FHI the opportunity to tell their tale and lay all their hard work on the table prior to the event. Alex MacLeod and her mount Railroad Man Jim (“Jim”) will compete in the CCI** this year.
Hi EN! My name is Alex MacLeod, and I ride a fantastic 11 yo OTTB named Railroad Man Jim. I bought Jim from Ryan Wood two years ago, the summer before my freshman year at college. I was sadly retiring my 4* schoolmaster Arrow who had taken me to young riders and the intermediate level. I know, I was just buying an upper level mount as most kids sell theirs to go to school, but there was no question in my mind that I would keep riding. Luckily my amazing parents supported that goal.
Jim and I have a slightly unusual program in that I’m a full time undergraduate student at Princeton University, majoring in Biology and on a pre-med track — so he has to deal with my weird schedule! I ride him 6 days a week, trailering 2 hours each way once a week to get a jumping lesson from Phillip Dutton. We do our gallops on the historic public Princeton Battlefield, dodging picnicking families on fair-weather days. I frequently pass mothers pushing strollers on our hacks and have to walk through an elementary school parking lot to reach the trails across the street.
Over the past 2 years Jim and I have worked out a system that balances my academic and riding goals, but we’ve definitely had a few bumps in the road. I entered Fair Hill last year after a less-than-perfect season when Jim pulled a muscle in early May that put him out for the whole summer. Luckily for me I was a working student for Phillip Dutton that summer so still got to do plenty of riding! Just as we’d started competing again, I fell with a young horse and broke my jaw, just 6 weeks before Fair Hill. The surgeon told me not to ride for 6-8 weeks but he obviously didn’t understand eventers, and once I could eat solid food again I started feeling better and decided to proceed forward with caution. I’d missed Plantation but ran around Morven a couple of weeks before the big event and felt ready.
Alex and Jim at the Plantation Field International Horse Trials this year. Photo by Samantha Clark.
Alas, it was not to be, as we showed that we needed a little better foundation to get around the tough track. I had 3 runouts at a corner halfway around the course and walked home upset and determined to fix what had gone wrong. This year we’ve been training even more with Phillip and I again worked at True Prospect for the summer. We’ve had a fantastic season, with Jim feeling more and more confident with each run. We’re so close! And this time I hopefully won’t have to deal with appointments every week to replace missing teeth!
With rescheduling exams around competitions and getting missed lecture notes from friends, eventing at this level while at college is not easy, but I want all high school students to know that it is possible! With a little finagling and a lot of support, college and horses don’t need to be mutually exclusive pursuits.
Goodbye EN, thanks for reading, and here’s to hoping that everyone can reach their goals!
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