Ian Stark and HSH Best Kept Secret. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
As if Ian Stark didn’t have enough going on this weekend, he accepted an additional challenge on top of his course designing duties: Young Event Horse wrangler.
It was the very talented young HSH Best Kept Secret that was tapped to be Ian’s ride of the weekend on a bit of a whim from Caroline Martin, who received the Wilton Fair Grant earlier this year and has been based in England with Pippa Funnell for the past few months. HSH Best Kept Secret actually won the Young Event Horse 4-Year-Old Championships here at Maryland last year, and for his 5-year-old year Caroline felt he was ready to defend his title rather than make the trek to England.
“This year we didn’t think he was quite ready to come to England and do the classes and we thought it was best if he stayed in America,” Caroline explained. “So I rung up Ian since he’s in America often and he’s such a great mentor of mine. I just respect him hugely in the way he produces young horses, so I rung him up and said what if you took him to Young Event Horse championships at Fair Hill? And he jumped on it. He’s a legend, I’m so grateful.”
Hang on, Ian! Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
Originally sent over as a sale horse from Kelly Hutchinson, Caroline says she recognized the talent oozing from the Irish gelding and opted to form a partnership with Kelly to keep him on. He’s enjoyed a relatively light competition year while he continues to mature, and when the opportunity popped up to come to Maryland — despite the fact he kicked himself a bit after saying yes — Ian jumped at the chance.
“It’s one of those weak moments,” Ian laughed. “Caroline Martin is in England and has been there for quite a few months. And she sent me a message and said, ‘Would you consider riding my five-year-old in the Young Event Horse Championship? And because I’m hopeless at saying no to a challenge, I said yeah. And then as soon as I said that, I thought that’s such a mistake because she hasn’t been at home to work the horse!”
Caroline’s operation in Pennsylvania runs like a well-oiled machine, and part of the prep for this weekend was to bring “Dante” back and forth for Ian to ride, sometimes at Boyd Martin’s for some extra practice.
“The girls have done a great job of getting him ready but he’s not used to me, I’m not used to him, and we’ve done quite a lot of work,” Ian said. “And then I thought I’d worked him quite hard and he went into the main arena [for dressage] and he was Mr. Cool and Relaxed and I thought ‘oh, this is gonna be good!’ And he just woke up and when asked for my first medium canter circle, an almighty buck, and I thought, ‘Ah, maybe I didn’t work him hard enough!'”
Ian Stark and HSH Best Kept Secret. Photo by Shannon Brinkman Photography.
“Dante has oodles and doodles of talent,” Caroline described. “He’s honestly like a rubber ball — he’s got so much talent sometimes it’s hard for him to concentrate where to put all of it. So it’s so helpful to have Ian ride him and produce him for me and help me kind of teach the young horses that have so much talent to produce them properly.”
HSH Best Kept Secret finished just outside of the top 20 in this year’s YEH 5-year-old division, and Ian says it was an enjoyable experience — though he’s not sure he’s got the gumption for a five-star catch ride if it were offered.
“I’m very, very privileged to be riding — no pressure because he won the four-year-olds last year, which freaks me out because I’m not going to win the five-year-olds. But it’s it’s fun to do it. And as long as I’m fit and well, I’m not going to say no. I might say no if they offered me a five-star ride!”
