All pictures used with the kind permission of Lauren Billys
Although Lauren Billys lives in California and attends Fresno State where she’s double majoring in Chemistry and enology – winemaking (think ‘Sideways’!), her grandmother is Puerto Rican, and as a third generation Puerto Rican she’s hoping to be the first and only eventer representing her country at the Pan Am’s later this year. Lauren started the process of joining the Puerto Rican federation in September 2009, and it became official in June of last year. Since then, she told me, her grandmother and that side of her family who all still live in Puerto Rico, have all emailed her to tell her how proud they are, and her grandmother hopes to make the trip to Mexico to watch her compete.
Lauren’s partner in her endeavour will be her mare, Ballingowan Ginger, her only horse,
“Ginger’s an Irish Sport horse; she’s 9 years old. I got her in February 2007 so she was five when I got her. She was imported from Ireland, and had only done novice when I got her. When she arrived she was a short, fat, bay mare and she’s turned into a really special horse. She’s by Master Imp and BallyDavid’s Girl was the dam. She’s a great dressage horse and really excels in the show-jumping and cross-country, she’s a great horse! She’s very personable, very sensible, and a great partner because she’s really fun to spend time with. That’s probably been the most enjoyable part about the whole thing, she’s a great horse to have this opportunity with.”
Lauren trains on the flat with Loris Henry who’s handily based in Fresno also, and travels three and a half hours every other week to spend a weekend with Derek and Bea di Grazia. Combining the distance, school and eventing is just part of the juggling act,
“It’s a lot of improvising; I gallop at a racetrack, I swim my horse at an aqua therapy place for fitness because there’s not a lot of terrain here, and it’s at sea level, so it’s not prime for getting horses fit, but I have a good barn, and I have good footing where I go, so I’m lucky in that respect.”
Lauren started riding when she was 8 years old, in a “backyard kind of riding facility”, and found her first horse, Ranger, when she was 15 years old, in the local classifieds for $2,500, taking him to training level before graduating to Ginger.
Making the decision to ride for Puerto Rico was, of course, not one Lauren took lightly. Eventing is an emerging sport there, and as such, Lauren will enjoy much less financial and practical help than she would if she were representing a more established nation such as the US. Lauren looks to Derek and Bea, with their vast experience to help her with the myriad of questions that have come up dealing with competing for your country overseas, and has started to fund-raise in earnest, approaching local businesses in her community. If you’d like more information about attending her benefit, or to help her in her efforts you can donate here.
Although Lauren tells me she sometimes feels as though she has three majors with the riding, she has one year left in college, and says that she would ultimately like to make a career out of her eventing,
“I’d love to ride, and I want to pursue whatever opportunity arises for me and Ginger. I’m in the process of finding members to invest in young blood and syndicate a second horse for me, so I’m doing that, but if I were to pursue my major I’m looking into going to graduate school to be an applied chemist for wine-making and grape-growing, but ideally I would love to ride, so we’ll see what happens.”
What could happen is that it’s not totally inconceivable that Lauren could get a shot at wearing her new Pinque coat for Puerto Rico at London next year. She explained the extremely complicated qualifications to me,
“Because Puerto Rico doesn’t have an Eventing Team, what I’ll have to do is qualify individually. The biggest my horse has ever done is the most I’ve ever done, and we’re looking to move her up to advanced here soon. We’ve got to complete a CIC and a CCI 3*, and then if we’re one of the top-ranked pairs in the North American Hemisphere, after you knock out all the US riders, all the Canadian riders, and pending maybe all the Mexican riders, then her and I, if we’re qualified, can go to the Olympics. In all reality there is a possibility that we could do that if we move up and have a few successful qualifying rounds this coming spring, which is exciting!”
Incredibly exciting, indeed! I do remember idly gossiping in horseboxes back in the day in England, about what nations we could adopt so that we could ride in the Olympics one day, but Lauren is living the dream! Wishing Lauren the best of luck in getting to the Pan Ams, and onward to London; many thanks to her for talking to us, and thank you as always for reading. I couldn’t remember the name of a great documentary I’d seen a few years ago about winemaking when Lauren and I were chatting, but it’s called Mondavino, and brilliant, I wholeheartedly recommend it! Go and pour yourself a large one, and Go Eventing Nations!
