Event riders are, by our nature, multi-taskers. In addition to juggling three disciplines at once, eventing is an all-consuming sport emotionally, physically, financially and time-wise. From the one-horse amateur with a family and full-time job to the professional who is at the barn from sunup to sundown and out competing nearly every weekend, all of us must become skilled in the art of staying busy,
A few elite riders, though, really take it to the next level. Now that the international eventing season has wrapped, it’s an interesting experiment to survey the competition schedules of top riders in the previous year. Who competed in the most international events? And how do top American eventers’ schedules compare to those of their European counterparts?
Liz Halliday-Sharp had 41 FEI event starts in 2019. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Of the North American constituency of four- and five-star eventers, Liz Halliday-Sharp takes the award for most FEI event entries: 41. Currently ranked #32 in the world and #7 in the North American zone, she got the year rolling with the U.S. winter/spring circuit of Red Hills < Carolina International < The Fork < Ocala < Kentucky. She then headed abroad with her string for summer/fall: Weisbaden < Nunney < Brightling Park < Barbury Castle <Aachen < Millstreet < Burghley < Blenheim < Ballindenisk < Boekelo < Le Lion D’Angers, before finishing out the season stateside at Ocala Jockey Club.
Two U.S. riders, Phillip Dutton and Will Faudree, will clock out of 2019 with 30 or more FEI entries: 35 and 30, respectively. Canadian Jessie Phoenix had 32. Still more North Americans came in with 20+ entries: Boyd Martin (29), Doug Payne and Tamie Smith (28), Buck Davidson (26), Lauren Kieffer and Allie Knowles (25), Colleen Loach (21), American-based Brit Leslie Law (21), Caroline Martin and Colleen Rutledge (20).
More came in on the double digits: Will Coleman (18), Jacob Fletcher and Erin Sylvester (16), Emily Beshear and Lynn Symansky (14), Liza Horan (13), Allison Springer and Bobby Meyerhoff (12), Katherine Coleman and Arden Wildasin (11), and Holly Jacks (10).
Izzy Taylor had 60 FEI event starts in 2019. Photo by William Carey.
If you think American eventers are prolific, however, let’s take a glimpse of riders abroad. Great Britain’s Izzy Taylor had a truly wall-to-wall year, with 60 FEI starts. Fellow Brit and Pau winner Tom McEwen had 56, and Piggy French had 47 starts, including a Badminton win, a 2nd at Burghley, and a 4th at Kentucky. Luhmühlen winner Tim Price of New Zealand had 43 starts. Kentucky winner and Badminton first runner-up Oliver Townend had 38 starts. Andreas Dibowski of Germany and Great Britain’s Alexander Bragg had 36 starts apiece, Sweden’s Ludwig Svennerstal had 34, and Ireland’s Cathal Daniels had 33. Australian ERM series champion Chris Burton had 29, Burghley winner Pippa Funnell had 29, and William Fox-Pitt had 28.
German powerhouses Michael Jung and Ingrid Klimke are very interesting case studies, in that on top of their eventing workloads they maintained nearly full-time show jumping or dressage schedules as well. Cross-pollination between disciplines at the top level is much more common in Europe than it is here in the States, with a few notable exceptions: Doug Payne and Marilyn Little both compete in Grand Prix show jumping as well as eventing.
European champion Ingrid Klimke had 22 FEI eventing starts, and also 12 FEI Grand Prix dressage entries. Her average score at the Grand Prix level: an impressive 75.61%. It tracks that her eventing dressage scores are so often in the low 20s, such as the 22.2 she scored to win the European Championships at Luhmühlen this year.
We saw Ingrid’s versatility in action this summer at Wiesbaden, where she competed in Grand Prix dressage and the Event Rider Masters CCI4*-S class simultaneously. She won the Grand Prix CDI4* Freestyle on a score of 80.68%, the highest dressage score of her career, and won the CDI4* Grand Prix as well on 74.3%. And then Ingrid went on to place 3rd in the CCI4*-S class with SAP Hale Bob OLD. Their dressage score? An ERM record-breaking 16.4.
Here’s that 80.68% Freestyle:
Michael Jung had — wait for it — a total of 236 FEI starts in 2019: 46 eventing starts, and 190 jumping or derby classes. Among them were many Grand Prix classes, and he is currently the 5th highest ranked German in the Longines Jumping FEI World Cup Standings – Western European League (view rankings here). Let’s do the math on that: assuming there are a minimum of 11 jumps per course, that’s over 2,500 jumps jumped in competition over the span of a year — and that’s not counting cross country. And, of course, it’s not counting jump schools at home. If practice makes perfect, it’s little wonder that he dominates our sport.
We’ve shared this video on EN twice already this week, but it’s well worth the watch:
Is there a correlation between competition mileage and success? Should North American eventers be spending more time competing, in both their chosen discipline and beyond? It’s a question complicated by issues of ownership (more horses = more opportunity to compete), time (most top U.S. riders aren’t able to focus solely on competing but must also teach and train to make a living) and geography (events are more concentrated abroad than they are in the States).
What are your thoughts, EN? Share in the comments section below.
