The Eventing Hall of Fame Gala inducted 8 members into the Eventing Hall of fame on Saturday night. Click here for the rest of the inductees, and some great bios from the USEA. Click here for the Eventing Hall of Fame website.
The two bigest name inductees:
Bruce Davidson: Nothing I can write will do justice to the Godfather of US eventing, period. My favorite memory of watching Bruce was his extraordinary ride around Rolex in 2002 on Little Tricky, during what seemed like a hurricane. I think that 12 out of the last 13 riders scratched, and I have no idea why I was still there, but Bruce took that course apart.
David O’Connor: Again, what can I say? David was a member of pretty much every US Team for 20 years, won Rolex, Badminton, Olympic team silver, Pan am team gold, Pan Am individual silver, and WEG team gold. Oh, yeah, and he won the Olympic individual gold medal at Sydney in 2000. What I appreciate most about David is that he continues to give back to eventing by training the next generation of US riders at OCET and by serving as President of the USEF. It’s hard for me to think of a particularly favorite David memory, but one thing that sticks out in my mind is from around the warmup at Rolex 2001 when David took out a tupperware container with all of his international medals and let the fans hold them. That was the first gold medal I saw in person, and I still get chills down my spine thinking about it. Go eventing memories.
