PrintOn Feb. 11 in Katy, Texas, Courtney Calcagnini demonstrated a creative twist on the term “triple play.” In the $10,000 USHJA International Hunter Derby at the Great Southwest Winter Series II, she won the overall derby as well as the classic and handy rounds.
The creative part? She did it on three different horses.
Calcagnini, 27, of Pilot Point, Texas, won the overall event with 336.5 points on Taylor Reid’s Day Dream, the classic round on Reid’s Ovation and the handy round on Carson, owned by Kristen Blomstrom.
Jena Halstead of Boerne, Texas, finished second overall (332 points) with Taylor Hagler’s Bankrupt. Ovation finished third, just .5 points behind Bankrupt.
Calcagnini’s first of five trips came aboard Curtain Call, who’d had a stellar national season in 2009 but was laid up last year with an injury. Because Curtain Call had been off for so long, Calcagnini was most nervous on the Selle Francais owned by Shannon Reid (Taylor’s mother).
“He had a rail, but we had just wanted him to get around, and he did beautifully,” said Calcagnini. “After that, it just got easier and easier.”
Calcagnini had hardly expected an “easy” horse show. Just one week earlier, record-breaking cold temperatures, ice and snow in the Dallas/Fort Worth area brought training activity to a halt at her farm.
“The horses couldn’t get out of their stalls for four days,” recalled Calcagnini, who trains at her 12-acre farm in Pilot Point. “We couldn’t even walk them to the treadmill, the ice was so thick outside the barn.”
Arriving in Katy just days later, Calcagnini put all the horses on the longe line herself, one after another. “They were wild!” she said with a laugh. “Out-of-control bucking. And we had to do the hunter derby indoors, without practicing in that ring. I was so nervous! But we’d done a lot of work with all the horses this winter, so I figured everything would be fine.”
She was right. With winner “Mc-Dreamy,” the key to success was maintaining a steady flow, Calcagnini said.
“He’s super brave, has a big step, is very handy and very consistent,” Cal-cagnini said, “which he proved by winning the overall derby, even though he didn’t win either of the rounds.”
The Reid family bought the 11-year-old warmblood at the 2009 Capital Challenge (Md.) Horse Show. The 15.3-hand gelding was Taylor’s first ride at 3'6", and in 2010, she campaigned him to numerous tricolors in the small juniors. They also finished as reserve champions at this show.
Taylor, 15, also competes in the jumpers and in the large juniors on Hap-penstance and Ovation (a.k.a. Lucas). Lucas won that championship at this show, and Taylor has started getting her feet wet with some derby rides. Taylor, who lives just down the road from Calcagnini, is home-schooled, which allows her the flexibility to train with Calcagnini for five or six hours a day. Joining her in the same daily arrangement is Blomstrom, 14, who also competes in the junior hunters.
H Brave And Beautiful
Classic winner Lucas is a 12-year-old Hol-steiner that Calcagnini described as a beautiful jumper.
