PrintEvery once in a while, fate intervenes to bring the right horse and the right rider together at the perfect moment.
Rumba’s partnership with John French couldn’t have come at a better time. The U.S. Hunter Jumper Association’s ambitious effort to bring show hunters back to their roots and promote the sport on a high-performance level finally came to fruition during the debut season of the International Hunter Derby series. While the nascent program enjoyed largely positive feedback, its long-term success depended on the momentum escalating during the inaugural $100,000 ASG Software Solutions/USHJA International Hunter Derby Finals held at the Kentucky Horse Park.
With the future of the high-performance hunters in the balance, the sport needed a poster child, and it got one in Rumba.
There were plenty of ripples coming from the West Coast about a spectacular Danish Warmblood. Reportedly, he could jump, he could move, he could win with a professional or a junior aboard, and he had that look. He was, by all accounts, the ideal show hunter.
And when he put in a foot-perfect performance in Kentucky to win blue for Mountain Home Stables, Rumba won over the 30,000 viewers who tuned in live online to see him in action, exciting both long-time hunter fans and those unfamiliar with the sport.
“He’s a fabulous jumper and a beautiful mover and was magnificently ridden. What else can you say?” said George Morris, one of eight judges for the Final, after seeing him in action.
Rumba rounded out his season with a perfect professional record: wins in all three derbies French contested with him, and second year green tricolors everywhere he went, including the grand green hunter title at Capital Challenge (Md.). He cleaned up in the junior divisions as well, earning large junior hunter, 16-17, titles with Taylor Siebel. But his biggest triumph came as an ambassador for the sport.
“At [Arizona Season Finale II] a father came up to me and said, ‘You don’t know who I am, but I want to tell you that I read about you in the magazine. I’ve seen the pictures. I watched the rounds. There aren’t many people that do something in their life that’s monumental, and what you and that horse did was. You’re very lucky,’ ” recalled French, of Redwood City, Calif. “That made me feel really good.
“So many people came up to me after the derby finals and told me that they weren’t sure about the derbies, but watching the Final and seeing Rumba made them want to do it,” he continued. “I’m so glad he helped bring interest back to the hunters.”
The gelding had already turned plenty of heads in the hunter ring before French started with him, winning the $25,000 Dearborn Stables Open Hunter Classic at the Del Mar National (Calif.) and the grand green hunter title at Capital Challenge as a first year horse with Erin Duffy, and amateur-owner accolades with owner Chelsea Wilkinson aboard. When French went looking for a top junior hunter, the lovely gray was already on his radar.
“We knew we had a really special horse, but I don’t think we really knew how great he was,” said owner Stacey Siebel, Taylor’s mother. “Under John’s riding and training he really blossomed even further. When he walked in the ring for a big class, you could hear a pin drop. He has that charisma and turned himself on. He’s really hard to ignore. When I saw how people reacted to him, I knew he had to go to Kentucky.”
