McGunigal Cleans Up In The Mud At Kentucky Cup

The win with Gold Raven comes in one of the toughest contests of her career.  

Danielle McGunigal admitted that after 30 years of endurance competition the Kentucky Cup endurance test event for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games was the most difficult ride she had ever completed.

Competitors from 23 countries flocked to the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington for the Cup, Oct. 14, where McGunigal, world champion in 1996, rode through near-freezing rain and thick mud to win the CEI*** 100-mile event aboard her rising star Gold Raven. The inclement fall weather led officials to shorten the race to 75 miles, but McGunigal, the 38-year-old daughter of two-time world champion Valerie Kanavy, showed little discouragement as she won in a time of 6:30:41.

“I was glad [the race was shortened], because I’m not sure how many horses could have really accomplished this,” said the Fort Valley, Va., native. “The terrain itself, if it had been nice, would have been fantastic, and it would have been fast. But with the mud and the rain and the cold it was almost like swimming uphill with a hole in your paddle.”

Thirty of 51 entrants completed the CEI***, which departed from the Kentucky Horse Park and looped around dozens of private, picturesque bluegrass horse farms. Under the conditions, however, few riders were able to fully enjoy the rarely seen properties. One competitor retired at the first check point after displaying symptoms of hypothermia. Kanavy was eliminated after her horse fell at one of numerous slick road crossings.

Conditions on course deteriorated as the morning wore on, and officials made the call to shorten the race from six loops to four with plenty of time for riders to adjust their strategies. Although the decision was a wise one, there was disappointment from many of the riders who were there to receive their 100-mile certificates of completion to qualify for the WEG.

“The horses were slipping, and there was a lot of low-level lameness being reported, which means the horses weren’t making their proper strides,” said competition manager Emmett Ross. “And at the end of the day, in everything we do, our motto is, ‘It’s for the welfare of the horse.’ To run two more loops just wasn’t proper to have a horse do.”

She Knows What She Wants

The tough nature of McGunigal’s 8-year-old Arabian “Raven” may have sealed the deal for their hard-fought victory.

“She’s very tough; she really puts her teeth into what she’s doing and gets it done,” McGunigal said. “Sometimes she can be such a bully. She pushes you around at the check and knows what she wants, but at the same time that’s what is really great about her—she’s difficult.”

Ellyn Rapp sloshed across the finish line 20 minutes after McGunigal to pick up the silver medal aboard Jeremy Olson’s Berjo Smokey in a ride time of 6:52:16. The 27-year-old Dubuque, Iowa, native had nothing but praise for her 12-year-old Arabian partner.

“There isn’t a horse I’ve ever had or ever seen that can hold a candle to Smokey,” she said. “He’s amazing, and he’s getting better every time I take him out. He’ll never quit on you.”

Rapp called Smokey a “freak of nature” but admitted his talent and stamina come with a price. Olson discovered the feisty gelding as an unbroken 7-year-old with a strong distaste for humans.