Two years ago, Cosby Green packed her bags and put her horses on a plane in a quest to better herself and further her education. Since landing in England in January 2023, the 24-year-old from Lexington, Kentucky, has immersed herself in the eventing-rich country, learning from two of the best: New Zealand Olympians Jonelle and Tim Price, who are based at Chedington Equestrian in Dorset.

In that time, she made her five-star debut with Copper Beach at Pau (France), where they were 16^th, and last year they contested the “Big B’s” of Badminton and Burghley (England) before that horse’s retirement this year at 19. This year, Green headed to Longines Luhmühlen CCI5*-L (Germany), June 12-15, for the first time, bringing with her two horses she’s brought up to advanced.

She finished fourth with Highly Suspicious, a 15-year-old Irish Sport Horse by Russel owned by her parents, Edie and Clay Green, in their second attempt at the level. They traveled back to the U.S. last year to contest the Mars Maryland 5 Star at Fair Hill, where they led the dressage on Day 1, but were eliminated cross-country. This spring they were 13^th at the Bicton International CCI4*-S (England), where they were part of a young U.S. team that finished second in the FEI Eventing Nations Cup. At Luhmühlen “Puff” added just 0.4 show jumping time penalties to their dressage score of 34.6 and were one of four pairs to make time on cross-country.

It was a five-star debut for Jos UFO De Quidam, a 17-year-old Argentine Warmblood (Lobby Des Fortes—Remonta Guinea). “UFO” was brought up to three-star by Heather Morris before she gave Green the ride in 2022. In 2023, the pair finished 25^th at Boekelo CCIO4*-L (the Netherlands), where they were the top-placed rookie pair. At Luhmühlen, UFO was just over the time on cross-country and added a rail and time in show jumping finish eighth on a score of 44.2.

“It’s amazing when it pays off and comes together, and when the team is proud and everyone’s happy and pleased. That’s what makes me the happiest, as well as when the horses are happy and enjoy themselves,” she said.

We caught up with Green to hear about her European plans and the experience at Luhmühlen.

You originally only planned on staying in England for a couple years, what made you decide to stay abroad longer?

It was always my plan that I’d come home after a year or two. I feel like I’m still not done yet, and I wanted to be more competitive, have bigger dreams and goals, and I feel like the best place to do that would be in England, just in the sense of horse quality and support system and the lifestyle. It seems like the obvious answer of how to make my dreams come true. Hopefully I’m here to stay for a good while.

What have you been working on this season?

This season’s been an interesting one. There’s been a lot of growth in it. I have really been starting to ride a lot more horses and growing my string and establishing myself as a professional over here. I’ve done lots of competing, all different levels, all different types of horses. That’s something that I’ve been working on, just being able to diversify myself as an athlete, competing everywhere, all types.

Then on another note, I’ve just kind of been focusing on getting the horses to peak when I need them to peak. And then thinking about the older horses’ goals, and then the younger horses’ goals, and just quietly producing the younger ones. … I’m just trying to be very methodical this season and this year [in regard to] “This one needs to go here and not there,” and just trying to have a better idea of what it takes to get to the top levels and trying to spread that out accordingly.

What made you decide now’s the right time to take these horses to a five-star, and what made you choose Luhmühlen?

Puff obviously tried his debut at Maryland. I really thought he was ready and prepared for that, but to be honest, he felt not himself a couple of the days of the competition. I still have no idea what happened or what went wrong necessarily, because he was on such good form, other than he just felt not himself. Whether that was the travel or not, I’m still not sure to this day, but ever since then, he’s been on incredible form. He’s come out this year feeling amazing. So just kind of in response to that, I thought Luhmühlen would be a good pick for him, because they say it’s not as big in dimension, which is true, but it definitely had its own different kind of difficulties to the other five-stars. I knew that he would feel, hopefully, nice and confident around there, which he definitely did. If anything, he was a little bit too keen, but we’ll take that.

Then for UFO, I’ve always thought that kind of track would really suit him, because he’s tiny and he’s so easy to turn and so quick on cross-country, that I thought he would just really, really kind of thrive in that twisty type of track, and he really did.

How do you feel they went this week?

I was really just so proud of both of them as a whole. To have both of them go so well and come through so well and perform, as I had always dreamed or had hoped, was amazing. I think the only thing that I could really have tidied up on Puff’s performance was his couple of flying changes. He is so solid and so incredible at those, so I was pretty devastated to have messed up a couple of those, just because that kept him from a really top, top performance.

But otherwise, I just couldn’t fault him for a single thing. I thought it was the best he’s ever gone. He was with me and tried his best the whole entire time. That’s been a really long kind of partnership, and one that’s had ups and downs, so it was really nice to feel it—especially in the jumping phases—really come together.

UFO was out on injury last year, so we had to really think about how we were going to get him to Luhmühlen. It had to be a little bit light on runs, but we had a great fitness plan. For him to have come through it so well is amazing. To have done the cross-country so full of running was also incredible. The dressage with him, he’s limited in his ability, just from his conformation and his movement, he wouldn’t be so flashy, and his changes are really not confirmed. It’s a little bit harder because he’s older with those, but we do what we can, and he put down a solid effort. I don’t think he could have done too much better.

Cross-country, he was the perfect horse for me to go run around that track on for the first time. He was so good to me and so confident and absolutely flew around it. The show jumping I thought he was trying his guts out. He had that one unfortunate pole, but he really tried his best to not touch anything and had a nice, smooth round and a really good, tidy performance for our first five-star attempt.

Your first five-star horse, Copper Beach, had lots of experience with Buck Davidson. How does it feel to have brought these horses up to the level and finish in the top 10?

It makes me super proud and super happy and relieved to know that the system works. It’s just really comforting to have horses that I know so well. “Sean” was always a little bit what Buck had him to be and wanted him to be. And these ones I could make a bit more myself. It’s just super special. And I felt like I’m able to add the things I learned from Copper Beach as well and pass it along to them. I learned how to deal with the pressure of five-star and the expectation, and I was able to pass that knowledge along to them.

What did you learn about yourself this weekend?

I learned that I can do it—basically that it’s possible. Sometimes as an athlete, you get one horse around and you think, “OK, maybe that was a fluke, or that was lucky.” But to have both of them perform so well, and very similarly, I think that really gives me confidence that I am able to do the level, and they’re ready, and I can put in a solid performance. … It’s just nice to know that I can have multiple horses at the five-star level.