Kassidy Keith capped a successful two-week run at Thunderbird Show Park in Langley, British Columbia, with wins in both the hunter and jumper rings. With her longtime partner Havana she won back-to-back $20,000 grand prix classes, and aboard Sophie Tupper’s junior hunter Cuba Libre Z she topped the $10,000 USHJA International Hunter Derby during the Western Family Horse Show. 

“It was a really great two weeks there,” Keith said. “Sometimes I think everyone thinks I don’t do hunters anymore because I spend so much time in the jumper ring now. But I think riding the jump-off rounds really helps me in the handy hunter rounds, with the inside turns and planning them out. I think if you have more of a jumper background and you do lots of jump-offs, then it’s almost easier to make the turn inside than go around [in the hunter derbies].”

For this particular hunter derby though, the handy round was more about carrying a good rhythm than finding the tight turns. 

“The handy course was really open, and the course designer used some of the colored standards from the jumper ring, which gave the class a different feel,” Keith said. “When he’s on it, ‘Cubez’ is so smooth, and everything just came up so nicely on him, including the hand-gallop jump.” 

In the classic round, Keith chose to jump only one of the high options, and she made the same choice in the handy round, which paid off for the pair. 

“In the final line [of the handy], I chose to jump the low option because the high side was very delicate, and it was coming home so I didn’t want to risk having the last rail,” she said.

Watch their winning round, courtesy of Thunderbird Show Park:

Keith occasionally tacks up Cubez up to help the 10-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding (Coronet Obolensky—Cartouche Z) prepare for the large junior hunters with Tupper, showing in the occasional hunter derbies. Tupper plans to take the gelding to the Adequan/USEF Junior National Hunter Championships—West, coming up July 24-27 in Del Mar, California.

“With Cubez, he always jumps very well,” Keith said, “so if you can find all the jumps, he’s the winner. Cubez is very honest and kind; you never have to worry about something happening when you go in the ring with him.” 

Keith and her mom, Cheryl Keith, operate their Keepsake Farm out of Shadow Ridge Stables in Langley, 20 minutes from Thunderbird Show Park. Kassidy, now 27, learned to ride before she could walk, and developed a reputation as professional junior rider as she grew. 

“I started catch-riding a lot,” Kassidy said. “We had a lot of really nice horses at the time, and I could be found showing in the professional hunter classes and then I would go to the jumper ring after that.” 

Kassidy made her way up the ranks in all three rings. In 2015, she won both the Canadian Equestrian Team Medal Final and the Jump Canada Equitation Final at the Royal Winter Fair (Ontario). 

After her junior years, Kassidy went straight to the professional ranks and briefly worked for former Canadian show jumping team Chef d’Equipe Mark Laskin before she and Cheryl opened Keepsake Farm in 2019.

The Keiths do not have full-time grooms—they do all the work themselves along with their assistant, Paige Bedborough. Their clients will take care of their horses at home and at the shows, and Paige, Kassidy, and Cheryl do the rest, hiring show grooms for extra help when needed. On average, the Keiths have 20 to 25 horses at any given time. During the past two weeks at Thunderbird, they had 36 horses to keep the team busy. 

“Paige and I tack everything up ourselves, and we ride and bathe and do everything,” Kassidy said. “At home, we could have 15 horses to ride on any given day. It’s more of family-type atmosphere—we all do it together. I love spending time with my horses. The three main horses I own, I spend a lot of time with them. I feel their legs; if anything is off, we know right away. If you don’t know your horses so well, then you cannot catch things right away.”

Her top jumper is Havana, a 13-year-old Canadian-bred Dutch Warmblood mare (VDL Cardento 933—Zenobea, Judgement), with whom she contested her first five-star competition last year at the Split Rock Show Jumping Tour (California) where she competed in the Longines FEI World Cup Qualifier. During her most recent trip to Thunderbird, they notched back-to-back 1.40-meter wins in the $20,000 Odlum Brown Grand Prix and the $20,000 Langley Grand Prix.

The mare came to the Keiths as a 5-year-old, and Kassidy has brought her up the jumper ranks. 

“Havana jumps really high, and she gets really careful, so there were a few times when I got jumped off of her,” she said. “It’s just been a learning process with her, working with her to figure out what works best for her. You can’t ride Havana harder when she’s jumping high because then she jumps even harder. But now that we’ve jumped so many classes together, she’s leveled out a bit. Sometimes she knows the occasion and you can feel it, but I know how to ride that now.”

Kassidy hopes to get more five-star mileage under their belts this year, with an eye to competing in the 2026 Longines FEI World Cup Finals, to be held in Forth Worth, Texas, if things progress well.

“We will see how things go,” Kassidy said. “I have to get more experience jumping at the five-star height. Havana gives me so much confidence in the ring, but it’s about putting all the pieces together at a higher height now. That’s where I’m currently at with my learning.”

One Kassidy’s favorite parts of being a professional rider is working with green horses, like her 6-year-old homebred Oldenburg out of Havana, Statement. “Sabrina,” who is by Sir Shutterfly, was born on the farm, and Kassidy did all the firsts with her. Now the mare is jumping in 1.25-meter classes and the 6-year-old young jumper classes. 

“For me, it’s very fulfilling because you get to see their progress,” she said, “especially when you are working with them every day and there is no one else riding them. When I have quirky ones, I like to find what works best for them versus just giving up. Some of them might need a morning hack, or they might need to see the jumps before they jump around, etc. I treat them all as individuals. Every horse is so different—if you just put them all in one box, they don’t all fit there.”