Heading into the fall indoor circuit last year, Jagerbomb and Violet Tatum were still getting to know each other, having contested just three shows together. But by the end of indoors, they’d cemented their partnership in style, picking up small junior hunter, 15 and under, championships at the Capital Challenge (Maryland), Pennsylvania National and Washington International (Maryland) horse shows.

Since then “Jager” and Tatum have continued to be regular winners on both coasts, picking up good ribbons at Devon (Pennsylvania) this year and most recently winning champion in the small junior hunter division at the Oaks Summer Tour 2 (California).

Tatum, Pacific Palisades, California, and Jager paired up in Michigan last July. While the 12-year-old Oldenburg (Diarado—Chaccalou) had done well on the hunter circuit with riders like Isabelle Ehman and Lauren Gee before partnering with Tatum at Archie Cox’s Brookway Stables in Sylmar, California, once Tatum and Jager got together, he settled into a groove and blossomed.

“He was switching around riders a lot, and I think that was hard on his confidence, because he didn’t really have one person he could trust,” said Tatum, 16. “I think having one steady rider the whole time was really good for his confidence, and he got a lot happier when he knew who was riding him, and he could trust the person riding him.”

Still, it took about a month of consistent riding for Jager to realize Tatum was his only person and begin to trust her.

We visited Jager and Tatum at the Desert Circuit International Horse Park this spring to learn more about the gelding.

• While Jager is a dream ride in the show ring, he does get nervous warming up.

“He’s pretty traffic shy, so it’s hard to have a proper warm-up—especially when there’s a lot of people around—because I’m constantly alert,” said Tatum. “I try to keep him calm. I have to be very aware of my surroundings so I don’t put him in a situation that would make him nervous. It’s a lot of just being cognizant of what everybody else is doing.”

He does wear a red pompom on his browband, but Tatum said that other riders don’t always notice that.

“If someone comes at him head-on, he’ll spin,” she said. “I’ve stayed on when that’s happened once, and I’ve fallen off once. I’ve been pretty good at preventing it. The one time he spun and I fell off [was because] I got trapped; I couldn’t go anywhere. That was at Washington, and I got back on, went in the ring and got second.”

• Cox rides Jager at 6:30 a.m. every day at a horse show.

“I am a person of routine, and I think the most successful horses are too,” he said. “He needs to be very fit. He’s a very quiet horse, and he’s very lazy by nature. So when it’s my time with him, I like to keep him marching right along.”

• Tatum describes Jager’s personality as very sweet—but there’s a caveat.

“He’s not very polite,” she said. “He’s very obnoxious. When he wants attention, he makes it very obvious, and he attacks you with his lips. He doesn’t bite, it’s little love nibbles.”

•Jager gets several therapies to keep him at the top of his game. His favorite by far is when it’s time to meet with body worker and equine massage therapist Kimm Crandall.

“He really likes it, just yawning the whole time, and he closes his eyes,” Tatum said.

• When it comes to treats, Jager appreciates the usual carrots and apples as well as iced horse cookies and German Minty Muffins. Then there’s the favorite snack he shares with countless elementary school students.

“I’ll bring him applesauce cups, and he licks it out of the cup,” Tatum said. “He does not like Red Vines or graham crackers. I tested those out the other day, and he was like, ‘No. No, thank you.’ ”

Champions at the Washington International are awarded cupcakes to take home, and Tatum said Jager was a big fan of those too.

“He had a cupcake at Washington, and he was very happy about [that],” she said. “He started smiling with his champion ribbon.”  

• Jager can be a slowpoke to handwalk.

“He wants to go behind you and put his head on your shoulder,” Tatum said.

• If he were a person, Tatum said, Jager would be a people pleaser.

“I feel like he’d be pretty nervous, like a fast talker and willing to please everybody but not really knowing how,” she said. “He’d want to be friends with everybody, and they might think he’s weird.”