With the only two double-clear cross-country rounds of the division, Bonner Carpenter took home two ribbons and a fistful of the $5,000 prize money at the Greenwood Farm CIC** in Weatherford, Texas, June 2-4. Carpenter moved into the top positions after tying for fourth and placing sixth on her horses in dressage.

She partnered with her 10-year-old, English Thoroughbred Impeccable for first place and her 15-year-old Quarter Horse Acapulco Jazz for second. Carpenter and Acalpulco Jazz where members of Area V’s 2005 gold-medal team at the North American Young Riders Championships.

“I am kind of surprised; to tell you the truth they were really good,” she said of her horses. “I knew they would jump clear, but Jazzy is usually farther back after dressage.”

After her successes at the NAYRC, her trainer Mike Huber suggested she enlist in the U.S. Eventing Association’s Developing Rider Program, and while at Longwood Farm (Fla.) in January, she worked with program coach Kim Severson and observed Robert Dover’s training sessions with U.S. Equestrian Team riders.

“Kim was awesome in really teaching me how to get Jazz going forward, and it was really interesting to hear the perspective of a pure dressage professional like Dover, though I’m not sure that I’m able yet to incorporate his ideas really well,” she said.

With the first-placed dressage score of 51.6, Heather Morris on Spot Me One started the course only 1.2 penalties ahead of Julie Norman and Bradley but had an unfortunate run-out at the corner ditch, which dropped them well down the standings. Norman retired her horse after he caught a stifle over a fence, and third-placed Diana Brown had refusals at two fences with One2One.

John Williams’ course included a maximum-sized ditch and wall with an optional long route early in the course. “I jumped both horses directly over the ditch and wall,” said Carpenter. “They have added a ground line there and filled some of the ditch in front of the wall with brush, which makes it more inviting.”

Going into show jumping, fellow Area V young riders Katherine Hodge, 18, and Keeya Jones, 17, left Carpenter with a two-rail advantage on Impeccable and one-rail on Acapulco Jazz.

Carpenter was the first to negotiate the show jumping course aboard Acapulco Jazz, and though she added 4 penalties to the 56.1 penalties earned in dressage, she knew she would at least take home the red ribbon. “It was nice to know early on that I would finish with a good standing,” said Carpenter. “Then Katherine and Keeya put the pressure on me by jumping clear rounds, but I wasn’t that nervous because he was jumping well in warm-up.”

The only three clear rounds came from Carpenter with Impeccable, and Hodge and Jones. Hodge finished third aboard Crescent, and Jones finished fourth on Primary Colors. The three girls have been friends throughout their high school years, training with Huber at his Gold Chip Stables in Flower Mound, Texas. Hodge and Carpenter both graduated from Highland Park High School in Dallas in May and will be attending the University of Texas at Austin in the fall as roommates, while Jones heads for her senior year at The Greenhill School (Texas).

Forming A Bond
Huber found Impeccable, known as “Impy”, through agent Susie Pragnell in England two years ago. “We weren’t looking, but Mike and Heather [Morris] brought home a video of two horses, and we really liked him on the tape,” said Carpenter.

Purchased from Emily Chandler, the elegant, dark bay gelding had competed to the intermediate level and done a few CIC**s. “Initially he intimidated me, so we had some rough outings,” said Carpenter. “Then he had some down time while I took care of abscess issues with his feet, and that was when we bonded.”

With hopes for another medal, Carpenter is aiming Impy for a position on the Area V NAYRC team. She competed “Jazz” in her first advanced outing at Rocking Horse II in Florida this spring, and she plans to compete him in the CIC*** at Wayne (Ill.) in July.

“In the fall, I am going to take one horse with me. Most likely it will be Impy, because we still need to work on our partnership,” she said. “I am going to try to get classes scheduled so they are more in the middle of the week, because I want to keep riding competitively.”

The 18-year-old had an early start in the saddle on the wide, open spaces of family ranchland in Texas. Primarily, she rode on her paternal grandfather’s “El Ranchito de las Colinas,” which at one time encompassed 6,000 acres west of Dallas. The land was developed as Las Colinas, a commercial and residential area, in the mid 1970s as the Dallas metroplex expanded. But in Texas, undeveloped land is still abundant, and her maternal grandfather Dolph Briscoe, a governor of Texas from 1972 to 1978, is currently the largest individual landholder in the state.

Honing her skills early under the tutelage of trainers Becky Brown and Peggy Friauff, Carpenter began training with Huber at age 13.

A Family Horse
While the young riders walked away with the prizes in the CIC**, master rider Lynne Partridge took the blue ribbon in the CIC* aboard Cameron Creek, a ride she has garnered from her 17-year-old daughter, Rebecca. Seated in second place after dressage with an impressive 48.9, Partridge trailed leader Clark Montgomery aboard Up Spirit by a slim, single-penalty margin.

Partridge said, “He really surprised me; he was a bugger in warm-up then went into the enclosure around the dressage arena and said, ‘Oh, dressage! OK, I can give you 61�2 minutes of light and happy.’ He even had a 9 on one movement. I was thrilled to bits!”

Partridge and the Connemara-Thorough-bred cross were one of eight pairs out of the 20 starters to earn no time penalties, while Montgomery added 2.4 time penalties.

“On cross-country he was an absolute machine,” Partridge stated. “He warmed up well and came out saying, ‘I love eventing!’ He was so up at the first minute that I eased up, and we were still 9 seconds under time. He just totally gets it. The water has been modified and is now a one-stride log to bank and four strides across the water, which you have to bend a little to get to, and he got that himself.”

As for the final day of competition, Partridge admitted that she prefers to be in a “come-from-behind” position, but she maintained her focus and her lead over Montgomery. “I was nervous in warm-up, but once on course I was fine, despite thinking I would do something to mess up and make him take a rail,” she said. “It was a good size track that had some big spreads, a fair bit of turning but lots of nice ground lines and attractive jumps.”

Though a citizen of the United Kingdom and competing with a British Horse Trials Association card, Partridge has lived in Texas for eight years. She trains with Huber and cares for her horses at her family’s Peartree Farm in Bartonville.

Cameron, 8, was purchased four years ago from Mira Jones, through Huber, as a novice horse for Partridge’s daughter. The 16-hand, dark bay gelding was bred in Minnesota and sired by the Connemara stallion Ridgetop O’Rian.

“He’s highly affectionate and absolutely knows his people,” she said.

Partridge is continuing to campaign the affable pet while seeking a new owner for him so she may continue developing her own mounts. “Rebecca achieved her goal of finishing in the top 10 at her first three three-day at MidSouth [Ky.] and then put horses on a back burner to focus on her college preparation. He has been such a fantastic ride for her, and we hope to find him another family to continue his success.”

Although she got her start on the far greener pastures of Gloucestershire County in England, Partridge is now used to the searing heat of Texas summers, having been tempered by time spent in the tropical climes of Southeast Asia.

“I guess I got on a horse at the age of 2 or 3, spending many, many years at my aunt’s farm in the same county as Highgrove and Gatcombe Park,” she said. “When I was 24 we were sent to Kuala Lumpur for my husband’s job in the hotel industry and then to Singapore, then to Hong Kong before ending up in Dallas.”

Partridge spent her time in Asia riding Thoroughbreds retired from the professional circuits in various equestrian clubs. While in Singapore she raced in amateur circuits with horses that were trucked from Singapore back into Malaysia across the Johor Straits to reach the track.

“With our race horses we also used to do dressage and show jumping. There was a Samsung dressage series in Asia that was judged by the same group of judges who traveled around the Asian nations; I had a lovely gray gelding named Magic Sky who was second one weekend in the Samsung dressage and the next day traveled 500 miles to Kuala Lumpur where two days later we finished second in the amateur ladies race.”

Partridge recently sold her intermediate horse, Mr. C, on whom she completed the 2004 Radnor Hunt Three-Day Event (Pa.), to focus on developing three young horses.