Buck Davidson and Private Heart made their third victory together their biggest to date in the Bromont CCI**, June 8-11 in Bromont, Que., Can.

The Irish gelding’s owners, Major League baseball player Troy Glaus of the Toronto Blue Jays and his wife, Ann, received a phone call from Davidson after their win: “You had better keep your average up, because I’m batting .750 with your horse!” Davidson told Glaus.

Davidson had won two previous starts on the 8-year-old–at Plantation Field (Pa.) and at Rocking Horse (Fla.). The only time he didn’t win was at the Virginia CIC** in May, where he withdrew after dressage.

Garry Roque, of Caldedon East, Ont., led the division with Leatherhead from dressage and held his lead after cross-country. Leatherhead, a 17.1-hand, Canadian Thoroughbred gelding, is the former mount of Frank Merrill, joint master of the Eglinton-Caledon Hunt. But the pair lost the lead in show jumping with six rails down and 12 time faults, dropping them to ninth place.

Drenching rain all weekend created a pond out of the show jumping arena. Though the footing underneath the water held up perfectly, only Davidson and Canadian rider Gwen Lehari had clean rounds in the CCI**. Because of this, Davidson and Private Heart, known as “Jock,” moved up from fifth place after dressage to win the division.

“Jock” was bred in Ireland, the result of an in-vitro experiment to create the ideal event horse. Davidson said, “It’s the real deal, I think. Whatever breeding they did, it worked.”

Last year Jock spent some time on the sidelines with a minor injury while Troy Glaus played for the Arizona Diamondbacks, but with both Ann Glaus and Davidson in the saddle he made a comeback over the winter.

As the winner of the CCI**, Davidson, of Ringoes, N.J., had the honor of winning the Todd Sandler Challenge. The award is presented in memory of the aspiring event rider from Dollard des Ormeaux, Que., who died in a car accident on April 26, 1999, at age 18.

A bronze statue made by Virginia Ane was created in Sandler’s memory and is kept in the office of his father, Alan Sandler, who continues to be a great supporter of the event.

While Davidson jumped into the lead, his student Kristen Bond and Three Wishes, a horse she purchased only a month ago from Emily Beshear, placed second after dressage and held that position until the end despite three rails down in show jumping.

“He’s awesome,” said Bond of the 8-year-old, Irish gelding. “Emily did such a good job on the flat with him. Cross-country he’s so straight, and he’s very honest; you can do whatever you want with him. I have no idea how fast you can go with him, though–it was really wet, and we could have had lunch out there, we went so slow!”

British rider Robin Walker, who lives in Michigan, took third place with Loughnatousa Spot. He also rode Loughnatousa Flash to fourth place in the CIC**.

Lehari, of Uxbridge, Ont., had a stop on cross-country when she made a pilot error due to her slippery, wet reins, but with a clear show jumping round she finished fourth overall and was the top Canadian rider in the CCI**. Lehari’s daughter Kendal placed sixth overall in the CCI* riding Understudy.

Davidson also placed fifth in the CCI** on Triomphe, an ex-steeplechaser that his mother Carol, who gallops horses for trainer Jonathan Sheppard, noticed in the barn and encouraged her son to try. The career change seems to suit the gelding; as Davidson put it, “The only thing he ever beat on the track was the ambulance!”

The first weekend after he brought Triomphe home, Davidson ran him at training level, then moved him up to preliminary and competed him extensively last year, all the while improving his dressage. He moved up to the two-star level at Poplar Place (Ga.) this spring.

“My mom and her friend Nancy Bissinger own him together, and they come to all the events and have a lot of fun,” he said.

Coleman’s Comeback
Seven years ago Will Coleman competed in his first one-star at Bromont. This year the 23-year-old University of Virginia student returned to win the CCI* riding K Du Manoir, a Selle Francais-Thoroughbred gelding that he purchased two years ago.

Coleman, who won the 2001 North American Young Riders Championships, has scaled back on competing while in school, so his horse is still fairly inexperienced.

“It was a solid one-star course and I wasn’t sure how he’d come out, but he was honest and brave,” Coleman said. “He’s a legitimate international prospect; I hope to get him out more this fall, and it just depends on his maturation rate. I hope he’ll do advanced–he has a lot of the right qualities.”

Coleman was impressed with the cross-country footing. “They had already run the two-star and half of the one-star when I went around, and there was a lot of workable ground despite the exorbitant amount of rain,” he noted.

While studying history and economics at UVA, Coleman also finds time to train with a variety of people, including Phillip Dutton, show jumper Aaron Vale, and dressage coach Gerd Reuter. “Gerd has been a fabulous trainer for me, especially in bringing along the younger horses,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate to have such good people helping me.”

Davidson came second in the CCI* with Ballynocastle RM. He is still getting to know the Irish gelding, who was imported this spring. Davidson’s father, Bruce Sr., told him that he is probably the best horse Buck has ever sat on. He is co-owned by Ann Glaus and Cassandra Segal.

Buck said, “They’re both really cool and pretty happy with whatever I want to do with him. He’s a really good horse, so I think I’ll take my time with him.”

Jessica Ruppel, 23, of Ravenna, Ont., and her diminutive, spotted Appaloosa-Morgan-Arab gelding, Naughty By Nature, won the CIC**. She said that normally the 15-hand gelding is “a bit of a tank cross-country, but the footing was deep and the first fence was big and scary. It backed him right off.”

Michelle Mueller, of Port Perry, Ont., won the CIC* with Amistad, a horse that she will ride for a few years while the owner is in college. The 7-year-old, Thoroughbred-Percheron gelding moved up to preliminary this year, and she hopes to move him up next year to intermediate.

Restructuring
The wet weather dominated the event, but most riders chose to ride despite the downpour. Everything ran, mostly on time, except the pre-training cross-country, which was scheduled to run last. Due to conditions, the decision was unanimous between the technical delegate and the organizers that the event should stop at that point, so pre-training was run as a combined test. Despite the undesirable conditions, there was only one fall all weekend, in the CIC* show jumping, and no injuries.

Canadian designer Jay Hambly created the cross-country courses, and he altered the course because of the wet footing. He said that even though that meant most of the new fences were removed from the course, it did not detract from the difficulty.

“Everyone was amazed that we pulled it off despite receiving something like 5 inches of rain over the three days,” said organizing committee member Charles Baudinet. “Stadium went on despite torrential downpours all day.”

A new organizing committee, including Baudinet, Alan Law, Tom Todaro and Sue Ockendon, as event director, was created this year. “The creation of Bromont Horse Trials Inc. helped make the running of the event smoother than ever,” said Baudinet. “Support for future events is unquestionable, including the fall event scheduled for Oct. 1.”

In 2004, due to a scheduling conflict with the Jersey Fresh CCI** (N.J.), only 25 riders entered Bromont, forcing the cancellation of the event. This year entries were still not as high as organizers would have liked, and the lower levels were run to make the event viable. But Ockendon refuses to change the date that Bromont has held for the past 15 years.

“We’re struggling, but we’re not dead yet,” she said. “Riders will just have to pick and choose which event they want to go to.”

Baudinet said that turnout was down partly because of riders’ focus on the World Equestrian Games this summer, as well as the fact that the Federation Equestre International allowed Jersey Fresh to run a week before. He said there has been an agreement reached between the U.S. Eventing Association, the FEI and Equine Canada that this conflict will not happen again.

Davidson chose to bring horses to Bromont because he rode two horses in the three-star at Jersey Fresh, so bringing the one- and two-star horses to Bromont spread things out and gave him more time to focus on all of his horses. Also, he said, “Bromont is a great place to bring the young horses and give them a taste of the big-time.”

A three-star course is planned for next year and will be designed by Capt. Mark Phillips of Great Britain. The 2006 event marked the 30th anniversary of the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal; Bromont is held on one of the only Olympic equestrian venues still active in the world.

“There is an incredible buzz in the air for 2007,” said Baudinet. “This year was a year to re-establish confidence in the running of a two-star event in Canada both for participants as well as for sponsors. The involvement of an experienced person such as Sue Ockendon, having contacts and knowledge as well as dedication to eventers in Canada, coupled with the administrative and marketing skills of the added members of the organizing committee, has put Bromont on course toward another level.”