The Easy Keepers just formed their team the month before the Eastern Adult Team Challenge, meeting with each other at the Pinehurst Horse Trials (N.C.) and the American Eventing Championships (N.C.).

“We come out to be with our friends and have a blast,” said Audrey Wiggins. “It was fun with or without the ribbons.”

Despite their laid-back name and attitude, the team won the training level division, held Oct. 9-10 at The Fork Horse Trials in Norwood, N.C. They also won the best uniform-with matching shirts, helmet covers and saddle pads. Area II coach David O’Brien helped the riders achieve their triumph.

“This is what the Area II adult program is all about,” said team member Karyn Becerra. “We’re a fun-loving group, and we throw great parties.”

Franz-Hahr Phillips led the team to victory with an individual fourth place on Duke Of Earle, a 14-year-old, Thoroughbred-Percheron cross.

For Phillips, of Martinsville, Va., the win had special significance, since she was eliminated at the trakehner at The Fork Horse Trials in April. “I was finally clean cross-country, and we made it over the trakehner,” she said excitedly. “The cross-country rode great. I was really nervous, but I overcame my fear.”

Phillips said Duke Of Earle, her partner of six years, takes care of her. “He does this job very well,” she said of the former foxhunter.

Phillips keeps Duke Of Earle at Suzanne Lacy’s Sandy River Equestrian Center in Axton, Va., where she’s the program manager and newsletter editor. She trains with Judy Walker in dressage and Chris Hitchcock and Vicki Baker for jumping.

Wiggins has owned Dazzler’s Joy for seven years, but it hasn’t always been a smooth ride with the 15-year-old Thoroughbred.

“We’ve had a lot of trouble with confidence, and this year has been a wonderful experience,” said Wiggins, a realtor at Lawson & Greenleaf in Southern Pines, N.C. “The last two years have been good, but before that, we couldn’t get over a crossrail. Without my coach, Caroline Dowd, we wouldn’t be here today.”

Next year, Wiggins, who finished fifth individually, hopes to take her mare preliminary, then retire her to be a broodmare.

Carolyn Gray, who finished sixth individually, bred her own Semper Philly, now a 9-year-old Thoroughbred mare. The former trainer entered “the real world” last year to become a manufacturing representative for Midstate Equipment.

Gray, of Mt. Pleasant, N.C., also hopes to take her 15.1-hand mare preliminary next year, then breed her. “She’s got a big jump and a big heart,” she said of the liver chestnut.

Becerra, who trains professionally, rode her 15.3-hand Saddlebred-Arabian cross, Zhivago, whom she’s owned since he was 3.

“It was a beautiful course and a lot of fun,” said Becerra, of Bunn, N.C. “I’d love to go back and do it again. The footing was great-they ran irrigation under the course for 2 miles to keep the clay from getting hard. It was like a sponge.”

Although they came into show jumping in second place, the Easy Keepers added only 4 penalties to their score to grab the lead. “We weren’t sure where we were going to be until they gave the ribbons,” said Phillips.

“If it had been just me, I wouldn’t have been nervous in show jumping, but there was a little added pressure for the team, which made it more fun,” said Wiggins. “I’d like to be on the same team next year-all four of us. I love having the ATCs here, and it’s an important part of eventing.”

Like any competitive team, the Easy Keepers, who even camped together all weekend, had their own farrier and team medic. Fortunately, they only needed the team medic, Franz-Hahr’s husband, Bob Phillips, for beer runs.

A Lucky Threesome

Greenleaf’s Luck Of The Irish preliminary team had all the luck they needed to win their ATC division. With three Irish horses and sponsorship from Lawson & Greenleaf Realty in Southern Pines, N.C., they beat the Speed Demons, the only other team to finish the preliminary ATC. All the winning team members live in Southern Pines.

Alison Kelly-Coates, a fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-grade math teacher, took the individual lead in dressage and never let go. But
by Sunday morning, she was feeling the pressure. “I didn’t eat this morning, and my stomach was having a good time,” she said with a laugh.

Kelly-Coates and her 8-year-old, Irish Sport Horse, Irish Cavalier, were headed to the Midsouth CCI* (Ky.) two weeks after the ATC, along with teammate Michele Lobsinger and her Able Sportsfield.

Coach Bobby Costello came to help Kelly-Coates. “He drove 11/2 hours to coach me this morning, and he came yesterday, too,” she said. “He’s my lucky charm.”

Kelly-Coates appreciates Costello’s extra help, especially around her work hours. “I tutor students after school, so I can afford [Irish Cavalier],” she said. “Bobby is great enough to coach me after 5 p.m.”

David and Lauren O’Brien also coached and walked the course with the Area II riders. Lobsinger, who was a working student for the O’Briens and bought Able Sportsfield from them four years ago, works as a private tutor, helping with many of Kelly-Coates’ students.

Lobsinger leases a barn from Bob and Dottie Greenleaf, hence the sponsorship. “They are big sponsors of our sport,” said Lobsinger. “They bought us all fleece vests with ‘Greenleafs Luck Of The Irish’ on them.”

A few years ago, Lobsinger never dreamed she might be preparing Able Sportsfield for a three-day. The big gray broke his coffin bone a year after she bought him. “They [vets] told me I’d have a hack horse if I was lucky,” she said.

But the pair completed the Virginia CCI* in May. “He’s my once-in-a-lifetime horse,” said Lobsinger, who won seven events with him last year. “We got really close when he got hurt, and he takes good care of me now, I think because I took care of him,” she said.

Adele Baker also had to put her plans on hold shortly after buying Rathertin Gent last November, since she hurt her back in a fall.

She first saw the horse standing on a van in Maryland. “I said, ‘He’s a Thelwell pony!’ ” recalled Baker. “And they said, ‘Yes, but watch him jump.’ “

The pair made the cross-country time by almost 20 seconds. “He’s very gallopy and very brave,” said Baker. “He is the perfect match for me. He is everybody’s dream of a good cross-country horse, although he’s quirky. He’s grouchy in the warm-up and tries to buck and doesn’t want to go to the start box, but then he blasts around and has a good time.”

Baker, a mother of two, hopes to move up to intermediate in the future.

Best Of The Old And New

The winning novice team-Girls Behaving Badly-was a mixture of experienced campaigners and new partnerships, so they weren’t quite sure what to expect.

Gwendolyn Dean (nee Chilcott) thought she wouldn’t be riding in the ATC this fall when her horse fractured a sidebone in the spring. But she pulled her 18-year-old English Thoroughbred, Kea’ora, out of retirement to make the team.

Kea’ora finished second for Dean in the 1995 North American Young Riders Championships CCI*, then won the Bromont CCI** (Que.) in 1996, with Dean’s coach, David O’Brien.

Dean, of Carthage, N.C., owns a skateboard shop and is the mother of two children. “Horses are my 3/4-time hobby,” said Dean, who owns two others at home.

But Alicia Daily’s Connemara stallion, Tre Awain Goldsmith, has only been eventing for a year. The 5-year-old won a training division at Fancy Hill (Va.) two weeks before the ATC.

Daily, of Lynchburg, Va., was doing double duty at The Fork-in addition to riding, she had a pottery booth (Hands On Pottery) and donated prizes to the fourth-placed finishers in each division.

Lisa Burnett was also aboard a mount new to the sport-a 7-year-old, Amish cart horse. “I can’t ride the Thoroughbreds, so I decided to get a crossbred,” she said. “I’m hooked!”

When Burnett first went to see Winston, in Pennsylvania, he was on the side of an icy mountain, barefoot and hairy, but she was instantly sold. With the help of her trainer, Emily Beshear, Winston has quickly adapted to his new life.

Since Burnett, of Orange, Va., keeps her horse at Leslie Clark’s Wingreen Farm, a popular cross-country schooling venue, Winston has no troubles with that phase of eventing. “Cross-country is not a problem,” said Burnett, a computer programmer. “He gets over just about everything.”

The ATC was Burnett’s last event at novice-she planned to move up to training two weeks later. “The jumps are easy for him, so I’ll push my luck,” she said with a laugh. “He’s great.”

Her goal is to eventually complete a one-star.

D.C. McBroom has no such goals for Woodbine, her 14-year-old partner, who also won the novice horse title at the American Eventing Championships in September. But she does hope to move up on Due South, her other partner, and she thought the course at The Fork was perfect practice.

“It’s one of my favorite courses. You walk it, and it makes you think; it’s not a gimme. But if you can’t answer a question, you’re not overly penalized,” she said. “It gives the horses a really good experience.”

She also enjoyed the hospitality at the event. “I could talk all day about Jim [Cogdell, owner of The Fork]. He is so gracious.”

Despite badly breaking his ribs the weekend before the event, at a hunter pace, Cogdell was helping run the event all weekend,
even dragging the warm-up arena between divisions.

For McBroom, of Floyd, Va., the win was her fourth victory in a novice ATC. “It was just a thrill,” she said. “People are going to make me move up to training soon.”