Eventer Tik Maynard made his second appearance at the Road to the Horse World Championships of Colt Starting a winning one, successfully defending the title he first earned in 2024. Working with Goodluck Suncat (Goodluck Catt—MS Beaco Sunny CD), a previously unstarted 3-year-old Quarter Horse gelding provided by Pitchfork Ranch in Guthrie, Texas, Maynard won the final two rounds of the competition to capture the championship, held March 27-30 at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. 

“It’s the most challenging thing, two years in a row, that I’ve ever done in my life,” said Maynard, 43, Citra, Florida. “Most horse people are challenging themselves, but most challenges we give ourselves are things we know we’re going to be able to do, or get through.

“This was one where there were moments I thought about quitting, moments I didn’t think I’d get through it, and moments I didn’t know what to expect,” he continued. “It’s the most out of my comfort zone I’ve ever been.” 

Established in 2003, Road to the Horse is an event intended to “inspire people to reach a higher level of horsemanship and develop unity with a horse based on trust and not fear.” English equestrians may not be familiar with the term “colt-starting,” which is commonly used among western riders to describe someone who does the initial training of a young horse. Each year, Road to the Horse draws together an invitation-only list of elite colt starters from around the world, who are given just three days to showcase their skills in front of an audience of discerning fans and some of the industry’s top judges. 

On both Friday and Saturday, competitors were allowed to work with their colt for an hour and 45 minutes, which included a mandatory 15-minute break, before contesting Sunday’s finale. Each round of the competition received a separate score and placing from the judging panel.

Maynard, representing his native Canada, and his fellow competitors—two-time winner Vicki Wilson of New Zealand, and U.S. horsemen Phil Haugen and Buster McLaury, who qualified for the finals during the Wild Card competition held immediately preceding the event—chose their horses out of a herd of 50 animals midday on Friday. None of the 3-year-old Quarter Horse geldings had been handled more than a handful of times in their life.

“Suncatt” is by the same sire as the horse Maynard won with last year, Capera Catt, but he says the two animals have quite distinct personalities. He chose the attractive buckskin after noticing how thoughtfully Suncatt navigated being in his herd.

“He wasn’t at the front a lot, he wasn’t at the back a lot, but when other horses came up to him, there was movement,” Maynard said. “You could see him think his way through it. Horses tend to be reactive; they are flight animals, and he was a much more thoughtful horse, which is really helpful in a situation like this.

“Last year, I had a horse who had the tendency to want to move a lot, and I often had to get him out and going forward, whereas this year, the horse was different in the sense that when I wanted to give him a break, I let him stand, and he would lower his head,” he continued. “He was, more than almost any other horse I’ve had in a long time, very quick to lick and chew. I had to be really careful with this horse not to get him moving a lot.”

During their first two sessions, competitors are allowed the assistance of a “pen wrangler,” a role Maynard described as being a combination of head groom, coach and golf caddy. Maynard and his pen wrangler, Nick Rivera, worked together at Road to the Horse last year, and they prepared for this year’s competition by doing a similar demo at the EquiFest of Kansas in Salina, Kansas, the weekend before.

“We started two horses on the Road to the Horse timeline, in front of a big crowd of people, almost re-creating that atmosphere and buzz, but without the competition format,” Maynard said. “That meant I could take my foot off the gas pedal as many times as I wanted to, or change course. It gave me a chance to make little mistakes and learn from them.”

Their previous experience working together meant that at this year’s competition, Maynard and Rivera operated like a well-oiled machine.

“There are so many times I look to him for advice, where he told me I could speed up or slow down, or I could let my horse have a little more soak time,” Maynard said. “When dressage people talk about having ‘eyes on the ground,’ that’s what he’s like. Getting the chance to work with him leading up to it, a lot of stuff became where we didn’t have to have a lot of communication to know what the other person was thinking.”

In his first sessions with Suncatt, Maynard prioritized helping the youngster understand what to expect from him. 

“The emphasis, right from the beginning, was showing him that we’re a team, and I’m looking for something in particular,” Maynard said. “The first thing I’m looking for is that he can start to look at me—not past me or through me, or have a glazed look in his eye—but he can look at me, as if to understand that I’m asking him a question.”

One of Maynard’s goals in this year’s competition was to showcase how many times he could retreat, and how many small steps he could use to help Suncatt gain confidence.

“There is a saying, ‘pressure motivates, but the release of pressure teaches,’ ” Maynard said. “The only reason I’m approaching, or putting pressure on, is so I can retreat. It is in the retreat that the horse learns and soaks and gets better.

“The more times I can retreat, and the more small steps I can put in, the faster stuff goes,” he continued. “I’m not trying to improve things 10% at a time. I’m trying to improve something 1%, 10 times.”

The approach helped Suncatt understand that Maynard would always react in a predictable way.

“It’s sort of like if you walked up to me and extended your hand: Based on your body language, I would know if you are going to shake my hand or hug me,” Maynard explained. “But if the next time, you extend your hand, and look like you want me to shake it, and then you punch me, that’s unpredictable. Or when you go to another country, and you go to shake their hand, and they bow. It’s a bit of a disconnect in the relationship.

“You’re trying to provide an understanding that becomes the basis for the relationship,” he continued. “[For Suncatt], you look at me, I back up. He touches my hand, I back up. We do it enough times that it provides, right off the bat, a bit of a relationship. The next step is that we can become comfortable with each other’s space at the standstill, then comfortable with each other’s space as we move around.”

Building on this foundation, by the final day of competition, each horse and rider team worked independently—without the assistance of a pen wrangler—to complete demonstrations in the round pen, on the rail, and in an obstacle course/freestyle. Although he won this phase in 2024, Maynard felt he was more effective this year.

“People talk about maturing, of being more comfortable in your own skin, or just being you. It’s given me a bit of that—of kind of being more comfortable, being me.”

Tik Mayard

“I was able to do a better job, I think, of not pushing in certain places, and instead setting it up and waiting for the right thing, or being quicker to move on to the next thing,” Maynard said. “I also found a better quitting spot with the horse. Last year, I finished and he was bucking a bit as time ran out. This year, he was standing quietly. Of course, these were two very different horses.”

Although there have been several other two-time winners in the event’s history, only one other—Wilson—came from a primarily English background. Last year, Maynard decided at the last minute to borrow a western saddle to use in the competition; this year, he came with that intention, riding in a Contour Saddlery saddle that he has been practicing with for the past four months.

Maynard emphasized that Road to the Horse is meant to be a demonstration of “what is possible,” not a road map of how any of the event’s competitors would typically choose to develop a previously unhandled horse. He compares going through the experience to doing a five-star event; it isn’t something one would choose to do more than once or twice a year with the same horse. Although the event historically has invited back first-time winners the next year, he expects that organizers will opt to allow another colt starter to take his place in 2026.

“It’s a big ask, of both the person and the horse,” Maynard said. “By getting through it, and doing a job that I was proud of, that’s the main thing. The winning was icing on the cake. It’s given me a lot of confidence that I can get through stuff.

“People talk about maturing, of being more comfortable in your own skin, or just being you,” he continued. “It’s given me a bit of that—of kind of being more comfortable, being me.”