Lynn Symansky and Lauren Nicholson have plenty of experience riding for Team USA around the world, winning eventing medals at the likes of the Pan American Games and the World Championships. But recently, fresh off their top-10 finishes at the Fair Hill CCI3*-L (Maryland), they won a different kind of competition: the Orange County Hounds Team Chase in at Old Whitewood Farm in The Plains, Virginia. It was the first time either participated in a foxhunting competition, but they nonetheless galloped away with best hunt team honors.

“I’ve been hunting out with Orange some this year, and I was going a bit last year as well,” said Symansky, Middleburg, Virginia. “Someone mentioned, ‘Hey, it’s the last call for team chase.’ Lauren and I were both out together we were kidding around, ‘Oh, we should do it.’ We somehow volunteered ourselves and signed up without realizing what we got ourselves into.”

The riders rode eventers-turned-foxhunters bred and owned by Nicholson’s sponsor, Jacqueline Mars, who also serves as the president of the Orange County Hounds board of stewards. Nicholson was on Landmark’s Mochachino, a 12-year-old Thoroughbred-cross (Maxamillion—Tyrrell) that she previously evented through the three-star level, and Symansky had Landmark’s Miner’s Diamond (Miner’s Lamp—Jungle Tale), a 13-year-old Thoroughbred who competed through the two-star level with Nicholson.

“We had to do some investigating, because we didn’t have a coach or anything going into our new sport,” quipped Symansky, 40. “We did text a few people that I knew hunted for any tips, because it seemed very confusing to me that there was an optimum time but no meters per minute … It was like a mystery optimum time.”

Taking such mysteries in stride, the pair got ready as best they could.

“Lynn is a very prepared person, and we decided to walk the course,” said Nicholson, of The Plains. “In my mind I was like, maybe we could stand in the middle of the field and see the whole course? That’s not how it was. I said to Lynn, ‘I was not mentally prepared to go on a long, romantic hike with you.’ I was huffing and puffing. It was way more than I anticipated it being. But a lovely woman named Annabel [Bybee] was there walking as well; we were just peppering her with questions.”

The pair was simply advised that optimum time was “fast,” and Nicholson estimated they were going at about modified speed, which proved a bit too brisk, knocking them out of contention for a win in the optimum time category. When they started gaining on the team in front of them, they veered off the track and added in a few extra jumps, which they did in tandem with each other. They took turns leading, grinning from ear-to-ear the whole time.

“We had a really awesome time,” said Nicholson, 36. “It’s great because Orange is so welcoming, and everybody was such good sports coaching us and helping us figure out how to do what we were doing.”

Nicholson cited the Stonehall Farm team of manager Sue Clarke and grooms Sara McKenna Sherman, Melanie Mullens, Miley Holtzman and Alfredo Roman as indispensable—and their work was rewarded with best turned out honors as well. Nicholson also recruited Juliet Graham, a fellow Olympic eventer who represented Canada, to tie her stock tie.

“My mom always did it while I was little, and Ms. Mars keeps me very well stocked with pre-tied stock ties because I’m so embarrassingly bad at tying my own,” she admitted. “That is my worst bad habit.”

After the team chase, the top riders were invited back for the individual final, where each rider had to demonstrate their horse’s handiness by jumping a variety of jumps, showing off a hand gallop, a halt, trotting through a serpentine of logs and opening and closing a gate. While Nicholson had multiple problems, Symansky and “Miner” were nearly foot-perfect except for trouble with the gate, earning them second place in the individual final behind Cynthia Holz.

“I’ll have to work on [the gate], so next time I can bring home the victory,” Symansky said. “But I’ll take second place.”

There was an error when announcing the results, and originally Nicholson was announced as the reserve champion.

“Ms. Mars was like, ‘That seems wrong. You were terrible,’ ” Nicholson recalled with a laugh. “They realized they had accidentally swapped us. Lynn was much better than me, so we fought over the ribbon for a bit.”

Nicholson and Symansky have been teaching several foxhunting clinics, including one alongside Graham. Nicholson said initially some riders were worried they would make them do dressage or ringwork, but instead they focused on safety tactics and managing common situations that come up in the hunt field. While neither has a very extensive hunting background beyond hunting a bit growing up, they’ve been thrilled to get back into the sport.

“It’s good practice because you’re out there riding more by the seat of your pants; it is kind of what old-style eventing used to be,” Symansky said. “Now everything is so technical, and the sport has changed so much, you’re walking these lines, and there’s so much strategy. It’s nice to go out and practice feel.

“You spend the whole year slaving away teaching and training, with the ups and downs of [upper-level competition], so it’s nice to just go out and really enjoy it and be reminded why you do this in the first place, which is that riding horses across beautiful countryside is pretty cool,” she continued. “We were watching the eventing show jumping at the [Pan American Games (Chile)] when were getting ready to go start, and we were joking with each other, ‘Well, we’ve been in that spot before.’ This time it was a little less stressful, with a different type of pressure. This one was a little easier, and it was really fun to be a part of the community.”