Michael Pollard and his mythical mount pull off their biggest win yet.

Icarus’ Greek mythological namesake may be infamous for his fatal flight too close to the sun, but Michael Pollard’s stunning gray gelding was completely immune to the elements he battled on his way to winning the Jersey Fresh CCI***.

Icarus and Pollard, Chatsworth, Ga., pulled off a soggy advanced win earlier this spring at Pine Top (Ga.), and at the Horse Park of New Jersey they showcased their talent and true grit in their first CCI*** win on May 7-10 in Allentown, N.J.

Icarus, an 11-year-old off-the-track Thoroughbred, emerged from a week of sideways rain and sticky slop to top the 30-horse field and lead the victory gallop on a sunny afternoon.

“He was everything I hoped for and more,” Pollard, 28, said. Icarus placed third in the dressage (44.0), then took the lead on Saturday and never looked back. “Barring anything else, my main goal for coming here was just to get him qualified for a four-star. So I took the pressure off myself a little bit in that way, and he just jumped great all the way around,” he said.

Pollard and second-placed Jan Byyny had hoped to run their horses at the Rolex Kentucky CCI**** two weeks before Jersey Fresh, but they learned late in the game that their Fédération Equestre Internationale qualifications had expired, so they re-routed to the three-star.

Byyny, Purcellville, Va., and her 14-year-old CCI*** veteran Waterfront retained their second-placed standing after cross-country with a double-clear round on Sunday to finish with 50.8 penalties. This was their fourth time placing second in a CCI***.

“I’m just really glad that I got qualified again [for a four-star] with Waterfront,” Byyny said of the English Thoroughbred gelding (Kuwait Beach—Irish Whisper).

Waterfront had placed second at Jersey Fresh in 2006 behind Byyny’s other mount, Task Force, but had a long break due to injuries and a mysterious allergy.

“I kind of had to reassess [my career] about three years ago and try to figure out how I was going to have some more horses in the barn,” she said. “My ideal plan was to have five horses, and I hoped Waterfront was going to come back and be one of them.”

Byyny was second after the dressage, right behind Leslie Law and Fleeceworks Mystere Du Val, who finished third overall (55.0). In contrast to Waterfront, the 9-year-old Mystere Du Val has been slightly green at the level since Law, Bluemont, Va., got the ride on him in early 2008. He’s been at the advanced level for two years, but his three solid phases in the CCI*** were a big step up for Beatrice and Guy Rey-Herme’s Selle Français gelding.

“He’s got the CIC and horse trials format down,” Law said. “He appears to be standing still because he shot up to advanced maybe earlier than he should have, but he’s standing still in order to establish himself at the level. He has scope to burn, and he’s a fantastic galloper. He’s got all the talent in the world, but he has to have confidence to go with it. I knew I’d have to give him an attacking ride, and he dug deep and, hopefully, progressed a lot this week.”

Eight days of rain before the event forced the dressage into the horse park’s indoor arena. The sun did make an appearance for cross-country, but the humidity became heavy, and the footing soon turned to a sticky mix. No one in the CCI*** made the time; Byyny and Waterfront collected 8.8 time faults, while Law and Mystere Du Val added 12.0.

“[Icarus] doesn’t get tired, but even he was struggling at the end,” Pollard said. “He never backed off the rein, but he didn’t have as much gallop. It was definitely a day to get it done instead of trying to have a beautiful round.”

Pollard’s start was delayed for about 30 minutes during one of three emergency holds on course in the division—Hawley Bennett and Christian Eagles both fell and were taken off the course in ambulances but later released with only minor injuries, and Phillip Dutton’s Baileywick fell (see sidebar).

“It was a difficult course with the heavy ground,” Pollard said. “The horses were tired. Normally at a three-star, you’re feeling you have to hold them together during the last minute on course. But here you were nursing them through the last three minutes. The only way you could be close to the time was to see the distance from the stride you were on rather than setting them up.”

Pollard’s efficient riding garnered 2.4 time faults and was the fastest in the division. He had a rail in hand going into show jumping, which course designer Sally Ike was able to set in the spacious grand prix arena for the first time ever. Sunday’s heavy gales kept the jump crew running to reset fences that blew down in the middle of riders’ rounds, but the horses jumped well.

“[The arena we previously jumped in] gets pretty small when the fences get a decent size, so I was happy to see it up there,” Pollard said. “It allowed me to take a little more time with the jumps, and Icarus jumps better that way.”

Two years ago, Icarus had been in the CCI*** lead at the same venue with Pollard’s friend Will Coleman in the irons, but two rails down and 2 time faults spoiled their win. Pollard sensed, however, that the gelding was ready for revenge this time.

“He’s stronger in his canter now than he was back then, and it was great to jump the second-to-last clear and know I had a rail in hand with one fence to jump,” Pollard said. “So I didn’t worry much about the last, but he jumped that clear as well to make me look good.”

The pair finished comfortably below Pollard’s goal mark of 50 on a score of 46.4. With this victory under his belt, he hopes to contest a CCI**** at either Burghley (England) or Pau (France) this fall. 

It’ll be difficult for Pollard to take time off from the family businesses—carpeting, chemical and arena footing manufacturing—for a European competition this year, but Icarus’ talent is too great to waste. Pollard’s wife, Nathalie, handles all their horses’ day-to-day training while also caring for their son, Phineas. The 9-month-old—named after his parents’ favorite character from John Knowles’ A Separate Peace—didn’t make the trip to New Jersey to share in his father’s success.

“We’re looking forward to getting back to see him,” Pollard said. “He did call his mother though, to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. We think that’s what he said, anyway.”

Beshear Gets A Breakthrough Win

Emily Beshear’s unexpected victory in the CCI** division with Here’s To You was a pleasant enough end to her weekend, but the Mother’s Day win was especially well-timed for the 32-year-old trainer from Somerset, Va.

“My mom, Linda Mastervich, has been my biggest supporter from Day 1,” said a thankful Beshear, who fell head-over-heels for her off-the-track Thoroughbred gelding nearly 11⁄2 years ago after a single cross-country round with him. “Everyone thought I was crazy, but when I called my mom and said, ‘I know this is ridiculous, but I have to have this horse. This is the one horse that I’ve ever sat on that I truly love. Can you help me?’ she helped me.”

Beshear found Here’s To You in Kentucky, where her father-in-law serves as governor, through her friend Rebecca Polan. Polan’s aunt bred the bay gelding, and once he was confirmed a racetrack reject, Polan evented him through training level. Beshear stepped in to help when Polan decided to sell the horse, but she quickly realized she couldn’t bear to see anyone else buy him.

“He just has a tremendous amount of heart,” she said of the 9-year-old gelding (Will’s Way—China Sky). “He goes out there and just tries. It doesn’t seem to matter what I do, or whether I do it right or wrong. He handles it just fine.”

Seemingly impervious to the somewhat spooky indoor arena atmosphere at Jersey Fresh, “Quincy” ranked fifth in the dressage with 51.7 then dominated where others faltered on Saturday. Most horses—including the division’s leaders—struggled on cross-country, so Quincy’s 7.6 time faults moved him into second place.

“One thing I stressed in my mind was that the last 11⁄2 minutes of the course had the biggest questions,” Beshear said. “You saw a lot of problems at the end. I think as riders we need to really be aware of that and make sure we have enough horse left. If your horse is getting tired, you have to know how to help it and not just leave it in that situation.”

Many CCI** riders fell or had refusals late on course as the gluey going took a physical toll on their horses. Out of the 34-horse field, eight were eliminated and nine others had stops; only three scored double-clear rounds.

“I went out a little easy because of the footing and the fact that my horse is really new to this level,” Beshear said. “But as I went, I found that he was having a really easy time galloping across the ground, and we got into a good rhythm. I ended up going a lot faster than I thought I was going to, and he was still galloping at the end.”

Double-clear rounds were more common on Sunday morning, but overnight leaders Becky Holder and Rejuvenate cracked under the pressure applied by Beshear’s fault-free show jumping. They pulled two rails, giving Quincy the blue on a final score of 59.3.

“I’m going to go a little slow with him this year, but he’s certainly handling it all very easily,” she said. “I feel like this was just a regular outing for him. It didn’t even seem like a big deal. I wasn’t even certain that I was coming here to be competitive, but my horse just showed that he’s more than ready.”

Quincy wasn’t the only member of Beshear’s Brickland Eventing team to step up at Jersey Fresh, however. Kate Samuels, 21, shared in Beshear’s celebration as she followed right behind her coach in the CCI** victory gallop aboard Nyls Du Terroir. It was the first two-star for both.

“Emily told me to come here with realistic expectations, so I’m obviously thrilled for him as a young horse and me as a young rider to be able to perform so well against people who have been doing it a lot longer than I have,” said Samuels, Charlottesville, Va. “I’m really proud that I’ve been able to make him. I got him as a completely unbroken 4-year-old, so every single experience that we’ve had is a new one for him as well as for me.”

“These are two horses that we’ve brought along ourselves, so I think it says a lot about our training program—that we’re able to be consistent,” Beshear said.

Samuels and her 7-year-old Selle Français gelding (Diamant De Semilly—Alice D’Araval) were one of only two pairs in all three divisions to finish the weekend on their dressage score. In 17th place on Friday with a 59.8, they rocketed up the leaderboard into a tie for third on Saturday then won the tiebreaker on Sunday after a perfect show jumping round.

“I wasn’t sure if he would man up and do the job or start getting sloppy,” she said. “But we’ve both increased our technical skills this spring, and he pushed on through and did the last part of the [cross-country] course brilliantly. He’s extremely spooky [in show jumping], but he’s incredibly scopey and catty.”

Martin Monopolizes

Boyd Martin, West Grove, Pa., caught the unlucky side of that tiebreaker for second place in the CCI**, dropping to third with his young homebred mare Shatzi W and earning a black eye in the process.

“I had a really nasty moment in the coffin jump when she left a leg and stumbled, and I fell forward and managed to jab the end of my whip straight into my eye,” Martin explained. “So it looks like I copped a bit of a hiding off my wife, but it was actually from my horse.”

The 29-year-old Australian didn’t complain about his weekend, though, as all four of his mounts finished no lower than sixth. Shatzi W, his 8-year-old Dutch Warmblood-Australian Thoroughbred mare (Salute—Batwoman), “really proved she’s a high-level horse, and her dressage score is getting lower and lower with every outing,” Martin said.

“Really the hardest part was remembering all the courses,” he joked. “It was quite a handful trying to focus on each one and give each horse my best ride, but they did very well. I think you need a few horses. It’s a tough sport. You’re lucky if everything goes right on the one weekend.”

Everything went right for Martin and Kate Ditchey’s Belmont in the new CIC*** division, as their final score of 62.1 beat out Mara Dean and High Patriot by more than 8 points. Martin also placed fourth in the same division with Bruce Davidson’s Rock On Rose (73.9) and sixth in the CCI*** with Densey Juvonen’s Remington XXV (69.2).

“My main goal in bringing Belmont here was to help Kate with his sale, but ideally I’d like to work out a way of keeping the ride on him, because I think he’s got a genuine chance of being a member of the American World Equestrian Games team next year,” Martin said of the 14-year-old Dutch Warmblood-Thoroughbred gelding by Boelskool Boy. “I’m pretty new to this country, and that’s my biggest goal at the moment—to ride top horses and compete for America.”

Martin hasn’t had a seamless transition in changing citizenship from his native Australian, but he hopes to be “sporting the ol’ stars and stripes” in time for his next FEI competition, the Bromont CCI (Que.) in June.

In early May, Martin officially ended his assistant trainer stint with Phillip Dutton and is now renting one of Dutton’s 16-stall barns and establishing his own business.

“I can’t say enough nice things about Phillip for helping me get started and guiding me along the way,” Martin said. “He’s played a major role in my involvement in the sport in this country. He’s still training me, and I’m still on stand-by to help him out whenever. It’s a wonderful friendship that’s going to carry on.”

Dean, who won the CIC*** dressage with High Patriot with a 46.5 but dropped to fourth place with time penalties on cross-country, was thrilled to finish as runner-up.

The 11-year-old Oldenburg gelding owned by Dean, Patty Overlund and Patrick O’Brien, had a long vacation last year after injuring himself at The Fork (N.C.) last spring.

“I’d love to say it was a minor injury, but there’s really no such thing,” Dean admitted. “He never really stopped working, in that he walked the whole time, but it was a very slow recovery. But now with all that walking and trotting, his flatwork has improved so much, and he’s the best jumper I’ve ever had—as scopey as can be.”

High Patriot (Pointmaker—Bird Aloft) placed 12th at the Jersey Fresh CCI*** in 2007 with Shannon Lilley, who ran Dean’s barn the following summer while she was away for the Pan American Games in Brazil.

“Before I left, I told her that if she ever decided to sell this horse, to please let me know,” Dean said. “Then I came back from the Pan Ams with poor Nicky Henley having broken down, and I thought life was over and that I was never going to do this sport again. But Shannon came to me afterwards and said that she would sell him.”