Each year at of the end of the May, young Rebekah Robinson and slew of kids from her Beersville, Pennsylvania, neighborhood would pile into her mom’s Suburban, bound for the Devon Horse Show in Devon, Pennsylvania. About an hour later, the herd would spill out of the car with a parental reminder to meet back at the parking lot at 10:30 p.m. for the trip home.

While many of the other kids were eager to explore the fair, devour the greasy food and go for a spin on the Ferris wheel, for Robinson, now 55, the show was all about the horses. As a tot she made her showing debut in the leadline, before graduating to the family class with her mom Regina Robinson. After she and her mother “decided we didn’t like flat classes,” the pair moved on to the parent and child class, which takes place over fences, and found their niche: They won third place in the first year they entered, when Rebekah was 7, and kept coming back for years afterward.

“My mom was a good sport, and for close to 20 years, no matter where I was working, we almost always showed at Devon. She would round up a second horse, and we would do the parent and child class,” Rebekah recalled. “Then she finally said that she could retire from that. That was a lot of fun, doing that with her for all those years.”

Over the years, Rebekah has sampled much of what the multi-discipline show has to offer. She started competing in the hunt teams with friends as a junior. Then, while attending West Chester University (Pennsylvania), her gym teacher, Lisa Knox, introduced her to the world of carriage driving and side-saddle. That education opened more opportunities.

“In the early ’90s [and] late ’80s I did side-saddle at Devon for the first time,” she said. “They used to have the combination class when you went in driving, you drove both directions and then you got off, tacked them up and did a hunter hack class [aside]. That was actually quite fun, too.”

She started taking driving lessons with Saltwood Kite, a small pony of unrecorded breeding, because she had some free time in the afternoons. While “Chief” didn’t like to be ridden, he loved to drive, so why not? The pair excelled in the scurry class, which is a timed cones course.

“I think my jumper background helped, because I loved to turn, so between the two of us we had a good time,” she said.

For about 10 years, Rebekah and Chief competed at Devon, winning the single/pair pony driving championship in 2019 and 2022. Chief was 27 when he won his final championship.

She’s also participated on the in-hand side, as she worked for legendary hunter breeding handler Ray Francis for two years, giving her a first-hand view of what it takes to show a young horse on the line.

Rebekah now works as a barn manager for Collin and Virginia McNeil. Collin, who is also on the board of the horse show, is an MFH at Radnor Hunt (Pennsylvania) and owns horses for show jumper Alex Matz. While Rebekah used to work as a groom for the jumpers, she now manages the foxhunting side of their Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, farm, just 20 minutes from Devon. During the spring and summer, during foxhunting’s off season, she takes some of the more suitable hunt horses to local shows.

“Devon is my favorite horse show of all time, but the hunt horses are a little not sure of that because we don’t see many Ferris wheels out galloping through the countryside,” she said. “They’re really good sports about it, I have to say. We apologize for it the week leading up to it; we apologize for the week after it.”

While Rebekah is still a multi-hyphenate—there was one week she showed in the local hunters, side-saddle and driving classes—these days she focuses on the hunt teams representing the Radnor Hunt, which has a big presence at the show. Their huntsman parades the hounds at the start of the evening activities, and many members gather in the stands for an evening of merriment.

“In the beginning, a couple of the hunt horses did the locals. They were rockstars,” Rebekah said. “The year that it was massively flooded was their best year.

“All those little prima donna horses were scared to get their feet wet; my elephants went in there like, ‘We got this,’ ” she continued. “All of ours are draft crosses, for the most part, or Irish Sport Horses. They’re big suckers, and you definitely hear them coming. They don’t owe us anything, and they go in and jump around like rock stars.”

This year she’ll be riding Brimstone alongside two friends from Radnor in the hunt teams.

It’s a chaotic evening, as the hunt horses aren’t stalled, but instead stage in a nearby parking lot. The festivities don’t begin until at least 9 p.m., so it’s a late night, but Rebekah says she’s lucky their drive home is short and nearly a straight shot, even if they aren’t pulling in until nearly midnight.

“How often can you say ‘I got to show at Devon,’ ” she said. “And to be able to come in and do it under the lights is a really cool thing.”

Out of all the years and all the disciplines she’s participated in over the years, Rebekah’s favorite memories are from those years competing alongside her mom.

“I don’t think you realize til you’re older what a great thing that is to have,” she said. “You look back, and you got to do that with your mom or your whole family for that many years. And just to have something that you shared with her. We would borrow horses to get there, so it was a lot of fun to have that and see pictures of it now.”

The Chronicle has a pair of reporters at Devon bringing you photos, stories from the competition and more at coth.com. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram to make sure you don’t miss a thing. You can see a full report from the entire competition in the June 20 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse magazine.

Important Links: Devon Horse Show website / Detailed schedule / Results and orders of go / All the Chronicle’s coverage