The laughter in the barn aisle was audible from the other side of the phone line as dressage rider Jim Koford picked up from the National Dressage Pony Cup in Lexington, Ky.  

“Sorry, there’s just a lot of commotion in the background, a lot of little people, they just like to make noise,” Koford said, and the giggles got louder. “This is my time, guys, the Chronicle’s interviewing me! Back off!”

It’s Koford’s best jovial impression of the uppity dressage rider he so clearly is not. He’s an at-least-six-foot tall Grand Prix level dressage trainer who just finished showing a 13-hand pony named Butterkinz McKinley, for crying out loud.

Jim Koford with his wildly different mounts for the weekend—Butterkinz McKinley (left) and his Grand Prix horse Rhett. Photo courtesy of Kate Wooten

Are you wondering how exactly this dream team of top U.S. dressage rider Jim Koford and cream-colored pony Butterkinz McKinley came to be? So were we.

Butterkinz’ owner, Kate Wooten, runs a stable called SmallTime Eventing in Knoxville, Tenn., and she rides with Koford in monthly lessons. Usually Wooten rides her horse with Koford, but she started bringing her plucky little pony Butterkinz to join in the fun. She’s had “Buttzy,” now 9, since the pony was 3, and she broke the mare herself. 

“The idea was to make her into a kid’s pony, and she isn’t quite a kid’s pony,” said Wooten, who also runs English Saddle Fit in Tennessee. “She needs a real rider—like say, Jim!”

It doesn’t get much more real than that—professional trainer Koford had always planned to come show his Grand Prix horse, Rhett, at the Kentucky Dressage Association dressage show held at the Kentucky Horse Park while the National Dressage Pony Cup was going on at the same venue on July 8-10.

So why couldn’t he hop off his 18-hand warmblood after their Grand Prix test and pop on the 13-hand pony for a spin in a few tests?

“We thought it would be funny,” Wooten laughed, and once the idea was out there, she and her friends certainly got their money’s worth in entertainment value out of the hilarious height-difference spectacle. Friends following along on Facebook commented and liked her posts on Butterkinz and Koford by the hundreds, demanding video updates on the dressage world’s new hotshots.

Koford only rode the mare once before they showed in two tests at first level in the Pony Cup—he didn’t want to over-school his pony.  

“I’m a professional; I feel like you don’t want to drill,” Koford deadpanned, his grin practically audible through the phone. He joked that he was just helping the winner of Butterkinz’s first class, fellow professional Lauren Chumley on Nikolas. “I like to give her a fighting chance, because she just practices and practices, and it’s sort of like handicapping, one practice ride was all I got. I just wanted to make her work for her ribbon.”

Jim Koford showing Butterkinz McKinley at first level at the National Dressage Pony Cup. Photo by John Borys Photography

Koford and Butterkinz’ warm-up for their first test went swimmingly, but unfortunately the weather was not playing along with their joke—the skies parted for their test, adding a bit of pluck to an already forward-thinking pony. They ended up a respectable fourth with a score of 67.34 percent.  

“I think the class should be handicapped, because she was carrying more weight than anyone in that class. So considering the load that she was carrying, I think we were good,” Koford said. “I think we might have had close to the fastest time. I’m not sure about what we scored, but we got to X first.” 

As the weekend wrapped up, Koford and Butterkinz placed eighth in their second first level test in the National Pony Cup on July 9. Then on July 10, Wooten herself placed second on Butterkinz in second level, test 1, in the KDA show. 

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