Four-time U.S. Olympian Laura Kraut and Sandsablaze, Buddy Brown’s 1976 Montreal Olympic Games mount, have been elected to the Show Jumping Hall of Fame. They will be formally inducted during the Hall of Fame’s Induction Gala on March 2, at the Wellington National Golf Club in Florida. At the induction, the Hall of Fame will also present its International Award to four-time Canadian Olympian Mario Deslauriers, the youngest rider ever to win the FEI World Cup Final, a title he won at age 18 in 1984.

Joining them at the gala will be Katie Prudent’s longtime barn manager, Francisco “Pancho” Lopez, who was inducted last year but was unable to attend. He will receive his Hall of Fame blazer and give his acceptance speech.

Induction into the Show Jumping Hall of Fame is an honor bestowed annually upon select individuals whose accomplishments and contributions to the sport have set them apart and whose influence has had a significant impact on the sport of show jumping and the equestrian community.

Laura Kraut

With decades’ worth of experience and an impressive résumé, Laura Kraut has had an illustrious career representing the U.S. on the international stage. She has competed in four Olympic Games, three World Equestrian Games, the 2023 Pan American Games and many FEI World Cup and Nations Cup events.

Kraut was named to her first major team in 1992 when she was alternate for the Barcelona Olympic Games. She made her Olympic debut in Sydney in 2000 with the all-female American team, then helped the U.S. win team gold at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Her 2008 Olympic mount, Cedric, was inducted last year. She returned to the podium at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and the 2024 Paris Olympics, earning team silver medals at both events. Her 2024 podium appearance made her the oldest American to win a medal at the Olympics since 1952, and the oldest female American to win a medal since 1904, breaking her own record from 2021. 

Kraut helped secure medals at two of the three World Equestrian Games in which she competed, earning team silver in 2006 and team gold in 2018. She has helped the U.S. finish in the top five at all five FEI Nations Cup Finals in which she’s competed, including a bronze medal in 2016 and silver in 2017. In her first Pan American Games (Chile) in 2023, she helped the U.S. to the team gold medal and placed fourth individually. She has also competed in nine World Cup Finals.

Kraut’s mother, Carol, encouraged her and her sister, Mary Elizabeth, to take their first riding lesson when Kraut was 3 years old. Since then, Kraut has credited much of her success to her relationship with her horses and to Mary Elizabeth’s help with the organization and horse-care side. Kraut is highly ranked on the all-time money list for career earnings, having won over 100 grand prix classes. She was named the American Grand Prix Association Rider of the Year in 2001 and the U.S. Equestrian Federation International Equestrian of the Year in 2021. She was also presented with the U.S. Olympic Committee Jack Kelly Fair Play Award in 2003.

Based in Florida and Great Britain, Kraut and her longtime partner Nick Skelton run a training business that focuses on developing prospective show jumpers, both riders and horses, to their full potential. 

Sandsablaze

Sandsablaze had a storybook career that was never meant to be and may be unequaled in show jumping history. The chestnut Thoroughbred foaled in 1967 was meant to be a hunter and not a jumper. When he became a jumper, most thought of him as a back-up and not a first stringer, but with Brown he defied the odds and became one of the most dominant horses of the 1970s, going from the hunter and equitation ring to become a grand prix champion and a standout on U.S. teams in Nations Cups, two Pan American Games and the Olympics.

“Pappy” was purchased as a 4-year-old after Joe Darby had shown him in the first year green hunters. He was intended to be a junior hunter and equitation horse for Brown, but Brown believed the fearless gelding could handle jumper courses. Brown started him in some 3’6” schooling and junior jumper classes and frequently found himself falling in both the schooling and show rings. It never fazed Pappy, who always got back up ready to try again, and he was soon doing bigger classes against top open jumpers.

Pappy carried Brown to the win in the AHSA Medal Finals in 1973. A year later, Pappy was selected with Brown, still a junior, for a U.S. Equestrian Team European tour. Brown never regretted passing up that year’s Maclay Finals as he and Pappy capped off the tour with a record-setting performance at the Dublin Horse Show, turning in three clean rounds to win the Grand Prix of Ireland. Brown was the youngest rider ever to win that hallowed grand prix, a record he still holds. Pappy and Brown ended that year as part of winning Nations Cup teams at Washington and New York. 

In 1975, Brown and Pappy won the Cleveland Grand Prix and then, as the team’s anchor, cliched the team gold medal for the U.S. at the Pan American Games in Mexico City. They ended the year with two more Nations Cup wins in New York and Toronto where they also won the puissance, clearing the wall at 7’1″ to claim the win.

In 1976, Brown, 20, and Pappy were on the U.S.’s fourth-place team at the Montreal Olympic Games. Pappy bowed a tendon at the Games and sat out most of the following year, showing in just one class prior to indoors. He and Brown won six classes during indoors including the President’s Cup at Washington. They anchored the Nations Cup teams in Washington, New York and Toronto, where all three Nations Cups wound up with jump-offs. Pappy went clean in all three jump-offs, leading the U.S. to wins at Washington and New York.

In 1979, shortly after helping the U.S. to another Pan American Games gold medal at San Juan, Puerto Rico, Pappy’s career ended prematurely. After jumping the final fence in the jump-off in the Sussex County Horse Show Grand Prix (New Jersey), Pappy broke his leg, but added to his legend once again by finishing as winner of his final class.