There’s no better way to make sure the rust is all knocked off than with a grand prix win!

Lisa Goldman had to take three months off from showing to recover from two surgeries and just got back in the saddle a few weeks ago, so she was thrilled to take the blue in the $50,000 Equioxx Grand Prix at HITS Ocala (Fla.) riding Hindsight. It was also the horse’s first grand prix win.

“I feel really good—I feel strong and not in pain at all,” said Goldman. “But all those split-second decisions you have to make, when you haven’t been doing that, don’t always come off the way you think they will. Then in Ocala, everything just fell into place. He was amazing.”

Hindsight, a 10-year-old Hosteiner gelding (Vision—Rhiannon) bred in the United States by Joe Forest, is an up-and-comer in Goldman’s string. As a 7-year-old, he’d shown in the hunters and the 1.00-meter jumpers and Goldman spotted him at HITS Ocala in January 2015. “He seemed like he wanted to do more. So I got him and stepped him up in the jumper ring,” she said. “He won a 1.45-meter speed class [at the 2016 Winter Equestrian Festival (Fla.)]. He’s been second and third before, but he’s never won an actual big grand prix before, so this was exciting.”

Lisa Goldman and Hindsight after their $50,000 Equioxx Grand Prix victory. Photo courtesy of Lisa Goldman

Hindsight is actually the horse Goldman fell from in September, putting a premature end to her fall season. She was showing in Kentucky and got into trouble jumping into a combination on course. “He jumped so big to get over the oxer that I wasn’t quite right to B of the combination, and we were too far away to leave the ground and going too fast to stop,” she said. “So he did try to put his feet back down and then jump it, but I got jumped loose and wrapped around his neck. I held on, but I landed between his front legs. He somehow didn’t step on me. I just landed and hit the point of my shoulder wrong and broke my collarbone.”

Initially, doctors thought Goldman’s collarbone would heal with just rest. So, Goldman, who lives at her family’s Red Coat Farm in Hawthorn Woods, Ill., decided to take the down time to solve another problem. “I had had a herniated disc in my back for a long time that bothered me. The fall didn’t make my back any worse, but I’d already been taking all the steps to get my back fixed. I was close to doing the surgery, but once I broke the collarbone, I figured I’d do the surgery right away,” she said.

So, on Sept. 28, she underwent surgery to repair the discs in her back. And then a re-check showed that her collarbone had displaced, so she needed surgery to repair that too. Her second surgery, to put a plate and seven screws into her clavicle, was on Oct. 12, and Goldman settled in for three months of rest.

“Breaking my collarbone made me take the time to get my back fixed. For me, it just happened a month earlier than I had planned. I had three more horse shows on my fall schedule, and then I was planning on getting my back fixed anyway,” she said. “So at first, I was worried about missing those three horse shows, but in the long run, having it happen a month early allowed me to be ready for this winter circuit sooner.”

Her horses, including Hindsight and veteran grand prix stars Centurion B and Morocco, had a bit of a vacation. “Most of them get a few months off after they’re done showing in the fall anyway, so they all got ridden a bit, and everyone at the barn stepped up and helped out,” Goldman said. “Most of them barely jumped; the young ones stayed in more of a routine than the older guys.”

When she was cleared to ride in the middle of December, Goldman got right back into the swing of things, taking the horses to a show at the World Equestrian Center (Ohio) in early January before shipping them to Ocala on Jan. 10.

“I had my doubts for a little while, whether or not I was going to be ready and if I’d be able to be jumping around. I was nervous about it for a while, but we just made the plans and stuck with them. And it all worked out,” Goldman said.

Last year, Goldman got to experience showing in Europe for the first time as she jumped on the U.S. Equestrian Federation’s Development Tour in Belgium, Slovakia and Italy. “That was so much fun, and everyone back home really got behind me and supported me. The amount of support was amazing—not just people at my own barn but all over the Midwest, from all the horse shows, the local tack shops, the trainers, everyone was so supportive,” she said. “It was a great experience to have. To be a part of that and have that red coat was very exciting.”

She shipped Centurion B and Hindsight to Europe to show, and it was the first time flying for both of the U.S.-breds. She originally planned for Hindsight to be her back-up horse, but the gray ended up jumping with her in the FEI Nations Cup in Samorin, Slovakia., where the U.S. team finished seventh. Goldman and Hindsight had rounds with 4 and 12 faults.

Goldman usually bases herself in Ocala and travels to Wellington, Fla., a few times to show at the Winter Equestrian Festival, and that’s her plan this winter. But she’s taking it slow in goal-planning. “I’m playing it by ear and seeing how things go,” she said. “Right now, we’re looking at week by week rather than having a big goal. My two big grand prix horses are getting a little older now, so I want to make sure they’re still on top of their game. We have the next two months planned, but after that we’ll see how things are going.”

See full results of the $50,000 Equioxx Grand Prix from HITS Ocala.