The local rider sits first and second after the first day of dressage.

The first day of the Wellpride American Eventing Championships couldn’t have gone much better for hometown favorite Tera MacDonald.

After a stellar performance in yesterday’s Spalding Labs/USEA Young Event Horse Championships, she pulled an impressive one-two this morning, Sept. 10, topping the 27-horse field of the novice horse AEC division with Savvant (23.2) and placing second with La Tee Da (25.8). The latter horse won the 4-year-old YEH championship last year and took second again yesterday in the 5-year-old division with MacDonald in the irons. Both horses are owned by MacDonald’s mother-in-law, Cheryl Quick.

“I owe it all to my in-laws,” MacDonald said. “Cheryl wanted me to tune [Savvant] up for her, but I have a tendency to steal all her horses. He’s probably my favorite horse to ride, but I’ll actually be handing the reins back over to her eventually. He’s not one I’m going to go back up the levels with.

“He’s Steady Eddie,” MacDonald continued of Savvant, a 13-year-old, 17.2-hand Trakehner gelding. “He’s one that just boosts my confidence level and lets me know that I can do it with the other horses.”

MacDonald, who showed hunter/jumpers for 10 years before transitioning to eventing, originally had dreams of competing at the four-star level. But now she’s discovered a particular penchant for working with young horses.

Last year with her young horse, La Tee Da, MacDonald was leading the open beginner novice division of the AEC but switched her status to hors concours on the final day after learning that she was technically overqualified for the division. More specific qualification guidelines and separate divisions for horses, amateurs and juniors were added at this year’s competition, but MacDonald said she still double-checked her entries.

“I made sure to enter the novice horse division,” she said with a laugh. “It feels good. I feel very proud of all the effort I’ve made!”

MacDonald lives in downtown Chicago and works as the farm manager at Finishing Touches Farm in Genoa City, Wis. She’s also a national sales representative for Jump 4 Joy show jumps.

She said having ridden both horses at the Maui Jim and Wayne DuPage events earlier this summer will make tomorrow’s cross-country easier. “I’ll have to make sure I don’t get time faults though,” she said. “Riding [Savvant] is like riding a dinosaur.”

New Jersey professional Doug Payne is close behind MacDonald with two of his own mounts. He currently sits in a tie for third place with Barnastook (26.8) and in fifth place with Charm (27.4).

Good Tempered

Erin Miller logged the lowest overall score of the day—21.0—to take the lead in the amateur novice division with The Tempest. Miller, of Canton, Mich., rode the 10-year-old Trakehner gelding into the lead over 33 other competitors. The pair won their last three novice starts together and now lead the field by more than 3 points.

Miller, 29, first met the appropriately-named “Temper” as a 2-year-old, but didn’t begin competing him until he was 6. He evented for two years, but having been gelded as a 5-year-old, he was an unruly youngster with the tendency to rear and bolt. But Miller, who was hired by friends to put some training on the horse, fell in love with him and decided to buy him herself.

“We had a lot of trust work building,” she acknowledged, adding that he also underwent tieback surgery to fix a roaring condition last year. “He had a big attitude from being gelded late and the breathing problem, so this was our re-introduction year.

“I had tears in my eyes when I saluted today,” Miller continued. “I’ve been incredibly emotional all week. I can’t even describe it. I just gave him a big hug when we got done.”

A psychology researcher at the University of Michigan, Miller boards Temper at Jill Mooney’s new facility in Michigan. She does most of the training herself, relying on her husband, mother and Mooney for help and support.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, Miller is confident about her horse’s chances on the cross-country course, so long as he can overcome his excitement and head out of the box and establish rhythm and focus quickly.

“It looks great,” she said of Jon Wells’ 19-effort course. “It’s a nice, straightforward course, not super difficult for this level. He’s done some trainings already, so it should be a piece of cake.”

“My Rolex And My Olympics”

Eventing is still new to Sebastopol, Calif., rider Annie Desmond, but her animal training background paid off today in the amateur beginner novice division. She leads the competition after her dressage ride aboard Britannica, a 10-year-old Hanoverian mare she bought four years ago.

Desmond works as a trainer for Seeing Eye and search and rescue dogs, but “Brit” is her first horse.

“I can train a dog with my eyes closed, but training a horse has been a whole new and different thing,” Desmond said. “Brit is just a really gracious, kind horse. We’re both kind of green, but we totally grew up together.”

Desmond, 47, credits her veterinarian Sue Buxton with fostering her interest in horses.

“She had all these pictures from jumping events all over her waiting room wall in her office, and I would just stand mesmerized, staring at them,” she said.

Buxton took Desmond under her wing and helped her find Brit and begin competing. Desmond now trains with Northern California trainer Matt Brown, who took a week off work to fly to Chicago to coach her.

“He was so completely understanding when I had this crazy dream, and everyone else at the barn kind of laughed at me,” Desmond said of Brown.

“I’ve had this dream ever since I heard about the AEC,” she continued. “It seems like this is my Rolex and my Olympics. I’ve been training for this for so long. So I begged Sue to come along too, so she got qualified and drove out with me. It took four days. We’ve already had such an adventure.”

Desmond’s goal-setting and determination have paid off thus far. She sits in first place on a score of 27.0, 2 points ahead of the field.

“I thought we’d be in the top five somewhere after the dressage,” she said. “I felt like we were really prepared and did a good job. But now we’re in first, and now I’m kind of scared! But [tomorrow’s cross-country] course looks lovely, and it looks like it will be fun times.”

In other beginner novice competition, Kalamazoo, Mich., rider Kelly Hill leads the beginner novice horse division with Wolfsfalle, a Hanoverian-Thoroughbred gelding owned by Classic Saddlery Ltd. The 17.1-hand bay scored a 26.0 in the dressage and has a 2-point cushion heading into cross-country.

Kelsey Neely of Alpharetta, Ga., leads the field of 41 competitors in the junior beginner novice division with Zula. The blue roan Trakehner-cross mare, owned by Tawn Edwards, scored a 29.5 in the dressage.

Cross-country action begins tomorrow at 9 a.m. with the beginner novice, novice horse and amateur novice divisions. Dressage also starts at 9 a.m. for the junior novice and all training divisions.

For complete Day 1 results, click here.