Bonnie Mosser has a propensity for small, brown, mostly Thoroughbred horses. Having had her best success on a couple of one-word-named horses who fit the description (Victor and Jenga), you can’t blame her.

Enter Close The Deal.

The chestnut Dutch Warmblood-Thoroughbred, owned by Rebecca Polan, isn’t Mosser’s usual type. But the pair skipped around the Plantation Field Horse Trials, April 13-14 in Unionville, Pa., to win easily over Buck Davidson’s two rides, Idalgo and Catalyst.

The 12-year-old by Art Deco won his first event under Mosser, who picked up the ride last fall before the Fair Hill CCI*** (Md). Those plans were thwarted by a tie-back surgery, but good finishes at two CIC three-stars, and this win at Plantation set the pair up nicely for the horse’s first CCI*** at Jersey Fresh (N.J.).

Polan brought “Bob” through the ranks and jumped clean around the Radnor Hunt CCI** (Pa.) in 2004. A student of Mosser’s, she commuted to Washington, D.C., from Unionville, Pa., while finishing college so she could continue to train and compete. When she finished school and started working for her father’s property management business full time in Ohio, she asked Mosser to ride Close The Deal.

“Rebecca has done a really great job of making this horse,” said Mosser. “He’s one of the nicest cross-country horses I’ve ever sat on.”
Mosser has been working hard to get the horse’s dressage up to the competitive international level.

“Basically the dressage is difficult for him because he gets very tense,” said Mosser. “I was pleased with him this weekend. I tried him in the double bridle, and I could make better corrections. He only tried to be bad once. He’s definitely got the movement; it’s just a matter of getting the rest of it.”

The pair lay third after the dressage and added just 4 time faults on the cross-country to jump up the scoreboard.

Despite the struggle in the dressage, the jumping is an entirely different story. “He’s got lots of scope,” said Mosser. “I need to be able to go faster on him; he has a lot of hang time because he is so lofty. There’s nothing he wouldn’t jump.”

Mosser’s former employer, Phillip Dutton, easily won the other division of advanced with House Doctor.

Owned by breeder Nina Gardner, Dutton has brought the horse through the ranks from an unbroken 3-year-old to an Olympic gold medalist. Now 14, House Doctor has an impressive resume, which includes the Sydney Olympics and a fifth-placed finish at the World Equestrian Games in 2002.

Relatively quiet since then, House Doctor has returned to his winning ways in 2006. He has won three of his last four starts; he only missed at The Fork (N.C.) in the CIC*** where he was a game third behind Windfall II and Winsome Adante.

A consistent performer, House Doctor excels in the dressage, and Dutton finds that after the lengthy layoff, the horse is even better.

“He seems to be enjoying himself,” said Dutton. “The show jumping is definitely better, as is the dressage. It’s nice to see him continue to improve.”

Dutton bested Tiffani Loudon and the flashy Above N’ Beyond for the win, but he was also third on Ann Jones’ and Shannon Stimson’s Truluck. The 9-year-old, U.S. Thoroughbred skipped easily around his second advanced, reaffirming Dutton’s belief in the horse.

Produced through the two-star level by Amy Smith, Dutton’s former student, Truluck is still learning the flying changes required for the advanced dressage and will head to the CCI** at Jersey Fresh.