Even before I pulled into the gates of the Kentucky Horse Park two weeks ago, I knew I would eventually need to write this blog for all of you. Whether it would end up being a tale of victory, misery, or something in between, I could not know.

Editor’s note: We had scheduled this blog to run on Monday, May 16, but in light of the tragedies at the Jersey Fresh International, we held it for a few days.

As we settled in to Kentucky, every emotion from excitement, to trepidation, anticipation to dread, swirled frenzied in my head. In fact, the entire season leading up to Rolex has felt like an exhausting exercise in reconciling contradictions and seemingly opposing approaches to my first four-star.

I politely refused interviews and requests to follow my journey as a “Rolex Rookie,” embarrassed to explain my superstitious belief that if I admitted I was actually going to the event, some force of nature would step in and render either my horse, or myself, unable to compete.

If you’re reading this, it’s because you love horses (or you’re one of my family members, and you love me), but either way, your experience will lead you to know how fragile horses are, and how much they love to trample best laid plans in to bits of pulverized dust at your feet. I felt that NOT competing at Kentucky was more of a likely eventuality than actually competing.

Photo by Lisa Slade

This meant I probably spent more time mentally preparing for that heartbreak, rather than steeling myself for the mental demands of the competition itself.

As we drove back to our hotel after the first jogs, and the reality of the upcoming days really began to set in, my wife said, about six weeks too late, “Well, I guess we better talk about what your goals are for the weekend.”

On the one hand, as someone with high standards and lofty goals, I wanted to COMPETE, and not just complete. But on the other hand, I knew that, as a first-timer, my No. 1 goal needed to be FINISHING THE DAMN THING!

I knew in my heart that my horse and I could be competitive, but I was also aware of the fact that there would be so many unknowns: How would my reactive and sometimes excitable horse deal with the atmosphere in the Rolex stadium? Would I be able to keep him focused on me and help him perform his best? What would he think of jumping around the biggest course of his life?

I’d seen enough darn good cross-country horses come up short in Kentucky to know that this was a possibility. Would he still have gas left in the tank at 10 minutes and more, and would I be enough of a skilled horseman to guide him home safely? (The words of one of my mentors, Bea di Grazia echoed in my mind as I pondered this thought: “You won’t know if you did enough, if your horse is fit enough, until about 9 minutes after you leave that start box.”)

Photo by Lindsay Berreth

The rainy weather forecast looked good for my guy, who started his eventing career in soggy Ireland and prefers soft ground to hard, but would the rain be too much of a good thing after the 64 horses before me had churned up the ground? How would he handle show jumping, his weakest phase, after being more tired than he’s ever been in his life?

My horse truly has the heart of a lion and wants nothing more in this life than to do good, but would he have any power left to jump carefully on Sunday? Would we even GET to Sunday?

So, my pragmatic, realistic goals were these:

1. Do a mistake-free dressage test. Be a good partner to him and help him do his best in a challenging atmosphere. Pray that he doesn’t blow up and that we aren’t the pair that inspires the sweet and tactful Sally O’Connor to say, “Oh dear, today just isn’t their day.”

2. Bring him home safe on cross-country. Ride him confidently and accurately, and be ready to react to anything. For God’s sake don’t fall off, and at the very least try not to have a major miss in front of everyone at the Head of the Lake.

3. Ride as best as I can in show jumping to support what I know will be a tired and distracted horse. Ride him in a good balance and with power in the canter.

4. Honor my horse by showing him to the world to be what I know him to be: A supreme athlete, an overachiever, a horse that gives more than he should be able to give, an incredible animal that has earned a thousand times over his Superman alter-ego.

5. Perform in a way that I can be proud of.

And my secret goals were: Win. Or, since, that seemingly super-human German was going to be there, and I’m too decent of a guy to pull a Tonya Harding on him, to at least finish in the top five.

My eleventh hour goals were set. I wrote them down on index cards and put them in my tack trunk. But there was still more to consider and come to terms with before the weekend started: How would I handle the outcome of the event, whatever it would end up being?

I had to play all of the potential scenarios out in my head: What if he explodes in the dressage, breaks in the extended trot, swaps in the counter canter, or misses his changes? What if we get a really bad score? How would I get past that disappointment in order to be back on my game for cross-country?

Super socks for Super Socks. Photo courtesy of Matt Brown

What if I had a stop —or worse—on cross-country? After walking the course it all certainly looked doable, but would I be able to keep both his focus and mine tuned all the way around the course? It became clear enough to me that the biggest difference I would feel between the previous CCI3*s that I had done with him and this course would simply be the relentless intensity of it all. It was ALL big, it was ALL technical, and it just kept coming, through to the eleventh minute.

This is a level that will exploit mistakes and weaknesses; I knew I couldn’t afford any of them, especially towards the end of the course when my horse would be tired and less able to make up for me. I knew that I would have to help carry him home, and that would take precision, good instincts, and the absence of bad luck.

What if he had multiple rails in show jumping? He’s capable of jumping clean, and he tends to do it for me when it really matters, so would he know that it mattered this weekend?

With both realistic and pie-in-the-sky goals set, and unacknowledged fears dug up from the recesses of my mind to be laid bare in the harsh light of spoken and understood possibility, I began my weekend. I tried to remind myself to enjoy it, and my wife tended to chuckle with a hint of sarcasm when I urged her to try to do the same.

Friday afternoon I was so proud of my horse—he put in a better dressage test than I actually think he was capable of at that moment. He gave me the best of what we’ve been working on, and he decided to give it all to me in that test. And when the crowd exploded in applause at the end of my test, he reared up in surprise, bloodying and bruising my face, a forceful reminder of what could have been, and that his impeccable behavior and outstanding effort was all a generous gift from him to me.

Photo by Lindsay Berreth

Saturday afternoon my horse was indeed Superman in my eyes, having given me the ride of my life on cross-country. He was smart, brave, quick, honest and enthusiastic to the last. He cooled down easily, looked well, and demanded treats and attention from his loyal subjects for the rest of the evening like a self assured king on his rightful throne.

Sunday morning he had plenty of energy, and to my relief, looked no worse for the wear after the toughest task of his life. But I could feel in warm-up for show jumping that his muscles were spent after jumping and galloping himself out of the muddy going the day before. He tried so hard for me, and I for him, but he lacked the muscle power to jump cleanly, and I lacked the experience to make up for what he lacked.

In the show jumping. Photo by Lindsay Berreth

We started the weekend ahead of where I thought we’d be, in 13th place. We stayed there with a relatively quick cross-country round, which was a far better position than my “realistic goals” would have led me to believe I’d be in on Saturday night. Four rails and 4 time penalties moved us down to finish in 21st place, the highest-placed Rolex Rookie, in line well enough with my “realistic goals,” but far below where I had hoped we’d be according to my “secret goals.”

And possibly the most painful part was that had we jumped a clear or one-rail round, which I know we are capable of, we would have been up there near the top of the leaderboard. Had we never been in reach of that type of placing, then maybe our decent Sunday afternoon would have been an easier pill to swallow.  

In the end, I am so grateful and relieved to have completed my first four-star. Of course the competitive perfectionist in me can think of a thousand little things that I would change or could have done better in the first two phases of the competition, but overall, I’m quite happy with our performances on Friday and Saturday.

But it’s Sunday’s show jumping that has haunted me and kept me from writing this blog until now. It is what has prevented me from feeling genuinely proud of myself for finally accomplishing a dream that I’ve sacrificed for and worked towards—and many times given up on—for a lifetime.

I know I should be over the moon, but to be perfectly honest, I’m a little ashamed. Not in my horse—no, in my mind he walks on water, is the axis around which the earth turns, and melts my heart a little bit each time I lay eyes on him.

And my team, I’m certainly not ashamed of them. My owners, my wife and family, my coaches and grooms, my vets and my sponsors have supported me and my dreams when they were nothing more than fantasies, given me strength when I had none, believed in me when I had doubts, pushed me when I lagged behind, and reined me in when I needed humbling. They walked by my side clearing hurdles in my path, saw the big picture when I was myopic, and called attention to the importance of that one tree when all I could see was the overwhelming and vast forest.

My wonderful team. Photo courtesy of Matt Brown

I wanted nothing more than to bring my horse and my team a result that they could have been proud of, that they so richly deserved. But if this sport is about anything, it is certainly not about getting what you deserve, at least not when you deserve it!

Because my team is the best, I know they are still incredibly proud of me, and probably would be no more proud even if I had won the whole darn thing. And I am slightly eased by the fact that plenty of good horses and riders had the jump crew working just as hard as I did on Sunday, but that will never satisfy my wish to have done better, been better.

It will, however, drive me to be better next time, so that I can fulfill for my horse the promise that I know he has, and bring him the top result that I’m certain is in our future.

So now I move forward from one of the biggest events of my life trying to focus on what I’ve learned from the experience, and how I can use it to do better for my horse and my team in the future. I will work on being proud of my accomplishment, despite the fact that it isn’t all that I had hoped to achieve. And when someone congratulates me, I will try not to hold back when accepting the acknowledgement. Instead of focusing on what could have been, I will try to see what was, which, when you really think about it, warts and all, is the long-awaited realization of a dream many times deferred.  

Matt Brown has been a lifelong student of the sport of three-day eventing, studying under some of the most respected names, including Derek di Grazia, Volker Brommann and Denny Emerson. He also credits horseman and rancher George Kahrl for helping him learn how to create a trusting relationship between horse and rider, even at the top levels of competition. As a young rider, Matt competed through the advanced level with his Appaloosa Maximum Speed, who was his mount for the North American Young Rider Championships in 1993.

More recently, Matt has been named to the USEF High Performance Training Lists since 2013. In April of 2015, Matt and his wife Cecily moved from California to Cochranville, Pa., to continue chasing his dream of representing Team USA. In October, Matt and Super Socks BCF placed sixth in their first European competition at the Boekelo CCIO3* in the Netherlands. After being nationally listed for the third year in a row, Matt’s sights are set on Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

You can read all of Matt’s insightful blogs for the Chronicle here.