Just after the New Year, Olympian Doug Payne announced via social media that he has officially retired from a nearly three-decade career in three-day eventing to concentrate on show jumping full time. In recent years, Payne, 43, has been competing at the elite level in both sports, sometimes on the same weekend; for example, after taking two horses cross-country in the 2024 Defender Kentucky CCI5*, he rode two more in the Kentucky Invitational CSI4*, a jumper show held later that night at the Kentucky Horse Park. Payne admits the demands of competing at a high level in both sports have been challenging at times, and he is now ready to devote his energy and focus wholly toward achieving his goals in the jumper ring.
Payne’s illustrious eventing career included representing the United States at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games on Vandiver, where they were the top placing Americans; a trip to the 2019 Pan Am Games in Lima, Peru, on Starr Witness, where he finished fourth individually and helped secure a team gold; the 2022 Land Rover/USEF CCI5* Eventing National Championship aboard Quantum Leap; and multiple top-10 finishes at CCI4* and CCI5* events over the years.
For nearly a decade, Payne also held USEF eventing judge and technical delegate cards (he retired both licenses due to his extensive competition schedule); he also wrote “The Problem Horse Repair Manual,” a best-selling training guide. He and his wife, fellow five-star eventer Jessica Payne, run their Payne Equestrian Sport Services and Sales out of their training facility in Rougemont, North Carolina.
We recently caught up with Doug, who is currently competing and coaching clients at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida, to learn more about his decision and what’s next.
In recent years, you have been clear that your long-term goal was to focus on show jumping full time. Why did you decide to make that transition now?
It’s been sort of a process that started six or seven years ago. I was lucky enough to do my first grand prix at 22, and [jumpers have] always been an interest. We’ve always supplemented jumping for the eventers as well. My best jump horse last year, Quintessence, we bought as a 4-year-old initially to event, and he went through preliminary. But in the end, he was bred to jump, and he was too careful—he never would touch brush. He finished his last event in third, but his strength really was in the jumping ring. He went on and won in the 6- and 7-year-old young jumper finals both years, won a $100,000 grand prix at HITS Ocala [Florida] in 2020, he won a few FEI classes—he’s just spectacular. It puts you in the big ring, it’s a whole lot of fun, it’s a huge interest of mine, and it has been for a long time.
The process we used to develop horses for the international stage in eventing was to buy at least one weanling or yearling each year, if we could, and develop them. So we had a pipeline going, and about six years ago, we started buying just straight jumping-blood horses. As we continued on, the event horses did whatever they would be bound to do, and now the jumping horses have come along. We figured we’d go until “Quantum” was done at his top-end career, and basically, the time has come. We have an exceptional group of young ones coming along, behind the two top jumpers, Quintessence and Chaccolate RFB, we have now. It’s been in the works.
Changing disciplines also frees up a lot of time. Our kids [son Hudson and daughter Abigail] are 7 and 5 now, and doing both sports, at a top level, we were on the road some 40-odd weeks a year. We can cut that back a lot, and spend a bit more time with them, now that we can go legitimately do some fun stuff with them. The jumping side—it’s just a tremendous challenge, and after nearly 30 years eventing, it’s a new challenge. And obviously, I love it.
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You seem to have a real intentionality to your business plan that is, perhaps, uncommon in the industry. Can you tell us more about that and why it has been so important to you?
I’ve always been told—and I guess my educational background [Doug holds a degree in engineering] would lead me in the same direction—act in a way that’s process-oriented, and then the results should come. We have always been trying to think five or 10 years out where we’d like to be, and how best to implement that with the resources we do have. It’s incredibly important, because if you are jumping at every last thing, you’re just a flash in the pan, or you don’t have a lasting or sustained career where you want to be.
You cited a number of statistics about your eventing career on your social media post, including 1385 starts, 157 wins, and 763 top-10 finishes. But I chuckled to see that an additional highlight was “zero ambulance rides.”
I was actually most proud of that statistic, honestly.
On a more serious note, is it possible to share a few of your proudest accomplishments as an event rider?
There are probably two: First, riding Vandiver at Tokyo. I would gladly have been last place, and have the team receive the medal, but he and Quantum Leap are honestly the two kindest horses I’ve ever worked with. For Vandiver to get the recognition of being the best our team had was extremely special.

Then, Quantum Leap, finishing third at Kentucky and being the USEF national champion—that’s a horse who we had owned since he was a yearling, and we have a very good, tight relationship with Didi Callahan, who bred him. Again, it’s more the recognition for the horses that have given me everything, that they receive some adulation.
As of the end of last season, you still had three eventers in your program: Quantum Leap, Camarillo and Quiberon. What is going on with them now?
Quantum has a home with us for life—he’ll be here forever. At this stage, he’s done seven five-stars, and after Kentucky this past spring, he was just a touch sore in his left hind. I’m mindful that he doesn’t owe me anything. I’d feel incredibly guilty if I pushed it beyond where he was comfortable and something bad happened. He is perfectly sound, and we’ll probably, in the short term, lease him in the jumping world. He’s jumped some national level grand prix, and he’s really solid through 1.40 meters, so he’ll probably head toward that job for the next couple of years. And if the kids want to ride him, I would love nothing more than that. If he’s going into his later years cruising around the 0.90 [meters] with the kids, it would be amazing.

Camarillo and Quiberon are for sale. Quiberon was gelded this fall, although we have a lot of frozen semen stored, which is great. Selling a stallion is a lot harder than it should be, and he was such a good stallion—we shipped him with mares and never had any issues whatsoever—but it just makes it much more challenging. He’s got such a wide experience base—he’s been in the ribbons at international hunter derbies, 1.40 meters, and four-stars—he could do just about any job as a gelding.
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At the CCI5* in Kentucky, Camarillo was clear on cross-country but he just ran out of gas two minutes from home; that was tough. But in the end, they are not all cut out to be competitive five-star eventing horses, and I think he is just a little lacking in the Thoroughbred blood, unfortunately. He’s doing the 1.25-meter classes at WEF this week, and he’ll make somebody an absolutely great partner. He is the bravest horse you’ll ever come across. There is nothing you’re going to show him that’s going to be challenging for him—he’ll take it on, for sure.
Tell us a bit about your current jumper string.
I would love representing the U.S. again, but in the jumping ring.
Our two big guys right now are Quintessence and Chaccolate RFB. Quintessence is 13 this year, and we’ve had him since he was 4. He did three five-star [grand prix classes] last year. Chaccolate RFB is a touch younger, and a touch less experienced, but he’s jumping in a lot of the bigger classes as well. He was just third here in the 1.45-meter speed class, and I think he’s got a whole lot of talent. The biggest thing is just getting in the ring.
The wonderful thing about show jumping versus eventing is you can jump in a big class, and if you make a mistake, have the opportunity to go right back in and go again. Whereas in eventing, unfortunately, you can either wait two to three weeks, or if it’s a five-star, you wait six months.

We’ve got another horse, Emeraldo, which has jumped through the three-star level as well, and I’ve got some fabulous young horses. One, Con Cuore SSH, is out of the same dam as Quintessence. He’s 6 years old this year, so he’ll do the 6-year-old classes. And then we have a 5-year-old stallion named Europa PVF—he might be one of the best horses I’ve ever sat on. Last year, he finished up in the 0.90-meter classes, and he will do the 5-year-old classes this year.
We’re trying to replicate what we did in the eventing, as far as development, and build a pathway for horses to come along.
How has eventing influenced you as a jumper?
Across disciplines, good riding is good riding, and there’s something to be learned from all of it. Eventing teaches you to adapt to sticky situations quickly. Without a doubt, the very top horses are quite careful, and especially when they are green, they can be very sharp. I think having the comfort to deal with just about any orangutan antics, or oddball reactions to jumps—it’s a huge advantage. In the U.S., there are certainly a good number of people who are developing horses, but that skill set is less prevalent on the jumping side than it is in eventing.
Now, you mentioned hoping that one day Quantum might carry your children in the jumper ring. Have they shown any interest in riding yet?
We’re not pushing it at all, but it’s probably bound to happen at some point. I think Jess and I both have been incredibly lucky with the opportunities presented in life from riding and working with horses, but the last thing I’d ever want is for our kids to feel pressured or forced to get into it. Because if you don’t love it—and even when you do love it—it can be very challenging at times. They have to be motivated and knocking down the door to pull the trigger on it.