This former steeplechaser and show jumper has found his calling in eventing.

Running Order wasn’t fast enough to be a steeplechase horse in Ireland, and show jumping in Florida just wasn’t his cup of tea. So when Doug Payne got the ride on Stone Hill Farm’s Irish Thoroughbred gelding, it was one last attempt to find him a suitable career.

“He was trained by Enda Bolger in Ireland and had about seven starts,” said Payne. “Enda said he never had a second gear and was always stuck in slow. He was here about a month ago visiting and was excited [to see the horse going well].”

Payne, Pottersville, N.J., has transformed the bay into a successful event horse, and after their win in the long-format CCI* at the Virginia Three-Day Event and Horse Trials in Lexington, Va., on May 20-24, he’s looking forward to their upper-level career.

Payne described the horse as slightly quirky but talented, and he said there’s no reason he shouldn’t be competitive at the top levels.

“He knew absolutely nothing about dressage when I got him,” said Payne, who has been riding Running Order since June of 2008. “He’s very much a work in progress, and he’s still in the building stage. He struggles most in the trot work and maintaining the pushing power. [His test in Virginia] was probably the best test he’s done until this point, but I think there’s a long way to go before I have a finished product.”

Payne and Running Order led the CCI* from start to finish on their dressage score of 53.5 and added no jumping or time penalties.

Stephanie Butts and Peabody moved from fourth to second with a 61.0 after their jumping performance, and Ariel Grald on Practically Perfect finished third with 61.2. Unbelievable and Cindy Wood rounded out the four finishers (79.1) in the five-horse starting field.

Most riders said David O’Connor’s course was a step up from previous years, with several testing combinations on the cross-country. Payne said the second water—a vertical, two strides to a log in, then another jump from water to water—worried him a little.

“He’s pretty brave with that sort of thing, but he’s never seen a combination quite like that before,” Payne said.

“I don’t think he had jumped from water to water yet, and I was a bit unsure how he would handle it. I wasn’t worried about him stopping, but that he wouldn’t read it correctly.”
 
While most of the course rode well for Payne, he did have a sticky moment at one of the tougher combinations—a large whiskey barrel oxer, four strides to a skinny chevron brush.

“I decided to do a more direct route to it, but being the first one out I wasn’t sure, striding-wise, how it was going to work out,” said Payne. “We ended up jumping in a little too big, and the triple brush was tighter than I thought, but he was very honest about it.”

The choice to run the long format versus the short was an easy one for Payne.

“The long format has a transformational effect on the horses,” he said. “Afterwards they tend to be more hungry on cross-country. Their focus is more on the job at hand, they’re more forward thinking and they’re more confident as a result of the steeplechase. It’s not a short-lived thing; it continues to help them from that point on.”

Payne also rode five other horses at Virginia, placing sixth on Sinead Halpin’s Westwinds El Dorado in the short-format CCI*, fourth in open preliminary on Jane Dudinsky’s Getalong Maggie, and fourth on Cindy Strate’s Charm and 11th on Brittany Storniolo’s Rested Faith in the training horse division.

Payne has his own training operation based out of Misty Hollow Farm in Califon, N.J.
 
Symansky’s Star Shines Bright

Lynn Symansky bought Morning Star from Phyllis Dawson two years ago as a project horse, and the Irish Sport Horse quickly moved up the levels to win the short-format CCI* at Virginia.

“He’s a phenomenally talented horse, but he’s a bit difficult to handle in the barn,” said Symansky, Vienna, Va., with a laugh. “His nickname is Tyson. He’s a bit of a bully. My biggest struggle was with his attitude when I first got him, but that makes him what he is. He’s very territorial in his stall, but I’d leave him with a young child holding him outside of the stall. He’s much better than he used to be; they all have their quirks, and you just have to know how to handle them.”

The 7-year-old gelding is a son of Brandenburg’s Windstar and ran his first preliminary in August of 2008. Virginia was his first CCI*.

“I went into the weekend just hoping to have an educational run,” said Symansky. “I wasn’t expecting to end up doing so well. He beat my expectations and was fantastic.”

The pair led the whole weekend, finishing on their dressage score of 50.9. Kurt Martin and Sir Jearly climbed from sixth to second with a 54.1 after their flawless jumping effort, and Negrito and Teresa Brookins finished third with 57.5.

“He’s not as extravagant on the flat as some of the other horses, but he’s very consistent,” said Symansky. “He’s definitely improved his dressage, and he’s been scoring well, so I was excited to be up in the top.”

Symansky and Morning Star’s preparation for the CCI* didn’t go according to plan, however, as they slid into a coop at MCTA (Md.) a few weeks earlier due to slick footing.

“I schooled lots of angles and coops before heading to Virginia,” said Symansky, who was pleased with her CCI* cross-country run despite a slight hiccup.

“About halfway through the cross-country, we got close to one of the fences and he pulled his hind boot down over his foot, so we had a little trouble at the end of the course. He ran out of gas a little bit, but he cooled down quite quickly. The course was really hilly, so it served as a fitness run too.”

Morning Star left all of the rails in the cups on Sunday to take home the blue.

“He has the biggest jump I’ve ever sat on,” said Symansky. “He’s tough to stick with, and he’s powerful off the ground. On Sunday it’s quite helpful that he has a powerful jump, but he took a bit to get used to.”

Brumfield Radiant After CCIJY*

Jessica Brumfield discovered River Radiance’s flair for jumping almost by accident.

“Her owner, Dawn McKersie, bought her to be a lower level dressage horse,” said Brumfield, who is a full-time working student at Missy and Jessica Ransehousen’s Blue Hill Farm in Unionville, Pa. “I started riding her and jumped her a little to clear her head and get her out of the ring as she was getting a little ring sour. She ended up being really good at it.”

Brumfield, Unionville, Pa., debuted the 9-year-old mare in May of 2008. They won the training three-day at Waredeca (Md.) in October of the same year and moved up to preliminary in February. They placed eighth at the Fair Hill CIC* (Md.) in April, qualifying them for their first CCI* at Virginia.

“I was pretty surprised when I won,” Brumfield admitted of her victory in the CCIJY*. “Dawn was there to see the whole thing, so that was very exciting.”

Brumfield was pleased with the mare’s dressage test, but they just barely escaped disaster on their way to cross-country warm-up.

“A rider fell off and their horse came galloping toward us,” she said. “I got run off with, and she was shaking, she was so startled. But we got it back together.”

While Brumfield has had trouble getting River Radiance to gallop forward between the fences and cut time in the turns, she said that the mare jumped boldly through all of the combinations.

“I was worried about one combination [a skinny table, a long four or short five strides to a corner, then three strides to another skinny table with a downhill approach],” said Brumfield. “One big problem I’ve had is her rideability, landing from a fence and galloping on and then getting her back. A lot of times I feel like I have to bring her back 10 to 15 strides out or she’ll just ignore me. But I got her right on the line, and she just jumped through.”

River Radiance has a history of pulling rails in the show jumping, so Brumfield was nervous for Sunday. But the pair finished with a double-clear round.

“I got into the ring and just rode her really forward to all of the fences, and it rode great,” she said. “This is the first time we’ve really put all three phases together.”