Even before he set foot in the ring for the 3’3” green hunter division at Upperville last week, most bystanders knew Ifwhizkycouldtalk was a Thoroughbred when his unusual name was announced over the loudspeaker—and that’s exactly what rider Sue Lyman and owner Catherine Brown hope for each time they enter the 6-year-old gelding in a class.

While Thoroughbreds used to be ubiquitous in the hunter ring, especially in the open divisions, these days they are few and far between at top shows. But thanks to efforts from the Take2 Second Career Thoroughbred program, hunter/jumper shows including the Upperville Colt and Horse Show offer opportunities for the breed to shine in special divisions just for them, and “Whizky” (Unfettered—Pam Got Even, Stephen Got Even) has taken home plenty of Take2 Thoroughbred Hunter championships in his career so far, including at Upperville, where Lyman also rode her own Kensington Court (Giant’s Causeway—Backseat Rhythm, El Corredor), a former steeplechaser, to the reserve championship.

Lyman, Middleburg, Virginia, doesn’t limit herself to the Take2 division, however. She says she’s enjoying competing Whizky in the open hunter classes under his racing name—“I was always told, being a Thoroughbred person, that it’s bad luck to change a horse’s name”—to showcase his breed and prove that he can hold his own against warmbloods.

“I chose to do that because I think when that horse is good, he beats the warmbloods, and this was a good opportunity to train him; to make him a better horse,” she said. “I think that some Thoroughbreds still can be competitive against the warmbloods. He won the green incentive at Commonwealth Park [(Virginia) in April]. He was the only Thoroughbred. I think—depending on the judge, depending on the competition—he could be competitive against the warmbloods. I think that not many people can afford a fancy warmblood, but if people would pay a little more attention to the good Thoroughbreds, they could develop them and be as competitive or close.”

Lyman, 63, is a lifelong Thoroughbred lover. From 1990 to 2000, she made her mark in the hunter ring with her horse of a lifetime, the Thoroughbred stallion Simbalu (Leonata—So Worthy, What Luck), fulfilling her dream of jumping in the 4’ divisions. She’s an all-around horsewoman who’s trained with Gordon Wright, Katie Prudent, Julie Ulrich and Rodney Jenkins, and possesses the knowledge to break a young horse, gallop racehorses, drive a carriage and foxhunt.

“I was the daughter of two schoolteachers, and I had no money, and I came down here [to Middleburg], and I had to do whatever it was, but it did give me a background of good horsemanship,” she said. “I use the stuff that those people taught me every day of my life. And I don’t know—like the way it is now, where you just go buy something—I think there’s just a lack of those true horsemanship skills.”

She remembers her decades of showing at Upperville fondly, though she laments the loss of popularity of the Thoroughbred in the hunter and hunter breeding ring. Throughout her career, even as warmbloods started taking over the hunter ring, she’s always kept some Thoroughbreds in her barn.

“When [Simbalu] showed back then, the working division was huge,” she said. “Now it doesn’t fill. When we had Thoroughbreds, they were jumping bigger, and they were going beautifully. It’s a little bit more elegant. It’s not so slow and boring, but they do jump beautifully. I think it became such a style for people to go to Europe and get a fancy warmblood that the Thoroughbreds got phased out, not because they were difficult so much. It just became a thing, but then it hurt the people that bred Thoroughbred show horses because they couldn’t survive.

“The breeding divisions on the line were huge when I had my Thoroughbred stallion, because I had to do all that,” she continued. “I had to show those babies on the line. I had to break them. I had to start them. I did everything; that doesn’t happen anymore. People just go buy something that’s already jumped around in the jumpers and retrain it, right? So, it’s sort of sad to see the tradition and the lack of horsemanship skills in this day and age. The riders now are excellent at putting in a balanced two-minute trip. But do they know how to break them properly? Do they know how to bring them up? Do they know how to train them as a foal, to walk in and out of the stall, imprint them? I did all of that.”

From The Track To The Ring

Lyman has been slowing down her business in recent years and cutting back on the number of horses she rides, but she always keeps her eye out for a good Thoroughbred. Whizky came to her as a 4-year-old after he was retrained and briefly evented with Kate Bearer in Virginia. 

Bred in Pennsylvania by Mary Haire, he had three starts on the track before being taken in by Turning For Home, a race horse retirement program that rehomes horses after they finish their careers at Parx Racing in Pennsylvania. He was adopted out but was returned after six months when he turned out to be a bit too green for his rider and was diagnosed with kissing spine. Turning For Home worked to get him strong and comfortable in his body before Bearer adopted him as an eventing prospect.

Lyman saw him on Facebook and inquired because she was looking for a sixth horse to take to Florida for the winter to justify hiring another groom. While her vet was concerned by his back X-rays, Lyman was impressed enough with his movement and braveness, along with his quiet personality that she ultimately decided to take him on trial.

During the week-long trial, Whizky proved he had the brain to be ridden by Brown, an amateur in her 70s, and took everything Lyman asked of him in stride. Brown liked him too, so the pair agreed to take a risk, knowing his history of kissing spine, and bought him. 

Within a month of being in Florida, he was ready to show, and he spent the season in a Happy Mouth snaffle, showing in the baby green and Thoroughbred divisions.

Whizky has continued to exceed Lyman’s expectations in the show ring, and she’d love to aim for the Platinum Performance/USHJA Green Hunter Incentive Championships in Kentucky this summer. She believes he has the talent for the 3’6” division, and hopes he’ll be the one to take her back to the high performance hunter division in the future, but says she’s just enjoying his progress now and will let him show her how far he wants to go.

Reviving USHJA’s Thoroughbred Task Force

Lyman wants to spread her love of the Thoroughbred to the industry in other ways too. She’s been working with Dayle Eldredge, a hunter/jumper professional and founder of the aftercare organization Second Wind Thoroughbred Project, to bring more attention to the breed within the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association. They’ve been working on getting the USHJA Thoroughbred Task Force back up and running after several years of inactivity.

They hope to get the Jockey Club’s Thoroughbred Incentive Program (TIP) involved to award the highest-placed Thoroughbreds separate ribbons in regular divisions and to promote the breed to amateur and lower-level riders.

“To me, the Thoroughbreds make great amateur horses,” Lyman said. “They don’t need to see the jumps. They’re brave. You know they have their own motor for the right people, and they are much more affordable.

“So, it would open the door to increase membership,” she continued. “It would be good for the horses. It’s great to have them come off the track and have a second career. We haven’t been able to get that [task force up and running yet], but I worked very hard on it over the winter. We would really like to get it going because there’s so much support. Everyone we talk to, everyone’s excited about it. They’re very special horses, and I think they should have a place.”