Tomeu Lives A Dream In Adult Jumpers At Devon

PUBLISHED

May 30, 2017
7:06 am

WORDS BY

Molly Sorge

Devon, Pa.—May 29

Lindsey Tomeu came into Devon’s NAL/WIHS Adult Jumper Classic undefeated for the week. She and Bonapart had won both the previous adult amateur jumper classes, and they jumped clean in the first round of the classic. Tomeu was dreaming of a clean sweep.

They had the fastest time in the jump-off of the classic, but a rail fell along the way, relegating them to sixth in the class, but their results for the week still earned them the championship. Kendra Sue Walmer took the blue in the classic aboard Electra.

Lindsey Tomeu on Bonapart. Photo by Molly Sorge

“It would have been an amazing feat to win all three, and that’s what I was going for, but things happen,” Tomeu said. “He went beautifully; I couldn’t ask for anything more from him. It was my rail. To go home with two blues and a champion ribbon from Devon is anyone’s dream.”

Tomeu has been showing her whole life and spent time in the pony and junior hunter rings. But her life changed when Bonapart, a 16-year-old Belgian Warmblood by Parco, walked into it. Her trainers, Shane and Ali Sweetnam and Michael Delfiandra, had imported “Bono” and then sold him.

The gray gelding spent three years showing in California, then found his way back to Sweet Oak Farm in Wellington, Fla. “He ended up coming back and they matched us together. It snowballed into a great partnership. We meld very well together,” she said. “He has so much personality. He loves to show and he wants to win. And the crowd get him excited. He has a lot of quirks, which make him even more special.”

Lindsey Tomeu gave Bonapart big pats. Photo by Molly Sorge

Tomeu started showing Bono in the beginning of 2014, and by that fall, they won the $10,000 NAL Adult Jumper Final at the Pennsylvania National. They won the class again in 2015 and in between they won up and down the east coast.

“Bono is the one who’s taken my career to a whole other level; everywhere I could ever dream of, he’s taken me,” she said. “He is my horse of a lifetime. I will never have another animal like him. He is my favorite and he will live with me forever.”

Tomeu, 23, supports her riding by buying and selling project horses. “My dad said that if I was going to keep riding through adulthood that I needed to make some sort of money, so Bono is my keeper and I have other ones that I shuffle through, selling,” she said.

See full results of the class and of all of Devon. To see all of the Chronicle’s coverage from the Devon Horse Show, click here. And make sure to read the June 19 issue of The Chronicle of the Horse for more in-depth coverage from Devon.