Thoroughbred mare Rose Traveler (War Dancer—Nashwan Rose, Nashwan) rose from the bottom to the top of the pile on the strength of her galloping and jumping to win the 2024 Dutta Corp. USEA Young Event Horse East Coast 5-Year-Old Championship, held over the weekend in conjunction with the Mars Maryland 5 Star at Fair Hill in Elkton, Maryland. 

The mare was ranked 31st in the conformation and 22nd in the dressage, but her jumping and galloping efforts impressed the judges enough to launch her up the leaderboard and claim the champion title.

Owner Emily Bradford was “Rose’s” pilot and was shocked by the final result. 

“I love this horse, but this was a total surprise,” she said. 

Bradford adopted Rose a year ago by happenstance. While the mare was bred for racing on turf, she had yet to be started under saddle. 

“A friend of mine wound up with her, and she needed a home,” Bradford said. “So I said, ‘Sign me up! I’m coming to grab her.’ ”

Once she was well started, Bradford decided to aim the young mare towards the YEH championships. 

“She does everything so easily,” Bradford said. “I love the young horses, and I love Thoroughbreds. I love a good Thoroughbred mare, especially. Even though she didn’t have a ton of experience coming into the spring, she did everything easy. And I just said, ‘Let’s give it a try!’ I love being at Fair Hill, so of course, that’s always the goal, to get to Fair Hill one way or another. And so here we are, lucky enough we got here.”

Watch their performance in the jumping phase of the 5-year-old championship, courtesy of USEF Network powered by ClipMyHorse.tv:

Judge Christian Schacht of Germany evaluated Rose in both the conformation and the jumping and galloping. He chimed in on the fact that the mare placed lower in the conformation but thoroughly impressed them in the second half of the competition. 

“It’s a nearly perfect horse, but it’s not this ‘wow horse,’ ” Schacht said of Rose’s climb from her conformation placing to her win. “So if you compare it to cars—if you can have the fancy car, like a Ferrari, or a Japanese car, nobody’s going to buy the Japanese car. But at the end of the day, the Japanese car has all the stuff you need. It’s an easy, affordable car, and it’s doing the job. 

“The horse was spicy enough, and that’s something that I cannot see during the conformation, when the horse has the attitude,” he continued. “And we saw that today when she started to canter. The horse picked up the canter and was right on spot. In the cross-country, the rider was amazing. She just sped up, the horse was sitting still and let the fences come to it. They integrated the fence into the strides, so the horse had a perfect technique. And the horse being compact, it was easy to keep in balance. I love the freedom you saw in its gallop. The horse didn’t speed up, it just became bigger and bigger. It was so fun to watch.” 

In addition to champion honors, Rose was also awarded the Born in America award, which is presented to the highest-scoring 5-year-old at the championship that is American-bred, the American Thoroughbred award, which is presented to the highest-scoring American-bred Thoroughbred in the field, and the Thoroughbred Incentive Program award.

See the full class results here.