We may have now seen perfection. Kim Severson is,without doubt, an exceptional rider, and Winsome Adante is, without doubt, the epitome of the 21st century event horse. But it’s the confluence of their skills and confidence that makes their partnership even greater than the sum of its parts.

And it was that extraordinary partnership that on April 28-May 1 secured the Rolex Kentucky CCI**** for the third time in four years, by an astounding 17 penalties, widening their lead in each phase by adding absolutely nothing to their pace-setting dressage score of 38.2.

It was the largest margin of victory ever in the Kentucky four-star’s eight-year history, and it made him only the second horse to win Kentucky three times. (Doctor Peaches and Bruce Davidson were victors in 1984, ’88 and ’89, although Kentucky was then a three-star.)

Even Phillip Dutton–who in a remarkable display of horsemanship rode The Foreman to second, Nova Top to fourth and Hannigan to fifth–couldn’t keep pace.

“I think Kim and Dan are one of the greatest partnerships of eventing and that they’ll go down in history as that,” said Dutton with sincerity. “If you have to get beaten, it’s good to get beaten by them.”

Capt. Mark Phillips wasn’t quite sure where to place Severson and “Dan” in history, but he was sure about what he’d seen on the cross-country course, a trip of 11:02 over 45 jumping efforts that designer Mike Etherington-Smith reckoned as his biggest track yet.

“Her round was a class act. That ride and Phillip’s three were all straight out of the textbook,” said Phillips.

On Saturday Dan just skipped through the daunting and precise combinations and galloped home 15 seconds fast. And on Sunday he never came close to touching a show jump, even flying across the liverpool at fence 5 that caused seven horses to fault.

How do they do it? Severson, not one to gush, thought for a moment and then said, “One of my grooms probably said it best to me once. She said, ‘You and Dan just seem to think the same thing,’ and that’s just what it feels like.”

The only sign of any imperfection was in the pair’s dressage test late on Friday afternoon, which incurred an extra 1.2 points penalties than the magnificent display of suppleness, elasticity and mutual communication they performed in 2004. This effort was mistake-free and correct but fell short of the fluidity and power of last year’s effort.

“I thought we were a little bit more in tune last year,” admitted Severson. “I guess the difference is I had to think a little bit this year.”

But the weekend-long record 76,772 fans didn’t care. It seemed as if the majority had come to Kentucky mainly to see the Olympic silver medalists who’d already won Kentucky twice, so when Severson, 31, and Dan, 12, entered the Sheila E. Johnson arena for their test at 3:08 p.m. on Friday, the place went as silent as a church. The cheers followed the bay gelding all the way out when the test was over–and then the stands emptied like water down the drain, even though the next rider was three-time Olympic team gold medalist Andrew Hoy, hoping to continue his quest for the $250,000 Rolex Grand Slam on Moonfleet, winner of the 2004 Burghley CCI***** (England).

The scene repeated on Saturday, when spectators elbowed each other aside running from fence to fence to follow the pair as they circled the Kentucky Horse Park and then screamed their lungs out every time Dan landed and headed for the next jump. And when they blazed across the finish line, their fans evacuated the course and headed to the trade fair.

But they all came back on Sunday afternoon (a record 24,010), and the cheering continued unabated as Severson, in a rare show of emotion, raised her fist to cross the finish line and then galloped three times around the ring, smiling and crying. Waiting at the in-gate were owner Linda Wachtmeister and grooms Lili Bennett and Caroline Goldberg, who took hold of the proud English-bred as Severson dismounted for the TV interview.

Quipped Rolex Chairman Walter Fischer as he handed her a Rolex watch for the fourth time (she also won the Kentucky three-star in 1999 with Over The Limit), “I think you could open a store now.”

Severson allowed that she didn’t know what she’d do with all the watches, then sighed, “It doesn’t get a whole lot better than this.”

Bigger Than Ever

Most riders agreed, both before and after jumping it, that cross-country courses didn’t get a whole lot better than Etherington-Smith’s creation. (For more, see sidebar.)

“Yes, it’s definitely harder than 2004. The middle is complex after complex, and your reward after all those is the Footbridge, the Creek Oxer and the Head of the Lake,” said Darren Chiacchia, winner of the modified CCI on Windfall last year and the dressage runner-up this time. He didn’t get to ride the course though, as the ground jury declared Windfall unsound in the vet box.

Said Leslie Law, the Olympic gold medalist who stood second after cross-country but dropped to third when Coup de Coeur dislodged the liverpool,

“There’s been talk all week that this is bigger than [the Badminton CCI**** in England on May 5-8], and I hope it is. That would mean I could go and enjoy Badminton.”

The 6,285-meter course knocked three of the top 10 dressage horses out of the running. Fourth-placed Poggio and Amy Tryon had an uncharacteristic run-out at the narrow stump at fence 16C, Moonfleet and Hoy (who were tied with Poggio) caught a leg and crashed at the Hayrack (fence 25A), and seventh-placed Dusky Moon and Eddy Stibbe had a run-out at fence 9, the Squirrel’s Delight.

And Law finished with 4.4 time faults (11 seconds slow), which put him less than a rail ahead of Dutton on The Foreman and Nova Top, who’d been tied for eighth but climbed to a tie for third on Saturday night. Dutton also stood fifth onHannigan, who finished 2 seconds slow as the first horse on course.

Law said Coup de Coeur, 11 and making his first four-star start, felt a bit tired near the end and had to be nursed home. But Hoy, who’s won three Olympic team gold medals since making his international debut at the 1978 World Championships in Kentucky, said Moonfleet wasn’t tired when his day suddenly ended.

“I’m not sure what caused it. I was having a ride similar to Burghley,” said Hoy, who said he was on time. “I got him back a bit because I didn’t want to see a real flyer there, and it was a bit of a deep distance. He just didn’t seem to be able to get his feet out in front of him. I really thought he’d stand up.”

Moonfleet cut his chest with his front studs as he slid across the grass.

Hoy had already completed a beautifully efficient round on the less experienced Yeoman’s Point. But that came after a considerable amount of rulebook reading.

Hoy missed gate 3 on roads and tracks phase A and reached the end of the phase before officials in the control center realized it. But an FEI rule obliges gate judges and stewards to tell riders if they’ve missed gates on phases A or C, so he couldn’t be eliminated. So Hoy got to start a second time as the final rider of the morning session.

Yeoman’s Point joined Winsome Adante, The Foreman and Nova Top as the only horses to finish cross-country without time penalties. Some 17 of the 32 horses who started the course finished without jumping penalties. Le Samurai and Robin Fisher, like Moonfleet and Hoy, were also eliminated for falling. (Fisher suffered considerable bruising but no fractures.) Two riders who fell from their horses finished the course but withdrew before show jumping–Ralph Hill broke his right ankle, and Laine Ashker broke two lower cervical vertebrae but didn’t require surgery and was released from the hospital on Sunday.

Cross-Country Virtuosity

The honor of the biggest cross-country climb belonged to Buck Davidson, who climbed 22 places (from 33rd to 11th) by finishing with 7.2 time faults on Let It Rain, Jim Fitzgerald’s powerful mare whom Davidson had only been riding for two weeks and had never ridden before in competition.

But it was Dutton who most displayed his cross-country virtuosity, by guiding three very different horses to perfect rounds. Thirty-three minutes on cross-country, 34 total miles, and about 135 jumping efforts–and just .8 time faults.

Hannigan, a laidback sort who’s been competing at Kentucky since 2002, was the one who added those faults, but the grass was still wet and a steady mist still falling when Dutton set out with him at 10:30 a.m. Plus, an injury had limited Hannigan, 14, to contesting just one horse trial (second at North Georgia) since finishing second last year in Kentucky’s modified CCI. That may have been why he started a bit uncertainly but jumped better and better with each effort.

Nova Top was second to Winsome Adante in the regular CCI last year and was Dutton’s Olympic mount, but he’s an extremely high-octane horse who likes to go his own way. And The Foreman was, as Dutton said, “the baby of the bunch,” contesting his first four-star. But he’d won the Fair Hill CCI*** (Md.) last October and both the Red Hills (Fla.) and North Georgia CIC***s this spring.

“He just keeps going from strength to strength, and that’s very encouraging,” said Dutton of The Foreman, who topped the group by finishing second after knocking down only the liverpool in the show jumping.

That fence proved to be the course’s bogey fence, causing five horses to knock it down and eliminating Urban Legend and Adrienne Iorio-Borden after they slid through it and the ground jury belatedly sounded the gong after she’d committed to the next fence.

Dutton thought the challenge there was primarily the need for a forward ride to make the distance and that it was “a hole or two higher than all the jumps before it.” But the horses were also clearly distracted by something, either the bright blue water or the giant scoreboard staring right at them from the landing side.

Hannigan jumped it awkwardly but faultlessly, but The Foreman twisted violently as he sliced through the back rail, coming perilously close to unseating Dutton. Dutton chose the longer optional route on Nova Top and then lowered both elements of combination at 10AB, two fences where no one else faulted. “I was getting a bit late, and I saw a bit of a move-up distance that wasn’t there. I should have just waited,” said Dutton with a shake of his head.

Not that it really mattered, but a clear round would have put Nova Top second again, instead of The Foreman.

A Higher Level Yet?

Even if Dutton had show jumped absolutely faultlessly with all three horses, it still wouldn’t have been enough to pull ahead of Severson and Winsome Adante to win his first Rolex watch, even though The Foreman had handily beaten Winsome Adante at North Georgia two weeks earlier.

That was one reason Dutton was the short-odds favorite. Plus Severson and Dan hadn’t seemed to be quite on form this spring. Dan incurred a run-out on show jumping in his first seasonal start at Pine Top (Ga.) after he and Severson had a miscommunication. And then he was as wild as a 4-year-old in dressage at Southern Pines (N.C.), although his rocket-fired cross-country round propelled him to the blue ribbon. Even at North Georgia they still didn’t seem to be firing on all eight cylinders.

Some wondered if Severson was feeling the pressure of being the Olympic silver medalist and riding the country’s confirmed superstar. But she’s insisted all spring she didn’t feel any extra pressure. “I honestly feel more pressure riding the young horses, at getting them going right,” she said. “The only pressure I feel is from myself and what I can achieve. But I know I make mistakes and the horse makes mistakes.”

After show jumping was over, Severson observed that “for me, competing is sort of like eating. It makes my world go round.” And perhaps that’s what this Kentucky victory really showed about her. She now has a cabinet full of championship medals and watches, a collection that would make most people either sit back to enjoy them or crumble under the weight of others’ expectations to replicate those performances.

Then, when the time came to win Kentucky, she and Dan read each other’s minds and just set out to do it. And now she’s looking ahead, to the 2006 World Championships and even to the 2008 Olympics, when Dan will be 15. As Capt. Mark Phillips said, “Hopefully they still have more to do.”

On Saturday evening after cross-country, someone asked Law how good Severson and Dan were. “Well,” said the Olympic gold medalist with a good-natured smirk, “she’s still the silver medalist.”

Severson didn’t say anything, but she gave him a look that suggested she didn’t plan to let that remain a permanent condition. Perhaps we haven’t seen perfection just yet.

Jim Wofford’s Course Evaluation: “An Angle Too Far”

We’ve become accustomed to the Rolex Kentucky course designer, Mike Etherington-Smith, producing a marvelous example of his craft. And his cross-country course for 2005 was up to his decade-long standard of excellence.

But, after I walked it, I went back and did some statistical analysis of this year’s course in terms of the questions that the obstacles asked of the horses and riders. In years past, his accuracy and precision questions have hovered at about 30 percent of the total number of efforts. For the first time this year, to my knowledge, he basically reached 50 percent. Some 22 of the 45 total jumping efforts require some form of precision and accuracy, whether it be angles, corners, narrow fences or obstacles with a face of 10 feet or less.

What does this mean? It means that Mike is responding to the modern requirements for safety, accuracy and technical proficiency.

But there are two sides to every coin. I’ve watched almost every upper-level event this spring, and I have never seen so many falls of the horse. They were, almost without fail, falls at a high rate of speed by horses and riders who were obviously not comfortable traveling at that speed.

You cannot keep riders from competing. You cannot, in David O’Connor’s words, “make sport safer than life.” What you can do is promote safe riding at any speed. If the course designer continually slows the pace by requiring precision and accuracy, the riders will be forced to ride at extraordinary speeds over the fewer and fewer galloping fences available to them.

I’ve always been a great admirer of Mike Etherington-Smith’s designs, and I remain so. But in my mind this year he may have gone an angle too far.

The first real test began at fence 6, where the rails were simple, but part of a related five- or six-stride distance to the Bass Pond rail at fence 7. This was a test of courage and agility, as well as technical skill, because the horse couldn’t see the water as he came up the mound. If your horse didn’t trust you completely, he’d tell you here.

There were a couple of long ways through this complex if you ran into trouble. Mike did an excellent job of making the long ways very long indeed. “Long” sometimes equates with “easy” in the rider’s minds. The long way here is different, but it was still difficult.

The riders had to hustle their horses back into a galloping rhythm right away–not so much to chase the clock as to make sure their horses were in front of their leg before the Squirrel’s Delight at fences 8 and 9AB. While formidable, the rail going down the slope was lower than last year, and Mike moved the entire obstacle to produce a straighter line through the combination.

Take a look at the photo of the squirrels and think for a second about the skill that it took to create something like this on the part of course builders Mick Costello, Matt Langeliers and Aaron Rust. They’ve taken a craft and turned it into art.

After The Hammock (fence 10) riders crossed over the paved road and entered the polo field, swinging right-handed down to an old friend, the Sunken Road at fences 11/12ABC. This combination has been here several years, and its influence varies from year to year. The reason is that Mike adjusts the difficulty by raising or lowering the gravel in the landing of the road. For the Olympic trials last year, it was big as I’ve ever seen it, and it caught out a few riders. But he’d added almost 12 inches of gravel to the landing, thus making the bank smaller and a bit more rideable.

Fence 15, the Hollow, was the next major complex. Fences with a steep slope behind them aren’t as influential as they used to be. The reason is that our horses are better trained these days and they see more of them. Although the landing is blind to the horse, he’s seen this question before and already knows the answer.

The key here was selecting the correct speed. If you came in too fast, your horse could jump all of the way down the hill, and you’d not be able to make a smooth, balanced turn to the steps out of the hollow. If you came too slow, your horse would hiccup over the wall, and you’d land thoroughly disorganized while facing a situation that required, above all else, organization.

Riders don’t get it that it’s harder to keep your horse straight jumping up steps than it is jumping down. And these steps were big, a test of power because the distance was a bounce. There was a stride to the narrow triple brush, but it was long, and there was a very, very subtle bend back to the left before jumping the triple brush. That’s why only a few attempted it.

Skillful riders took advantage of the downhill slope toward 16ABC, the Shelter and Stumps. Fence 16A was quite a big hogsback-shaped fence with a landing that sloped away. It was too big to just show jump, but the stumps following sharply off a left-hand turn were too narrow to be jumped fast and out of balance.

And there was slight ditch in front of both stumps. They weren’t terribly big, but big enough to draw the horses’ attention, possibly causing the horse to spook to one side or another. And the three-stride distance between the stumps walked long, but it rode in stride.

This entire segment of the course is very “modern,” if “modern” means show jumping a couple of narrows, galloping for several hundred meters, and then slowing down again to handle the Craftsmen’s Corners at 17AB. There were several long ways through here, and it was the course’s most influential fence, causing three falls (with one retirement and one elimination as a result), and one refusal.

Two galloping fences later riders faced the Head of the Lake, which is always influential because it is the Head of the Lake. The ghosts of many drowned hopes surround it, along with the biggest crowd. But this time only two horses refused at it, although both incurred two refusals each (Falcon Flight and Eight St. James Place).

The direct route, fences 20ABCD and 21, involved a maximum drop into water, then three strides to a pair of ducks with two strides in between. There were another three strides to a bank at 20D, followed one stride later by an extremely narrow hedge at 21.

The drop into the lake was absolutely maximum (6’6″). If it were 1 inch higher, the technical delegate would not have allowed it. What did this mean? It makes it feel as if you’re dropping out of a second-story window. What does that do? It makes you lose your balance. The rest of it is basically a very tough gymnastic, but you don’t start most gymnastics by jumping out of a second-story window into water.

And the distance to 21 was long, the face very narrow, and an ever-so-subtle bend back to the right to catch horses who tend to lug.

The famous Lexington Bank complex began with an enormous Hayrack (fence 25A), followed by thatched cottages set on top of the bank. I didn’t expect these fences to be as influential as they were last year.

Mike E.-S. is very clever, and here he put bourbon barrels on the perfect path to approach the thatched cottages, forcing the riders to decide whether to jump to the inside of the barrels, which caused a very sharp right-hand turn up the bank. Jumped from right to left, the first cottage at 25B would ride very well, but you could slip back down the bank to the left in front of 26. On the other hand, if you swung wide to the left and went around the barrels after 25A, your approach was from left to right. Again you’d have a terrific jump at the first cottage, but your horse wouldn’t even see the second one.

Almost everyone went to the inside of the barrels.

Jim Wofford

(To walk the entire course with Jim Wofford–and see photos of every fence–go to www.chronofhorse.com and click on Online Coverage Archives to find the Rolex Kentucky coverage.)

A Camera That Sees What The Riders See

You didn’t see the face of event rider Doug Payne, of Califon, N.J., on the NBC-TV broadcast of the Rolex Kentucky CCI, but you did see footage from his special on-board camera.

Karen O’Connor and Buck Davidson each wore the tiny camera around the Rolex Kentucky cross-country course. Darren Chiacchia also wore the camera in dressage, pinned to his jacket, but it became slightly dislodged just before he went in the ring and one of Chiacchia’s lapels partially covered the lens.

Payne was pleased with the scenes his cameras recorded from O’Connor’s round on Upstage and Davidson’s round on Private Treaty, and he thought the producers would most likely use the O’Connor footage as she finished seventh and is a previous winner.

“They seemed to be really happy with how the whole thing went,” said Payne of the TV producers.

Payne, 23, came to Kentucky with three camera set-ups, all of which he’d put together himself. The set-up, which weighs about 1 pound, consists of a camera that Payne said measures .4 inches cubed, a TV-sized clip-on microphone, a battery pack, and a digital video recorder. He calls it the Micro In-Helmet Camera, or MIC 3TM.

Payne didn’t make any of the components, but he had to craft the cables that connect the different pieces and devise a method to affix them to the riders.

The camera hooks onto the helmet harness, the microphone clips on to their shirts, and then the cable that hooks them together connects to the battery pack and the recorder, both held in packs on a belt. “They all say they don’t even notice it,” said Payne, who’s worn it himself in four or five preliminary level events.

The memory card can record for about an hour. Payne strapped the equipment on the riders before they started on phase A, then put the memory card into the digital recorder in the vet box before cross-country.

Payne, a medalist in the North American Young Riders Championships five years ago, placed 10th in the Morven Park CCI* (Va.) last October with his horse Cornerhouse and will graduate from the five-year mechanical engineering program at the Rochester Institute of Technology (N.Y.) this month. He began developing the mini-cameras about a year ago, and last summer he contacted Jim Carr of Carr-Hughes Productions (the producers of the NBC-TV coverage) to ask if they’d be interested in footage from his camera. Carr didn’t respond until January, and they arranged to test the gear on three riders at the Poplar Place Horse Trials (Ga.) in late March.

O’Connor, Chiacchia and Sara Kozumplik each wore the camera at Poplar Place. “There were a couple of little bugs,” said Payne, “but they all said they didn’t even notice it.”

Payne thinks the primary use for his camera is probably for TV. “It gives people who’ve never done it the opportunity to see what it’s like,” said Payne. “I wasn’t initially thinking of it as a training aid, but I guess it sort of gives you a second view.”

In just a month, Payne has sold about 15 camera set-ups online after listing it on E-Bay. The gear, sold by his company Fireball Systems, retails for $499. None of the purchasers have been riders. Payne said most have been dirt-bike riders, skiers, or go-cart racers.

John Strassburger

Upstage Fights His Way Back To Kentucky

Upstage’s fourth trip around the Rolex Kentucky CCI had special significance to Karen O’Connor. Just five months earlier the 15.1-hand Thoroughbred was still stall-bound with a broken tibial tuberosity he fractured at Over The Walls (Mass.) last August.

Then, in November, “Woody,” 14, rolled after a bath and displaced his colon, requiring surgery. “Coming out of the anesthesia, he could have taken a major step back [in his recovery], or it could have been catastrophic,” said O’Connor, who praised the surgeons and anesthesiologists at the Marion du Pont Scott Equine Medical Center at Morven Park (Va.) for getting him through the ordeal without further injury.

In December, he started hand walking, and he was ponied until around Christmas time, when he went to Florida for the winter. O’Connor rode him at Poplar Place (Ga.), North Georgia and The Fork (N.C.) before taking him to Kentucky.

“I knew what to expect from Woody, that he would give everything to fight his injury,” said O’Connor.

Although O’Connor couldn’t be more proud of Woody’s seventh-placed performance at Kentucky, on her drive home, she couldn’t stop thinking about the 11.2 cross-country time penalties that cost her second place. “We got into a real muddle at the water, which cost me some very valuable time,” she said.

O’Connor, 47, said she jumped in too slowly at the Head of the Lake, so that the three strides to the first duck became four strides, and the two strides to the second duck became three. By the time she reached the bank, she was losing impulsion. “There was no way I could take the direct route up the step,” she said. “That cost me 20 seconds and the momentum of his rhythm and gallop, which I didn’t really get back” until two fences later.

Woody, who’d easily made the time in his last two trips around Kentucky, came back fighting on Sunday, posting one of just four clear show jumping rounds. “Watching the show jumping, you would never think he was on the operating table in November,” O’Connor said. “He’s an amazingly athletic little horse; he doesn’t know he’s only 15.1.”

Work with Betsy Steiner has helped Woody improve his dressage, and O’Connor said he has another 10 points worth of improvement still to come. “He’s just getting his flying changes confirmed, and the freedom of his trot is starting to come now,” she said.

She expects him to be even more competitive in dressage in time for next year’s World Championships. “He’s one of the smartest horses I’ve ever worked with, and for a long time in his life he was confused and misunderstood. He’s really starting to get it,” she said. “He’s one of my all-time favorite horses, and I don’t know what he can’t do at this point.”

Jan Thompson wasn’t sure how a fall at last year’s Burghley CCI**** (England) might affect Task Force, but his sixth-placed finish at Kentucky proved to her that “Jedi” is as brave as she ever imagined.

“I was worried about how he’d come back physically and mentally,” she said of the accident, which left her horse with broken ribs, a punctured lung and a broken hind pastern. “He had no ill effects, thank god.”

At Kentucky, Thompson, 37, of Purcellville, Va., started her cross-country round slowly to make sure he was confident, but she quickly realized he was ready to run.

Now she hopes that Jedi, who was short-listed for last year’s Olympics, will be one of her
candidates for next year’s World Championships. She’ll also be aiming Waterfront, who she plans to ride in the short-format Luhmuhlen CCI**** (Germany) in June, for the WEG.

Thompson has trained on the flat with Capt. Mark Phillips, David O’Connor and Kim Severson, as well as her regular coach, Phillip Dutton. “It’s amazing how much of a team experience it is, rooting for each other, even though we are all very competitive.”

Although her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Richard Byyny, have helped her reach this point by owning her horses, Thompson said they won’t be able to continue to sponsor her horses, so she’s hoping to form a syndicate to buy them.

In the meantime, Thompson plans an easy fall schedule for Jedi, a 13-year-old, Australian-bred Thoroughbred. “He means the world to me,” she said. “I have a real soft spot in my heart for him.”

Ninth-placed Wendy Lewis couldn’t believe how well her first four-star went, but she gave the credit to her horse, Rampant Lion, and coach Buck Davidson. “I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew that if I did a good job and gave him a good ride, he had all the potential to jump around clear,” she said. “He definitely lived up to my expectations.”

Lewis, 32, Medford, N.J., said her only bobble came when Rampant Lion added a stride to the bounce coming out of the Sunken Road. “But it looked hairier than it felt; he got his legs out of the way so fast,” she said. “The Head of the Lake felt like gymnastics–he was so perfect all the way around.”

Lewis, a professional trainer, only ran one intermediate horse trial this spring before the Red Hills CIC*** (Fla.) in March, where they finished eighth before heading to Kentucky. “He jumped so well, I didn’t run him anywhere else,” she said.

From the time Rampant Lion, bought off the track by one of Lewis’ students, ran his first one-star in 2002, Lewis and Davidson thought he was special, and Lewis put together a syndicate to buy him. “I knew he was the nicest horse I’d ever had,” she said.

And Davidson helped her put the pieces together. “I wasn’t confident in my abilities and definitely not riding at the four-star level when I came to him three years ago,” she said.

Now she would love to compete at Burghley CCI**** (England) this September. “[Kentucky] was like a dream come true,” she said. “It was everything I had expected or wanted because my horse was so amazing. It hit me after show jumping what I had actually done, and then I started to enjoy it.

“I can’t say enough about the horse–I’d jump anything on him,” she added. “You dream of doing a four-star, but not until you find that special horse does it become a reality.”

Beth Rasin