Lisa Marie Fergusson and her 18-year-old Welsh Cob-Thoroughbred Honor Me have competed together for 14 years, amassing eight five-star completions, including representing Canada at the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games (North Carolina), going back to the gelding’s first Rolex Kentucky in 2016. But he’d never had an Fédération Equestre Internationale win. Until last weekend. 

Fergusson and “Tali” (Brynarian Brenin Ap Maldwyn—Dream Contessa, Royal Chocolate) climbed from the bottom of the pack to the top on the strength of a clear show jumping round and a clear but slow cross-country to win the Maryland International CCI4*-S on a hot summer weekend in Adamstown, Maryland, that saw no four-star pairs pushing to make time.

“I think it’s exciting because, with a horse like Tali, you don’t expect to win because he doesn’t like dressage,” said Fergusson, 41, who operates North Star Eventing in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “Now, there’s enough good horses putting in good dressage tests that they can still make errors on cross-country and win. Cross-country just happened to be weighted heavier this weekend more than it sometimes can be, and show jumping, as well. 

“I was definitely not expecting it, but it was a nice surprise,” she added. “He came out and did his job like the reliable cross-country horse he’s been his whole career. I just let him cruise around at the speed he wanted. He was so happy out there. He just cantered around and jumped everything, and he was super great. He made it all feel super easy.”

They were at the bottom of the division after dressage with a score of 41.1. But they posted the only double-clear round in show jumping on Saturday morning and added a slow, steady clear cross-country. 

“It is special to have that on his record because I think he’s a great horse,” she said. “He’s been my longtime partner, and he’s taught me a lot, and I’ve achieved a lot of firsts with him. And especially because my last win at this level was on [Uni Griffon, who has the same sire as Tali],” she said. (Uni Griffon, Fergusson’s first five-star horse, is also by Brynarian Brenin Ap Maldwyn, and her last win at the level was at the 2007 MCTA Horse Trials, also in Maryland.)

Maryland was the pair’s first competition since before the Defender Kentucky CCI5*-L in April, where they fell at the coffin near the end of the course.

“In his career, that’s the first fall we’ve ever had. I’m just chalking it up to a lot of unlucky,” said Fergusson, adding that she wasn’t nervous to get back out on cross-country at Maryland. “I kind of just went, ‘You know, after 18 years, you’re entitled to a mistake, and I guess we’ll see if it’s one he learned from.’ He hasn’t been on a cross-country course since then. He’s not a horse that I cross-country school, so that was his first time to see a start box since then.

“When other people are getting nervous for cross-country, I’ll be eating a breakfast sandwich, and everyone’s like, ‘You have to be nervous.’ And I reply, ‘You’re not sitting on what I’m sitting on,’ ” she said. “They haven’t built a course he can’t do. What he’s taught me in the last 14 years is that it doesn’t matter what I put in front of him. He’ll figure it out. I know with that horse that if I show him what I expect, he’ll do it. Half the time, he reads it before I tell him, and he hunts flags. He’s just a horse you can go out on and have a really good time.”

At Maryland the duo posted 34 time faults as they cruised around cross-country. However, of the six finishers in the CCI4*-S, no one had fewer than 27.2 time faults. Tali and Fergusson won the division with a final score of 75.1, with Courtney Cooper and R River Star second (78.5) and Jessica Phoenix and Aeronautics third (78.7).

Given their dressage placing and their slow cruise around cross-country, Fergusson was not expecting to win. She was getting another horse ready with her friend Jennifer Babcock when she heard the news.

“We were both extremely shocked. It was not the goal for the day,” Babcock said. “She was taking [Tali] out to see what he wanted to do and see where he was at. They had a brilliant show-jumping round and brilliant cross country, but we were pretty shocked.”

Fergusson bought Tali, sight unseen, as a 4-year-old. At the time, she was competing his full brother, Smart Move at the advanced level. She purchased Tali from Carol McDonald, a Langley, British Columbia, breeder whose daughter was one of Fergusson’s Pony Club mates. She had previously gotten “Smarty” from McDonald, whom she’d worked for before moving to the U.S., helping to start and compete McDonald’s young horses.

When Fergusson found out Tali was for sale, despite knowing he had bone chips in three ankles and wouldn’t pass a vet exam, she purchased him and promptly shipped him to Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. He underwent surgery on those three legs at WSU’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital, but then while recovering from the surgery, he developed an infection, so he ended up spending a month at WSU before Fergusson finally laid eyes on him. The duo began training together, embarking on their competitive career at the novice level. However, not quite a year later, a kick from Smarty left Tali with a fractured radius, so he had to spend another three months on stall rest. He wasn’t happy about it.

“Tali does not like stall rest. He does not like stalls, period,” Fergusson said. “He’d live out 24/7 if you let him.”

Fergusson is a huge fan of Tali’s lineage, having owned and competed four horses by McDonald’s Welsh Cob stallion Brynarian Brenin Ap Maldwyn through the upper levels, including Smarty, who was competing successfully at the four-star level when he died after getting loose in Wellington, Florida, and being hit by a car; and Uni Sprite (Brynarian Brenin Ap Maldwyn—Better B’Leavin), a full brother to Uni Griffon who’s now 19 and still competing at the training level with Brenda Jarrell. Uni Griffon was Fergusson’s first five-star horse and competed at the advanced level until, at age 10, he collapsed and died just after finishing advanced cross-country at the 2009 Maui Jim Horse Trials (Illinois).

Fergusson has experienced her fair share of grief, enduring the deaths of two of her horses in their prime, as well as her mother, Bonnie, in 2021. She competed in the 2022 Kentucky Three-Day Event, her mom’s “favorite show”,  in honor of Bonnie, finishing 19^th in the CCI5*-L.

For a horse whose age indicates he’s surely nearing the end of his exceptionally long upper-level career, the Maryland win was an unexpected reward for an atypical event horse.

“Lots of people have big, fancy movers who are built for the job,” Fergusson said. “[Tali] goes in, and he’ll do the things and try to cooperate, but he just isn’t that big, fancy, picture-perfect dressage horse. And he doesn’t like it, so he doesn’t try to be that big, fancy, picture-perfect horse. That’s just not him. He loves to jump and run.”

Fergusson is aware that Tali might not have much more competitive time on his side. But much like she was at the Maryland event, focused on the task at hand rather than on the leaderboard, she’s taking things day by day with him, letting him tell her what’s next, while bringing along a number of younger horses in her string. She’s not sure whether Tali has another five-star in his future.

“The obvious option is Maryland, and if he’s feeling good and fit and up to it, I think it’s a possibility,” she said of the Mars Maryland 5 Star at Fair Hill in October. “He’s at a phase in his career where he doesn’t need to do it, and maybe it’s a little selfish to ask him to do another one. I’m going to see how he’s feeling and make the decision as it gets closer. I’m not going to rule it out, but I’m also not going to count on it.

“He doesn’t owe me anything,” she added. “I want to be mindful to not be selfish and make sure everything we do with him is in his best interest. Now we’re just in a different phase. I’m assuming I’m going to take him to Plantation, and I’m going to really enjoy it if he gets to go to that one. And then we’ll just add on the next logical one after that.”

For now, she’s just relishing Tali’s success last weekend and enjoying every moment with him. And she’ll keep enjoying those moments as long as he is.

“Good luck teaching that horse to be a pasture ornament,” she said with a laugh. “He’s not going to go quietly into pasture life. He is a busy boy. He’s not one who likes to go out and not work. He gets so upset when the trailer leaves without him.

“He’s getting older, and I don’t want him to not enjoy what he’s doing,” she said. “It’s a lot of not pushing him and letting him tell me what he wants to do. We had a good amount of time faults at Maryland. In his younger years, he never had time faults unless I insisted. But he has no need to run off with me anymore. Right now, we’re not at the stage where I’m pushing him to go faster. We’re working on our show jumping, we do the minimum amount of dressage that we can get away with, and then we hack and play in the river. I’m not galloping his legs off. I’m letting him enjoy it as long as he wants to.”