If successful, they can also receive the winning trophies and join in the celebrations. By sharing the cost with a group, more people get to experience the excitement and synergy of owning a world-class horse.
Syndicates in Play Following a trailer accident (see article on page 10) that claimed the lives of his three top event horses, including two Olympic contenders, Michael Pollard of Dalton, Georgia announced in June that The Phoenix Syndicate had been formed to secure the purchase of the ten-year-old Irish-bred gelding Ballingowan Pizazz from Pan American eventing team gold medalist Shannon Lilley. Michael knew Ballingowan Pizazz well from watching
Boyd Martin and Selle Français Otis Barbotiere, a syndicated horse that competed at the 2012 Olympics.
teammate Shannon ride the gelding at the Pan-American Games, where they won team gold, and “Mango” finished fifth individually. The horse was at the top of Michael’s list of prospects and he was surprised when Shannon agreed to sell him, but thrilled at the opportunity. It is now Michael’s focus to become a contender for future U.S. teams with the goal of competing at the 2014 World Equestrian Games in Normandy and 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Eventer Boyd Martin and his wife Silva, a Grand Prix
dressage rider, of Cochranville, Pennsylvania, together have four syndicated horses in their lineup: Neville Bardos, Trading Aces and Otis Barbotiere are all upper-level event horses syndicated for Boyd to ride and compete, while Rosa Cha W is a talented homebred mare that Silva syndicated as a youngster to help realize her dream of training the mare up to Grand Prix level. “The majority of the owners, we have found, wanted to join the syndicates because they wanted to help us out with our goals and our careers, and also to support an American rider chasing a dream,” says Boyd. “There are also a select few who have a passion for a particular horse—with Neville especially a few people watched him go and wanted to be a part of him. We also found that friends like to join together and end up forming a group.” Eventer Doug Payne, of Gladstone, New Jersey, just
syndicated a horse called Shining North Star and would like to use syndication to build up his competition string. “I’d like
a 2-star horse and a four or five-year-old,” he says. “You really need two or three horses to do this right. One can get hurt; one can bomb out and need to do another career, so you really need something to fall back on.” Boyd sums it up well. “We as riders are trying to find
a way to ride the best horses in the world at the biggest competitions. To get a horse of that caliber you can’t rely on one wealthy person—you have to get a group. It’s not profit- motivated; if [as a rider] you think syndicating is a source of income, then you’ve got the wrong idea. Syndication is a way to follow your dream of competing on the world stage.” Tim Holekamp, member of the three syndicates of Neville,
Trading Aces and Otis Barbotiere, told
EventingNation.com, “The cost of being an owner has soared, both the buy-in and the support costs, making the whole business of owning a non-breeding international event horse out of reach for most individuals, even those who managed it in the past, us included. The current price of promising event horses is nearly double that of our initial cost of Windfall, and when I bought Windfall he was further along the upward pathway than Otis at purchase time. The support costs have also nearly doubled in the last twelve years. There appears to be only a handful of people left with the wallet heft and desire to invest in helping the U.S. Team succeed by individually owning and campaigning a gelding. So, in the absence of a governmental source of funding, the solution more or less has to be shared ownership.”
Attracting Syndicate Members Of course if a rider has already been campaigning a horse for a while and they are a proven entity, such as Boyd Martin and
Warmbloods Today 91
Allen MacMillan/MacMillan Photography
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