Getting Back Our BRAGGING RIGHTS
NORTH AMERICAN-BRED HORSES OVERSHADOWED BY EUROPEAN-BREDS AT ROLEX KENTUCKY By Kim MacMillan
THE SPORT OF EVENTING CONTINUES TO EVOLVE BEFORE OUR EYES. HISTORICALLY, EVENTING HAS BEEN A SPORT DOMINATED BY THOROUGHBREDS. BUT IN THE LAST TWO DECADES THE SPORT HAS CHANGED AND WITH IT THE GENETIC MAKEUP OF THE HORSES COMPETING. THANKS PRIMARILY TO CHANGES IN THE INTERNATIONAL EVENTING FOR- MAT, MORE AND MORE EUROPEANWARMBLOODS ARE TAKING OVER THE TOP SPOTS IN MANY COM- PETITIONS. AS A RESULT,U.S BREEDERS MAYNEED TO ADJUST THEIR STRATEGIES IN ORDER TO KEEP PRODUCING SUCCESSFUL HORSES FOR THE AMER- ICAN EVENTING TEAMS.
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LOOKING BACK, it is hard to believe that the Rolex Ken- tucky Three-Day Event has now hosted 17 four-star competi- tions, with the first CCI4* offered in Kentucky in 1998. More recently than that, in 2004, the new modified, shorter “Olym- pic” format (without roads and tracks and steeplechase) was offered to horses who had already qualified for the Athens Olympics to be held later that year. In 2006, this shorter for- mat became the norm for FEI (Fédération Equestre Interna- tionale) championships and much controversy ensued as to whether or not it was good for the sport to adopt the shorter format. But in the end, at least for the foreseeable future, the shorter format is here to stay and with it the higher percent- age of European Warmblood genes in the horses competing. Although historically U.S. eventing teams were made
up of many American Thoroughbreds, at the 2012 London Olympics, all of the U.S. event riders were mounted on horses bred outside of North America. (In fact, all of U.S. riders that
year in all three disciplines were riding horses bred in other countries.) The last U.S. Olympic Eventing Teams to use North American-bred horses were the 2004 and 2008 teams with two each: Poggio II in 2004 and 2008, a Thoroughbred by Polynesian Flyer, out of Waves Club by Toooverprime; Jacob Two Two in 2008, a Thoroughbred, pedigree unknown; Car- rick in 2004, a Canadian Sport Horse by Cozy’s Commander, out of War Issue by Northern Mystic, and Courageous Comet in 2008, a Thoroughbred by Comet Shine, out of Rosenelli by Seat of Power.
THE HIGHEST PLACING HORSES “IN THE MONEY”THAT WERE BRED IN NORTH AMERICA ARE SHOWN IN PHOTOS 1–6. Above (1): 10th: Canada’s Selena O’Hanlon and her 11-year-old Canadian Sport Horse gelding Foxwood High negotiate the Head of the Lake complex jumping fence # 18b, the Fish, a 3’ 9” high obstacle in the middle of the lake.
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Kristin Crowe/MacMillan Photography
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