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Otter Pop


years she has been working as a rider for Andrea Pfeiffer at Chocolate Horse Farm. Though “Otter” is still very green and had competed in


Otter Pop is a handsome gray gelding bred in California


by the Vadnais Family Trust. He raced six times in 2013 year under the Jockey Club name Ought to Win (Sought After X Mother of Frank, by Seattle Bound) before retiring in Au- gust. Shirley Aronson bought the horse off the track and gelded him, and it was love at first sight when Amber met him at Chocolate Horse Farm in Petaluma, California. Amber began eventing in 2008, following a successful


junior career in the hunter/jumper ranks. She has compet- ed to the advanced level of eventing and for the past three


just two novice events before coming to the champion- ships, Amber says he tackles new challenges with enthusi- asm. “He’s absolutely brave, he’s very smart and obviously very willing,” she says. “He’s a fun horse to have around. At Galway there was a down bank into the water, which he’d never done before. If you point him at a jump and say ‘go,’ he says ‘okay.’” Still sound and healthy, Otter retired from racing be- cause he was slow. “He has all the right attributes of an up- per-level horse, so that’s our hope,” Amber adds. “The plan is to do the five-year-old YEH competition with him next year. This is my first time in the YEH series--we hadn’t had a horse yet that had the right qualities. I think it’s a great pro- gram for giving the young horses more exposure—when they go to the horse trials they’ve already been in the dres- sage arena and jumped around, so it’s a nice schooling tool, too.”


She also currently has a couple of other up and coming horses who just ran their first one-star and are aiming for intermediate in the spring and a two-star next year. Another OTTB just did his first prelim and is shooting for a one-star in the spring.


at the Fair Hill International. The grant, spearheaded by Tim and Cheryl Holekamp, provides a stipend to the high scoring 5-year-old in any given year to attend the FEI World Breeding Eventing Championships for Young Horses CCI2* held at Le Lion D’Angers in France as a 7-year-old. But, anything can happen over the span of two years, so if the top-scoring horse in any given year is not able to compete at the FEI event as a 7-year-old, the grant goes to the next highest scorer able to compete at the event. Tamie Smith has Sunsprite Syrius, last year’s YEH 5-year-old West Coast reserve champion, up for the Le Lion grant next


Big Incentive for YEH Winners: Le Lion d’Angers T


year. She agrees that the grant, which offers $17,500 to North American-bred horses and $8,000 to imported horses, is an attractive incentive to participate in the YEH program. “That’s huge because I’m trying to produce horses that go to the top,” she says. Assuming Vagabon qualifies and the pair is ready and willing to travel to the event, Will will receive $8,000 via the


Holekamp/Turner Young Event Horse Lion d’Angers Prize and Grant to travel to France to compete in the 7-year-old cham- pionships at Le Lion. While his current horse is imported, Will feels the grant of huge benefit to Americans producing young horses. “You


look at the leaderboard over there and all the top riders are there from around the world, so I think it’s important that we start sending Americans over there. As we start to produce more horses in this country, it’s important to see how we mea- sure up.”


He also has high praise for the YEH program in the U.S. “I think they had fantastic judges this year: William Micklem,


Bea diGrazia and Cathy Tucker-Slaterbeck are exceptional horse people with a good eye. No one has a crystal ball, but you hope it’s the type of horse that can do a four-star someday. We’re planning to make it part of our program every year. Producing more horses at home from the ground up is going to be critical for U.S. eventing. It’s easier to prepare horses to be successful at the upper levels when you know them well, and while young horses are a long-term invest- ment I think in the end good results will come with that rather than buying made horses. I hope the program continues to grow because it’ll be a great harbinger of professionals producing the horses that we need in this sport. I think this year they did a great job.”


34 January/February 2015


he top-scoring YEH Champion in the 5-year-old class is put on a list for the Turner/Holekamp YEH Le Lion d’Angers Grant. The 2014 title belongs to East Coast Champion Vagabon de Champdoux and Will Coleman, who were crowned


Amy McCool


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