Pirate’s Comeback The first time Kelsey sat on Pirate after his injury, she rode him bareback up the road from the barn to his favorite pasture. She says that she would have been content to just have him sound again, but he kept improving. First she started taking him on easy trail rides, then schooling gently in dressage. In February, 2014 he ran in his first event, then competed in the Intermediate horse trials at The Fork (North Carolina) in April of that year. Kelsey earned her license as a trainer with the National
Steeplechase Association, and says that she conditions her event horses similarly to racehorses, with lots of trot sets, hacking out, hills and gallops. The veterinarians thought that calcification on the healed bone would press on the spinal cord and make it painful for Pirate to be ridden but, thanks to the ArcEquine, Kelsey says, he has healed completely sound. Kelsey still uses the machine occasionally–after cross-country at a big event, for example. There is no doubt that Kelsey’s dedica- tion to her horse has also played an enormous role in his recovery. At the beginning of 2015, Kelsey moved from Charlotte
to the Middleburg, Virginia area. Late in the year she was offered a job as an instructor and trainer at Hunt Club Farm in Berryville, Virginia. In the mornings she gallops horses for racehorse trainer Jimmy Day, later she breaks yearlings for another trainer, and then she teaches out of Hunt Club in the afternoons. “Instead of running a business, I’m now working for other people. It was hard to go after my goals in Char- lotte, and there are a lot of opportunities here,” she says. “Bruce Davidson once told me I could either be a 4* rider
or the local riding instructor, but it’s hard to be both at the same time. I was the local riding instructor for years to fund my riding, but now I feel it’s the time to donate my time and energy to Pirate. As hard as it was for me to leave my students, I couldn’t give them what they needed and meet my goals with him. Now I have more of a set schedule. I have to be a little bit selfish and devote my energy to Pirate while he’s in his prime.”
Hefty Goals In 2015, Pirate competed in his first CCI2* at the Jersey Fresh International Three-Day Event, where he won the Thoroughbred Incentive Program award for being the high- est placed OTTB at Jersey Fresh CCI**. Kelsey broke her hand badly this past summer and had to have surgery to put a plate in it, so she and her horses had some downtime, but she was back in the saddle to compete at Plantation Field and the Fair Hill International CCI** this past fall. “One of the things I’m really working on is getting Pirate
to step under more. I’m going to get a little physio work done on him to help with that. He’s a pretty low-mainte- nance horse, but we’re asking him to work so much harder now; it’s kind of a natural next step.” Francis Whittington, whom she describes as her coach
and mentor, was recently in the U.S. to teach clinics orga- nized by Kelsey in Virginia and North Carolina, and Kelsey and Pirate had some intensive training sessions. She and Francis also discussed plans for Kelsey to achieve her goal of riding and competing in Great Britain. “We’ll try to go Advanced in February and then a spring
CIC and CCI3*. It’s easy to make plans, but things change. Our long-term plan is to get to the U.K. in 2017,” she says. “I don’t think I’m good enough to get a grant to compete there, but I hope I can at least get permission to compete in the U.K. I’m saving and working for the goal so I can fund it myself. Everything has to go right next year [2016] for that to happen!” “Francis gave me a lot of advice about what to do and how to make this happen,” Kelsey continues. “He’s very patient and told me to slow down and focus on the ingredients, not the cake. You have to focus on what it takes to make your long- term goals happen.”
The pair competing at Plantation Field CIC**. Warmbloods Today 39
Phyllis Dawson
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