POINT OF VIEW
At 73 years of age, after a lifetime of being involved with horses and anticipating her fiftieth anniversary in eventing, Mary Hazzard is truly an educational resource.
es a day despite having two mastectomies, a broken neck, two hip replacements, a shoulder replacement, four cardiac procedures and assorted other injuries. She didn’t stop com- peting until age 68 and was campaigning a young horse at the time. “It’s mind over matter,” she says, adding, “I’m not happy if I can’t ride; I get grumpy.”
M
Finding Eventing She completed a tour of duty in Vietnam as part of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps in 1967, returned to Pennsylvania and began riding horses for Dr. Jacque Jenny from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine, who owned ex-flat racers and ex-steeplechasers as well as doing layups for competition horses. As a result, Mary did the ‘legging up’ of such USET jumpers as Snowbound and Sinjon. She also assisted when Dr. Jenny was doing his ground-breaking or- thopedic research, including developing an equine recovery pool. In 1968, Dr. Jenny’s friend Bengt Ljungquist conducted
an eventing clinic and Mary attended, riding Bounder, a full sibling to a showjumper. “It all began then!” she declares. She was given the ride on Cabalistic (by Mystic II out of
ary grew up around horses and fondly recalls the Morgan who would wait for her to return from school. She still rides as many as three or four hors-
By Judy Wardrope
A Half-Century of Eventing An Interview with Mary Hazzard
Plucky Flower) because the horse was deemed an unride- able rogue, having bucked off all comers and never getting to the track. “I learned about neck straps, and, after about a year, I stayed on him most of the time,” Mary says. “He was my ride in the 1978 World Three-Day Championships and was one of two horses that jumped clear on cross country and show jumping. If they can buck, they can jump!” Mary also owned a mare named Bad Fix (by Flashy Fleet
out of Windy Heels) that she evented. “She developed an eye problem and Dr. Jenny’s friend, Dr. William Hazzard, an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist, took care of her. [Despite that she lost the eye.] I evented my one-eyed mare at the USET selection trials and she was unfazed by the handicap. And to thank Dr. Hazzard, I married his son, William Jr.!” When Mary decided to breed Bad Fix, she found she
could not afford the fee for Mystic II (the sire of Cabalistic; Eclipse Award steeplechasers, Life’s Illusion and Soothsay- er; several other successful steeplechasers, including Turtle Head, Out On A Limb, Freeman’s Hill, China Run, Bewleys Hill; and Springer, a Canadian Equestrian Team jumper). However, she found that Frank Chapot was standing a Mys- tic II son named Babamist (1969) owned by Miles Valentine. The Babamist/Bad Fix cross produced Mystic High, the 1988 USCTA Mare of the Year. “She was a Badminton and Rolex veteran,” says Mary. When Babamist’s owner died, Mary acquired 90 percent of him, moved him to her farm—and the rest is eventing history.
Babamist raced on the flat and over fences, hunted,
evented and stood at stud. “He was a gentleman of the first order,” Mary says. As a sire, he tended to stamp his
All photos courtesy of Mary Hazzard, taken of her over the last 50 years at numerous competitions. Warmbloods Today 37
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