After the `Warmblood Invasion`

Industry greats weigh in on how
Thoroughbreds lost their position
as America’s dominant sport
horse and whether they could be
poised for a comeback
Bounding
Back
“I
t only takes a
second to lose a
second, but it can
take a minute to
get it back,” says legendary
horseman and international
competitor Jim Wofford on
the challenge of balancing
accuracy and speed during
today’s technical three-dayevent cross-country courses.
Complex jump combinations,
or “questions,” call for the horse
to have a brave but careful, scopey
jump, and long stretches between
obstacles demand a nimble,
ground-covering stride. Spend
a little too much time getting
through a water complex, and
you’ll end up with time penalties
that could cost you a placing,
which, at the upper levels, can
36
amount to five figures or more in
prize money.
A number of Thoroughbreds
— athletes already produced
primarily for speed and
endurance — are game to take on
these vigorous demands and in
doing so have gained notoriety as
second-career eventers. Several
are traversing courses today and
have shone a spotlight on the
breed: Thoroughbreds made up
more than 28% of the 2015 Rolex
Kentucky Three-Day Event entries
back in April, and a passionate
posse of retired racehorse owners
and enthusiasts followed these
contenders start to finish.
We’re also seeing
Thoroughbreds excelling in the
show jumping and dressage
arenas, wearing saddle pads
emblazoned with “OTTB.”
But this buzz around the OTTB
is, quite frankly, a renewed one.
The celebration of second-career
Thoroughbreds has waxed and
waned over the years. Early sport
horse arenas were studded with
retired racehorse greats, along with
many “Thoroughbred-type” horses
that were seven-eighths or even
fifteen-sixteenths Thoroughbred.
But Wofford and others say
that such factors as changes in
competition rules and consumer
preference and, hence, demand
led to an influx of Warmbloods
in eventing and other sports. And
while the Warmblood has held
strong since this tip of the scale,
which our sources agree was in
the 1970s and early ’80s, there are
indications that Thoroughbreds
are, indeed, making a comeback in
some sport horse arenas.
OFF-TRACK THOROUGHBRED ❙ FALL 2015
ABOVE: LYNN VAN WOUDENBERGH/ARND.NL; BELOW: KIT HOUGHTON
By Stephanie L. Church
After the
‘Warmblood
Invasion’
FALL 2015 ❙ OFF-TRACK THOROUGHBRED
37
Accolades: Under Wofford,
winner of the Radnor Hunt
International Three-Day Event
in 1982; second at the Rolex
Kentucky Three-Day Event
in 1983; fifth at Burghley in
1983. Reserve horse and rider
for the 1984 Olympic Games.
Karen Lende (O’Connor) went
on to launch her career aboard
Castlewellan.
MARY PHELPS PHOTO/COURTESY JIM WOFFORD
Bounding
Back After the ‘Warmblood Invasion’
SPORT HORSE ROOTS
George Morris, who is widely considered one of the most influential riders and
trainers in the sport, says the American sport horse, up until the late 1950s and 60s,
was based on the American show hunter. “The show hunter was as close as possible
supposed to be a horse that could go across American hunting country — which
is not ditches and banks and the up and down in Ireland, but it’s across fields,
and there’s a lot of galloping, and they’re rather high fences,” says Morris. “So the
tradition for the American hunter was a Thoroughbred horse, because he had the
heart, he had the stamina, he had the quality … the substance.”
This early Thoroughbred hunter had a very low, big stride, says Morris, that
wouldn’t lead to fatigue the way a higher, choppier stride would. “Lots of hunters
became open jumpers, lots of hunters were on the USET (United States Equestrian
Team) in the earlier days,” he recalls. These horses were well-suited to the spreads
and combinations and the shrinking allowed times for jump-offs. And even
with ready access to the purpose-bred jumpers of Europe, some of the European
trainers favored these animals. “Bert de Nemethy particularly liked the American
Thoroughbred,” says Morris. “I had two European trainers, Bert de Nemethy and
Otto Heuckeroth, and both of them said they’re the best horses in the discipline.
… Most of the horses up until we started importing these European horses in
the early ’70s, even in the ’80s, with For the Moment and Touch of Class,” were
Thoroughbred horses.
Castlewellan
Alex
Accolades: Wofford piloted Alex,
an 11-year-old 17-hand brown
Thoroughbred, to a CCI*** victory
at Chesterland in 1980.
“Alex was an American
Thoroughbred by Crème de la
Crème … how in the world they
ever got that name through, I
don’t know,” says Wofford. “Alex
was a gift to the equestrian team
as a 4-year-old from Mr. Walter
Staley Sr. I loved Alex from the
moment I saw him; he was just
a quintessential Thoroughbred.
He had presence, he had a face
to die for, very, very intelligent
eyes, mealy nose brown (tan
around the mouth fading into
bay), and Alex was the laziest
Thoroughbred you have ever
met in your life. Alex didn’t care
if he won or not, and I completely
cared, and we kind of met in the
middle. At least one of us would
38
COURTESY SHOW JUMPING HALL OF FAME
FAVORITE THOROUGHBREDS
Castlewellan
Equestrian icon George Morris, pictured here, explains that the Thoroughbred was the
American sport horse of the 1950s and 60s.
OFF-TRACK THOROUGHBRED ❙ FALL 2015
Market Light “Marley” is owned
by Christine Siegel and ridden
by Emily Brollier.
WinStar Farm trainer, Richard Budge, leading
Market Light at our training center.
We are dedicated to ensuring the
aftercare of retired racehorses
and are a proud supporter of the
2015 Thoroughbred Makeover.
(859) 873-1717
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FAVORITE THOROUGHBREDS
show up for cross-country. He
was a wonderful field hunter,
the team retired him and let me
keep him. He led the field for the
Piedmont foxhounds for the next
four years.”
Fine Tune
Accolades: Unraced bay gelding
ridden by Tad Zimmerman was
the unriding alternate at the 1975
Pan American Team and 1976
Olympic Games. “He got about as
close as you can get to being on
the team without going on,” says
Wofford.
Bounding
Back After the ‘Warmblood Invasion’
USHERING IN THE AGE OF CALYPSO
Morris feels there was neither a particular moment where the hunter/jumper
disciplines turned to Warmbloods, nor was there a “tsunami” of European-bred
horses that covered American show arenas; the shift was more of a subtle pivot in
which he played a significant role. First trips to Germany in the late 1970s with
Michael Matz (of both Olympic show jumping and Thoroughbred race training
fame) and Melanie Smith (Taylor, also an Olympian) yielded several notable
jumpers — American Grand Prix Association Horse of the Year Val de Loire
and Olympic team gold medal mount Calypso among them — that caused the
Americans to pay attention.
Thriller II
Accolades: An English
Thoroughbred that helped launch
Derek Di Grazia’s international
eventing career in the late 1970s.
“He was a bright chestnut, 16.3,
with the same attributes — fast,
brave, agile — all the things
you think of when you think
‘Thoroughbred,” Wofford says.
Accolades: Placed second in the
inaugural FEI World Cup Final, in
Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1979.
“He was off-the-track, he hunted
a little bit,” Morris says. “He tied
for the first World Cup final with
Katie Monahan (Prudent). He was
the best 17-hand Thoroughbred
horse you can trot to a 5’
vertical.”
For the Moment
KIT HOUGHTON
Accolades: Won the 1995
Budweiser American Grand Prix
Association Championship at age
21 with rider Lisa Jacquin.
For the Moment at the 1988 Seoul
­Olympics.
40
KIT HOUGHTON
The Jones Boy
Americans began paying more attention to European Warmbloods in the late ‘70s, when
Melanie Smith Taylor’s imported Calypso rose to the top of the sport.
Calypso, a horse by Thoroughbred stallion Lucky Boy, was a pony type that
Morris describes as very fast, sensitive and careful. He recalls, “(Smith) imported
him, took him to Florida, he was an intermediate horse and a superstar, and I
entered her with him in the International Jumping Derby in 1979 as a 6-year-old,
because I was afraid she would not have the surety of the Olympic Games in 1980
(due to the boycott of the Moscow Olympics) … so I prematurely entered this
6-year-old and he won.” With Calypso, Smith also captured the other two legs of
the Triple Crown of show jumping, the American Invitational and the American
Gold Cup, making her the only person to win all three events with the same horse.
She and Calypso were also a part of the USET’s gold medal team at the 1979 Pan
American Games in Puerto Rico, and she ended up winning the individual bronze
aboard the Dutch-bred gelding in 1980’s Alternate Olympics.
“Calypso, that single horse, he was the Gem Twist of his era, he was the popular
horse of the world,” says Morris, referring to Greg Best’s silver medalist mount (an
OTTB) in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. “And everybody had to have a Calypso. It was
unfortunately a perfect storm, and about that same time, racehorses were harder
and harder to get, they were breeding them a little different, smaller, more for
sprinters ... and since we started going to European horses, the European horses’
OFF-TRACK THOROUGHBRED ❙ FALL 2015
COURTESY USET FOUNDATION ARCHIVE
Bert de Nemethy, shown
here on Thoroughbred gold
medalist Touch of Class,
riding alongside Catherine
Burdsall, particularly liked
the American Thoroughbred.
dealers got fatter, and ours got thinner, to the point that they’re almost extinct.”
Part of what made the European Warmbloods appealing was the ease and
efficiency of buying these animals. Morris explains: “They were much easier to get,
you could go to Europe and in three days, if you want to stay up all night and all
day, you can see hundreds of horses jump. Or here you had to drive to Maryland,
fly to Texas, go out to California to see a horse, you know ... it was much harder,
that’s the reason today it’s still much harder.”
CHANGE BEGETS CHANGE
Wofford agrees that the Europeans have marketed the Warmbloods well — even
better than sport horse breeders in the United States. Also, beginning in the early
’80s, 747s were flying into JFK every day, making it easier to import these horses.
But other factors were at play, including changes in the sport itself.
He says that after 1984 it became more and more apparent that dressage was
important to win three-day events, so people began to look for horses with
exceptional gaits and movement, as well as the ability to gallop and jump. He
considers the next bright line through eventing to be 2004, when eventing
officials turned away from the “classic format,” which included roads and tracks,
steeplechase, roads and tracks, and cross-country, to the “short format,” in which
the endurance phase only involves cross-country.
“Before 2004, the eventing was what they referred to then as a speed and
endurance test,” Wofford says. “You needed the speed from the Thoroughbred, and
you needed the endurance from a Thoroughbred, or almost-Thoroughbred. The
vast majority of the horses competing at the international level in those days filled
that paradigm probably, except for the German team, which was required then to
ride German-bred horses.
“At that point, there was a huge
… I mean you call it an invasion of
Warmbloods, let me tell you, it was an
onslaught. But, people including myself
were slow to realize that although we
had removed the endurance aspect
from it, by now only doing a crosscountry test, the nature of the new
course design put possibly even more
emphasis on horses’ cardiovascular
capacity, because course designers
started to build complexes. They didn’t
build an in-and-out, they built three,
four, five jumping efforts in very quick
succession — jumping of course being
anaerobic exercise for the horse.”
Wofford says he hasn’t met anyone
yet who foresaw this. Also, as the
number of jumping efforts rose, the
complexity of those efforts grew and so
did the need for precision. The more
complex each cross-country question
became, the more slowly the rider
needed to approach it.
“But the reverse of that statement
is that the slower you go on this end,
“Every time you change the rules, you change the sport … every time
you change the sport, you change the type of horse that is needed.”
Jim Wofford
FALL 2015 ❙ OFF-TRACK THOROUGHBRED
41
Bounding
Back After the ‘Warmblood Invasion’
movement, extraordinary movement.
And so the breeders have responded to
that; they’ve done a better job than the
event horse breeders … but eventing
is harder to breed for because it’s a
multiphase contest.”
THE PENDULUM SWING
Although the percentage of
Thoroughbred in the Warmblood
studbooks has increased, Wofford
says these horses are not necessarily
bred to gallop and “stay” in the way
Thoroughbreds were.
(Continued on page 44)
KIT HOUGHTON
the faster you have to go on the other end, in order to continue to finish under the
optimum time,” says Wofford, which can be quite difficult and harkens back to his
minute-to-regain-one-second sentiment.
“Concurrent with the change in format, we had a continuing rolling catastrophic
tragedy of rider fatalities and horse fatalities,” he says, with rotational falls at
technical cross-country fences, for example. “And there, of course, was a great deal
of concern in the eventing world (about horse and rider safety), and that has caused
many riders to turn away from pure Warmbloods and they’re starting to look at
Thoroughbreds and near-Thoroughbreds again.
“Every time you change the rules, you change the sport … every time you
change the sport, you change the type of horse that is needed. This is not just
true (for eventing) but true also of show jumping and Grand Prix dressage. The
show jumpers now have to be not just scopey but increasingly careful, because the
courses that they’re building are so fragile. And the Grand Prix horses, those horses
have to be born doing passage and piaffe. They have to have not just wonderful
Carawich, pictured here with Jim Wofford at the 1979 Badminton Horse Trials, was seven-eighths Thoroughbred, Wofford says, “by a
Thoroughbred sire famous in the north of Ireland for breeding horses that could run a 4-mile point-to-point in deep mud. Many current
top eventers are three-­quarter Thoroughbred.
42
OFF-TRACK THOROUGHBRED ❙ FALL 2015
Keen:
COURTESY VALERIE PARRY PHOTOGRAPHY
America’s Thoroughbred
Dressage Legend
“O
ne of the last great
Thoroughbreds we
had in competition
was Hilda Gurney’s Keen,” says
legendary horseman George
Morris. “He was a big-boned,
rangy, scopey Thoroughbred
dressage horse that was
considered the best horse in the
world at his time.”
Keen (Money Broker x Mabel
Victory, by Victory Tower;
registered with The Jockey Club
as Willoughby) was foaled in
California in 1966, where he
began his race training. His 17.2hand frame, however, proved
too large to fit in the starting
gate, and he never raced. His
breeder sold him as a 3-year-old
for $1,000 to Gurney, who was
looking for a horse with similar
traits to the dressage mounts
she’d seen compete at the 1968
Olympics in Mexico City.
“His movement was huge, and
he moved like the Warmbloods
I saw in Mexico City,” she says.
FALL 2015 ❙ OFF-TRACK THOROUGHBRED
“But when I got him home I
realized how hot he was.”
Fortunately, Keen’s demeanor
didn’t deter Gurney, an
experienced three-day event
rider. Instead, she worked
diligently to focus his energy into
his work.
“He was just so enthusiastic,”
she says. “The horse couldn’t
wait to be ridden and couldn’t
wait to work. But he was difficult
away from home; he’d get so
excited.”
So Gurney, then an elementary
special education teacher for
the Los Angeles City School
District, and her mother, also an
equestrian, began taking Keen
on weekly trips off the farm —
on trail rides, to horse shows
or just other arenas. Once he
reached Grand Prix level, the duo
also performed nearly nightly
exhibitions at competitions.
Keen’s rapid rise up the
levels culminated in numerous
championships and team
appearances. At the
1975 Pan American
Games in Mexico City,
Keen and Gurney won
individual silver and
team gold medals,
and at the 1976
Montreal Olympic
Games they placed
fourth individually and
helped secure a team
bronze medal. It was
the first U.S. Olympic
dressage medal since
1948. At the 1979 Pan
American Games,
Keen and Gurney won both team
and individual gold medals. And,
after Keen recovered from a
serious neck injury, he competed
at the 1984 Olympics in Los
Angeles at age 18, finishing 14th
individually.
Gurney says that, aside from
his neck injury, Keen stayed
sound throughout his career. In
fact, he competed in CDI events
up to age 23 and was still serving
as a schoolmaster when he
was euthanized in 1989 after
suffering a stroke.
“We had a lot of fun, and I was
really fortunate to have him,”
Gurney says. “He had so much
heart. He was tireless. You could
always count on him to perform
for you. You never had to worry
about putting your leg on and not
having something there. He was
always there. And that’s really
special about the Thoroughbred.”
– Erica Larson
43
Bounding
Back After the ‘Warmblood Invasion’
From 1960 to 2012,
50% of individual Olympic
medalists in equestrian
were Thoroughbreds, as
were 42.5% of horses on
medaling teams.
already. Some of it also has to do with
simple perception of the breed.
Morris explains: “If they get a
Thoroughbred off the track, maybe
they’re hot, maybe they have to be
retrained, the people freak out when
they hear it’s a Thoroughbred — it’s
ARND BRONKHORST
He cites a field study that one of his clients — an engineer and an eventing
enthusiast — conducted on the records of successful elite event horses. “By
successful he means a top-10 finish at the four-star (international) level,” explains
Wofford. “Those horses now average 72% Thoroughbred, so you are looking at
three-quarter-breds now. Then, the senior riders, especially after the last couple
of years (which included several high-profile fatalities) … and the difficulties that
the horses obviously had at the World Games in Normandy (footing issues, among
other cross-country problems), the senior riders are looking more and more to
a Thoroughbred/Thoroughbred-type. So the pendulum has definitely started to
swing back the other way.”
The bulk of competitors in the hunter/jumper arenas are still Warmbloods. Much
of it has to do with market preference and some of the factors we’ve mentioned
FACT
Courageous Comet is an example of an OTTB who has gone the distance as a sport horse. Here, he and Becky Holder perform their
dressage test in Hong Kong at the 2008 Olympics. Comet was named the 2009 Rood & Riddle Thoroughbred Sport Horse of the Year,
and he won the 2012 American Eventing Championships.
44
OFF-TRACK THOROUGHBRED ❙ FALL 2015
DRESSAGE
EVENTING
SHOW JUMPING
U.S. OLYMPIC HORSES
investigation, but he
says “there are Gem
Twists out there, there
are (horses like) Touch
of Class out there, there
is Keen out there.”
5
It’s important to keep
4
in mind that for every
OTTB Cinderella story
3
— the horse that finds
2
his way to the very top
of his sport horse career
1
— there are potentially
0
thousands of others
that are excelling and
19601964196819721976198019841988199219962000200420082012
Rome
Tokyo Mexico City Munich Europe (Alt) Moscow Los Angeles Seoul Barcelona Atlanta Sydney Athens Hong Kong London
will shine at all other
levels within the ranks
of the discipline. All it
more the perception of the Thoroughbred today. Of course I think that the right
takes to find them is a discriminating
Thoroughbred (would be suitable for these disciplines).”
eye for talent.
He points out that hunter/jumper breeders are more inclusive of Thoroughbred
When Wofford assesses an OTTB
blood than historically. “These are way different European horses than 10 years ago,
prospect, he says it boils down to
20 years ago, 30 years ago,” he says. “They’re like three-fourths-bred, seven-eighthsevaluating each individual. He ignores
bred. Lots of them look Thoroughbred, you couldn’t tell them apart. That’s why in
the race record and says, “You need an
the hunter division you can’t tell whether they’re an old-fashioned Thoroughbred or
American Thoroughbred that has three
a modern sport horse.
‘10’ paces, and Mother Nature will take
“So, it’s like the melting pot, it’s like the world of people,” Morris says. “You
care of the rest.”
know in 100 years, 200 years, it’s all going to be one kind of people. That’s what’s
happening to horses.”
CULTIVATING THE CATALYST
So, about getting the Thoroughbred
TODAY’S THOROUGHBRED
back on top as the preferred sport horse
All said, the Thoroughbred racehorse isn’t the same individual that it was in the
prospect — what would that take?
1960s and ’70s, either, when it dominated both at the oval and in the show arenas.
“I think, you know, it’ll only take one
Because everything from surfaces to distances has changed over the years, so has
gold medal,” says Wofford, “And people
the ideal racing specimen.
will suddenly wake up. Someone has
Racehorses today are increasingly light-boned and light-framed, says Wofford.
to find the individual and get good and
“You don’t see quite as many substantial Thoroughbreds as you used to, and that’s
get lucky with that horse, and people
because of the race influence. You know, they’re breeding for early market and early
will then rediscover the Thoroughbred,
speed.”
at least in my discipline.”
That can mean a greater dichotomy between what the hunter/jumper rings might
be looking for (substance and size) and the “average” retired racer. Morris says, “I
Stephanie L. Church is editor-indon’t think we’ll ever come back to where (the Thoroughbred was) to replace the
chief of The Horse: Your Guide To
European horse, because these are horses bred for the track,” whereas the European
Equine Health Care and Off-Track
breeders are “breeding just for the sport horse, be it eventing, be it dressage, be it
Thoroughbred Magazine. She recently
show jumping.”
purchased her OTTB gelding, graded
That said, Morris says he applauds RRP’s and other organizations’ efforts to bring
stakes winner It Happened Again, and
the Thoroughbred back into prominence — when horses come off the track and
plans to event him. He is her second
do not find second careers, it’s a tremendous waste of an asset. It requires time and
OTTB.
that were
THOROUGHBREDS
FALL 2015 ❙ OFF-TRACK THOROUGHBRED
19602012
45