What’s next for the MARS Maryland 5-Star after five eventful years?

I wasn’t around for the first Badminton Three-Day, or even the first Kentucky event. But I have covered every MARS Maryland 5-Star at Fair Hill since that fixture started five years ago.

So I’ve monitored first-hand the impressive annual evolution of the world’s newest 5-Star. The 2025 edition convinced me that there is even more promise ahead.

The biggest change was Paris Olympic course designer Pierre Le Goupil giving a different look to the cross-country in his first 5-Star effort, where the footing was superb and intriguing fences built by Tyson Rementer and his team added visual enrichment. While some riders were quite apprehensive after walking the route, it turned out well.

Each year at the event, I have a chat with Terry Hasseltine, executive director of the Maryland Sports Commission, and also the president and chairman of the Sport and Entertainment Corporation of Maryland. So he’s the man who knows what’s going on in Maryland, which has more horses per square mile than any other state.

Terry doesn’t make empty promises. In the past, he told me there would be betting on the event (there is) and that racing would resume at the site (it did).

So I asked him what’s next for one of the country’s most scenic equestrian venues.

“We want to continue to strengthen the level of competition for both the Young Event Horse, the 3-Star and the 5-Star,” he responded.

“Working with a new cross-country course designer changed perspective on what the course can do, looking at it from a different lens. We’re really curious as to what Year Two looks like under Pierre’s guidance on the course.”

Priorities involve promoting growth during the Thursday and Friday portions of the 5-Star event, as well as bringing additional marquee activities to the facility — perhaps stand-alone dressage and show jumping competitions at various times during the season, and maybe a concert. Along with that, there could be an opportunity to have more permanent structures at the site.

“It’s just a matter of fine-tuning the expectations of what we can do on the grounds,” Terry said.

Here’s the big issue though: “In the 5-star, we still get really great competitors,” the executive observed, then asked, “How do we get back to having 40-plus 5-star (entries)?

The answer?

“That’s sometimes an adjustment on the calendar,” Terry believes.

There were 45 entries at the first Maryland 5-Star in 2021, but that was a different time, after the Covid blackout when people were eager to get things back to normal, and the idea of participating in a brand new event was intriguing.

Terry is seeking “serious conversations” with the U.S. Equestrian Federation and the FEI (international equestrian federation) “about logistics leading up to our event. Are we on the right calendar environment, are we sitting in the perfect space to make sure we can have bigger fields or grow our competition level?

“I know they’re trying to do something new to grow the sport, foster new riders, foster long-term support of eventing in general. We want to be open and receptive in supporting that process, but we’d like to also be in a position where we are part of the narrative.

“How do we support Fair Hill International (which presents horse trials on another side of the property) and the work that they’re doing on the grass roots level to get more kids on the back of horses, learning the trade and what is involved in being a rider?” asked Terry, praising the efforts and cooperation of that organization.

In the quest to boost the base, he added, “You need the highest standard of your sport being the thing that gets the benefit of calendar dates and the benefit of fiscal support. Sometimes, when those things don’t align, it creates challenges. We don’t want to be a one-hit wonder, we want to be a sustainable event that grows year and year after helping to grow the sport, but also helping to grow what is an economic festival for the northeast region of the state of Maryland.” And in the bigger picture, it “really is a Mid-Atlantic event.”

Entries are strong for the Maryland 3-Star Long and the Young Event Horse sections, so there’s plenty to watch on the 5-Star weekend, where Joanie Morris is competition manager. And ticket-holders also can enjoy attractions such as the Corgi races, Shetland pony racing and the Real Rider Cup for off-track thoroughbreds, as well as rows of vendors and lots of food trucks.

But while the 5-star division is the foundation on which the rest of the event is built in terms of crowd appeal and prestige, it hasn’t been overwhelmed with entries, as Terry pointed out. This year, there were 22 starters, with 13 making it to the final show jumping phase. That was five more for the finale than in 2024, but the feeling is, that’s still not enough on Sunday afternoon.

The best-known foreign riders who were Maryland regulars, such as Britain’s Oliver Townend or New Zealand’s Tim Price, did not come (they’re headed to the Pau, France, 5-Star this week). It’s expensive for riders and their horses to cross the Atlantic, so travel grants have helped to a limited extent (including for the winner, Felix Vogg of Switzerland) but the organizers can’t pay for everyone’s trip.

We also were missing such U.S. stars as Will Coleman and Tamie Smith, who were riding the week before the 5-Star in the first U.S. Open 4-star. Why schedule that just before the 5-Star?

As Terry pointed out about the Maryland effort, “This is a heavy lift and a significant investment, and you need to make sure you’re providing the best quality of competition and the best quality of services. We want to continue that world class environment and world class destination experience. It’s hard to do when we’re having to look at what your last day might come down to,” he said, referring to the number of competitors in the 5-Star show jumping finale.

There are several issues linked to recruiting more 5-Star participants. One is the calendar, as Terry mentioned. Another is the dearth of 5-Star horse/rider combinations in this country.

You’ll hear different takes on that subject.

“I don’t think there are that many professional event riders in America, compared to overseas,” suggested Boyd Martin, who won the first Maryland 5-Star.

“I think the country’s more based around amateurs and 20 percent what you’d call professionals, and the opposite in other countries, where there are 80 percent professionals and 20 percent amateurs.”

At the same time, he pointed out, for anyone who aspires to someday ride at the top level of the sport in a 5-Star, “You basically need a number of horses, knowing some aren’t going to make it — some might not be sound enough, some can’t jump high enough, some get injured — to get to the 5-star level. To have America have more horses, we need a bigger depth of professionals.”

At the same time, “It takes a unique animal to be able to do this (cross-country) course,” he said of Maryland’s 5-Star.

“It’s a long trip, big hills, big jumps; you need a real athletic horse.”

That’s another reason some riders feel the twisting but flatter course at Pau is a better choice for their horses.

Then there is the fact that the Olympics and Pan American Games are not at the 5-Star level (they are 4-star and 3-star respectively for cross-country), so people can pursue their championship dreams without ever riding in a 5-Star.

“Worldwide, with the 4-star being the championships, there are people who don’t do as many 5-stars as they used to,” pointed out David O’Connor, the USEF’s chief of sport.

However,  he doesn’t see a permanent shortage of American 5-Star riders, noting, “We’ve got a bunch of young riders coming up through the levels that are very, very good and have the desire to do 5-stars.”

Regarding the number of entries at Maryland, he mentioned, “There are always not as many horses in the autumn as there are in the spring.” In that regard, someone else mentioned that at Britain’s iconic events, there tend to be less entries at Burghley in September than at Badminton in May.

In terms of Maryland’s future, David said, “I don’t see it growing exponentially in the 5-star. But they do a great job here with a full eventing weekend. Is this (the 5-Star) going to be 50 horses? No, it’s too expensive a lot of times for the Europeans to come over.”

While the grant system will help to some extent for a few riders, he pointed out that so many riders are going to Pau, and compared the price to competing at Maryland for Europeans.

If it’s a financial decision, “You have something that costs you $5,000 to go to and you have something that costs you $40,000 to go to,” he said.

Leslie Law, Olympic gold medalist, chef d’equipe and high performance manager for the U.S. eventing team, noted the shorter format events that two decades ago replaced the classic format’s speed and endurance segments meant there are fewer thoroughbreds or horses with significant amounts of thoroughbred blood competing. But a few thoroughbreds are still heard from occasionally; Monica Spencer’s Artist, a thoroughbred, was second in Maryland.

“With where eventing is right now, dressage and show jumping (segments) are extremely influential,” said Leslie.

That format favors warmbloods and their way of moving and jumping..

“You could be successful with a different type of horse, but those horses don’t always materialize into the 5-Star horses of today,” Leslie commented.

“We’ve almost got two sports, in a way. It’s a little bit like the jumpers. They have their grand prix horses but they also have their speed horses. The speed horse will never be a grand prix horse, probably, and the grand prix horse is probably not a speed horse.

“You’re seeing a wider range of horses (in eventing), but perhaps they’re not all 5-Star horses,” said Leslie.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the numbers indicate a different situation because of how many countries are involved in the sport there.

“They’re drawing from across Europe and you’ve got a lot of New Zealand and Australian riders based in the UK,” Leslie explained. It should be noted that there are also six Americans at Pau, including Boyd.

“The pool they’re drawing from is really much greater. Every European country is going to have its riders and they’re pushing their system. If you look at Pau, there’s probably not much more than (four) French riders there, but they’ve (the event has) got a big entry.” The British tend to flock there, with 28 competing at Pau this month.

“If that was a standalone event, like we have here, then it starts to look much more comparable,” Leslie said.