There’s an old British saying about “horses for courses,” meaning certain situations suit certain horses well.
That could well be applied to Lafitte de Muze at the Devon Horse Show, where he put his name on the George S. Hasbrouk Jr. Memorial High Performance Working Hunter trophy for four of the last five years, including three times in a row, as of Tuesday.
Since it’s a perpetual trophy, the silver cup can’t take up residence at the home of Lafite’s owner, Cheryl Olsten, or his rider, Amanda Steege.
But that’s okay.
“He’s been champion at every show in the country,” said Amanda.
Lafitte already has amassed quite a collection of sterling. He even added to it on Wednesday, winning the William C. Hunneman Jr. perpetual trophy for the High Performance Working Hunter Stake, also for the third time in four years. With a heady score of 95, no less.
After that, it was time for more awards – the High Performance Working Hunter Championship, which he also won last year, and for the third time in five years, the Leading Lady Rider in the Working Hunter division for his rider.
The haul at Devon isn’t really unusual for Lafite, whose prize money under a unique arrangement has gone to the EQUUS Foundation, which helps horses who have suffered abuse or neglect.
“He’s been champion at every show in the country,” said Amanda of her partner of nine years, noting “he performs well at most of the shows.”
Lafitte de Muze and Amanda Steege.
However, she added, “He does really love Devon. From the second he gets off the truck at Devon, he’s very excited. Our preparation has to be a little different here because he can get a little overly excited.
It’s easy to understand why, since he has fans at the show in Philadelphia’s Main Line.
“He loves a crowd, all the kids on the rail and talking to everybody. People go to Devon just to see him, so here we are,” said Amanda, based in Ocala, Fla., with summers in Hunterdon County, N.J.
The 15-year-old Belgian warmblood, a son of Darco, he was born with that. People always ask me, `What is it about him that makes him so special?’ ”
That’s not so easy to quantify.
“Certainly, his jumping technique is amazing and exuberant and dynamic. There’s not enough words for how he jumps. But the fact that he jumps like that over and over…I think he’s extremely intelligent. He understands the whole thing that we’re doing.”
That’s a rare quality.
While Amanda notes, “It’s fairly easyto pick out conformationally correct hoses who are good movers and good jumpers, you can’t predict which of those youngsters are going to have that star quality or X factor when they walk into the ring., where it feels like they grow a little bit. “
Lafitte “understands that when he goes out there, he is performing and doing something. He takes a lot of pride in his work. He’s a perfectionist, he likes to win the blue.”
Meanwhile, the next generation of Devon stars is coming along. Two Oldenburgs, both ridden by Victoria Colvin, tied on 46 points each for the Grand Hunter Championship.
John and Stephanie Ingram’s Odette , a 10-year-old mare, won the High Performance Conformation Hunter title and Lynn Olson’s In the End, a seven-year-old gelding, took the Green Conformation honors on the way to the Grand tri-color.
Devon Leading Hunter Rider Tori Colvin with co-Grand Champion Hunters Odette and In the End.
It was only Tori’s second show on In the End, but he was unfazed by the Devon excitement, and advice from trainer Shelley Campf also helped the acclimation process.
“I didn’t know him very well, he’s young but didn’t seem to care about anything and really was foot perfect.,” said Tori.
“Same for Odette. I’ve been riding her for about a year now. She’s the coolest mare. She wants to win and tries to win every time. They both have big strides, they’re both very scopey, they both kind of go in a similar way, kind of like a nice rhythm.”
She added about Odette, “When you have a good mare, they mainly always try to win for you, which is nice. They really try for you.”
Tori has been a Devon regular since she was eight, for 20 years, and started off winning championships in the pony ranks, then went on to honors in the junior hunters and finally, the open ranks.
Even with that long timeline, the Devon mystique never grows old.
“Every show is special, but Devon is a very special horse show. I think it’s one of the main horse shows and big focuses of the year,” said Tori, adding that with the impressive jumps and flowers “a lot of horses shine here. It’s great experience.”
Unless, of course, they spook at the carousel in the little carnival on the grounds.
She also does jumpers but doesn’t have any at the show this time. Maybe next year; she has a homebred seven-year-old who might be a candidate.
In the meantime, she’ll be doing the $50,000 USHJA Hunter Derby on Thursday with Golden Road, a 10-year-old Selle Francais who didn’t compete on Wednesday, saving him for the big class.
Tori noted this year Devon has “been a little on the wetter side. When the umbrellas come out, that’s a little bit of an issue.”
Indeed, weather complicated things at Devon; there was a little flooding, while some classes were canceled last Wednesday and Friday. Then it started to drizzle again as the hunter divisions wrapped up, with the ringmaster appropriately playing a few notes of the song “Stormy Weather” on his horn.
It couldn’t put a damper on the Ladies Day Hat Contest, though, a fixture that seems wonderfully anachronistic, like so much of Devon, from the crustless tea sandwiches to the massive program listing every horse with a description, and showing photos of all the treasured trophies that have been donated by generations of avid show-goers. If the ringmaster is looking for another song to play, “Tradition” might fill the bill.
The jumpers got under way with the $32,000 Jet Run Welcome Stake, but not everyone was trying to win. Horses needed to compete in a class before the show’s feature, the $210,000 Sapphire Grand Prix of Devon, so some riders used the one-round speed competition as a way to introduce their mounts to the Dixon Oval.
One who did try to win – and succeeded – was McKayla Langmeier, who rode Pepita VD Rollebeek to victory in 57.340 seconds, ahead of a Devon regular, Daniel Bluman on the reliable Gemma W (58.430).
McKayla hadn’t been back to the show for eight years, since she was a junior equitation star.
“It was really cool to have the (Devon) blue cooler on my horse,” said the 26-year-old rider. (NOTE: Devon blue is a particular shade; you’ll see it everywhere on the showgrounds, and many people – include me – glaze their fingernails with Devon blue polish for the occasion.)
McKayla will be riding her other horse, Riesling van de Gaathoeve, “a horse with a championships mindset” in the grand prix. Her objective with Pepita is simply to get ranking points for the international standings in the show’s 1.45-meter classes.
