by Nancy Jaffer | Jan 23, 2017
West Milford High School junior Mackenzie Suffy earned high point rider honors at last weekend’s College Preparatory Invitational (CPI) in West Palm Beach, Fla.
The event at the Jim Brandon Equestrian Center replicated the Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association’s competition format, in which participants do a draw for their mounts. The event also featured a college fair attended by representatives of 35 institutions of higher learning that offer an equestrian program.
Mackenzie’s trainer, Brian Cash of Hidden Acres Farm in West Milford, came to Florida. But with a format that allowed little to no schooling, Mackenzie had to rely on her own ability and instincts. She competed in the advanced division, with two different horses for the flat and jumping phases.
“It was awesome. I’d like to do it again,” said Mackenzie, but as the winner, she is not eligible to compete a second time. Instead, she’ll concentrate on training her 18-hand, 6-year-old Irish import, Meitreo H.
“We bought him off a video and hoped for the best,” she said. Her plan now that he’s gotten some experience is to make the finals of the major equitation championships.
Mackenzie Suffy, the high point rider in the College Preparatory Invitational. (Photo by Andrew Ryback)
The CPI was far from her first major accomplishment, however. She won Marshall & Sterling National Junior Medal Championship last year, and year-end championships in a variety of divisions, as well as being voted the N.J. Horse Shows Association Junior Rider of the Year in 2015.
Mackenzie, who hopes to be a professional, will be spending two months at the HITS shows in Ocala, Fla., this winter under a special program where she goes to school four mornings a week and rides the rest of the time.
by Nancy Jaffer | Jan 21, 2017
I first heard the distinctive and authoritative voice of announcer Tom Mannos at the Middlesex County Horse Show, back in the days when it was actually held in Middlesex County, at scenic Johnson Park in New Brunswick.
Happily, I had plenty of other chances to listen to his polished, always professional approach at other New Jersey shows, including Hunt Cap in Three Bridges and those being held at the Horse Park of New Jersey in Allentown. Going further afield, I welcomed his familiar sound at the Hampton Classic and Madison Square Garden when the National Horse Show was held there.
Announcer Tom Mannos, honored by the Professional Horsemen’s Association.
Tommy, now 90 and still in stride, was honored this month with the Jimmy Walsh Trophy for the second time in recognition of over 50 years of service to the Long Island Professional Horseman’s Association at their annual banquet. All of his family flew in to see him accept an original bronze sculpted by Marilyn Meiselman.
Tom got introduced to horses when he was nine, spending a summer on his uncle’s Montana ranch. He knew the animals would always be part of his life, and became involved with reining and cutting horses, as well as riding in 20 states, Canada and two Caribbean islands.
He went on to become a radio broadcaster and a television actor, announcer and advertising executive. When he bought a horse for his son, Mark, he entered the equestrian world.
After attending horse shows, he realized they needed better announcing and public address systems. After announcing at a schooling show where he did a play-by-play on a trail class, he received an offer to announced at his first American Horse Shows Association recognized show.
He wound up announcing more than 30 shows a year, and his sound system became TM Sound, with 20 loudspeakers, six amplifiers, two miles of wiring and 42 radios that he took from show to show in a three-quarter ton van.
His announcing career also included horse expos and demonstrations from Michigan, Wisconsin and Kentucky, as well as Dressage at Devon and all the Belmont Park horse fairs. Through the years, his talent has been impressive and his dedication unfailing.
by Nancy Jaffer | Jan 20, 2017
Services will be held at 1 p.m. Friday Feb. 10 in St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, Bedford, N.Y., for Arthur Hawkins, who was the gold standard for horse show officials. Visitation is 5-7 p.m.Thursday, Feb. 9 at the Cassidy-Flynn Funeral Home, 288 East Main St., Mount Kisco, N.Y.
Services previously were held on the West Coast for Artie, who died Jan. 23 after a long illness.
He had been a partner with show jumper McLain Ward in a jumper, Tina La Boheme, but McLain bought the horse back when Artie became ill.
“She’s a lovely mare. I hope she’ll go on and have some great results in his honor,” McLain said.
“The relationship goes back to when he was very dear friends with my parents,” McLain said, noting his father bought Shannon stables, renamed Castle Hill, from Artie in 1970.
“It’s an end of an era, losing some of these great horsemen and gentlemen. I was lucky enough to have had a lot of influence from him,” McLain commented.
U.S. show jumping coach Robert Ridland said Artie was “who we think of when we think of this sport and judging. Artie is in a category all by himself — he’s the sport.”
Arthur Hawkins. (Photo by Nancy Jaffer)
The creator of the numerical judging system that made officiating more precise, Artie stopped judging in 2012 at the age of 82, though he kept on working as a steward.
Fellow steward David Distler called him, “One of the last of the great old horseman and a great guy,”
Artie was part of a formidable equestrian dynasty. His grandfather, Charles, worked with race horses in England. His father, Frank, was one of the first professionals to become a judge accredited by USEF’s predecessor, the American Horse Shows Association. His late brother Steve, also was a highly respected judge.
After serving in the Air Force in the early 1950s, Artie lived in Westchester County, N.Y., while working in the marketing department of Parade magazine, then operating a couple of photography shops in New York. But the horse business still called him.
“The commute into the city was killing me, so I gave it up and bought my father’s Shannon Stables in Bedford, N.Y.,” he recalled. He eventually sold the farm, which had been in his family since 1943, to Barney Ward in 1970. It is now McLainWard’s base, renamed Castle Hill. McLain became a partner with Artie in a show jumper named Tina La Boheme, who had a lot of success last year and kept Artie involved in the game.
At Shannon, Artie bought and sold horses and gave lessons. But since his father, as well as his brother, and sister, were judges, he also started judging in 1956. By 1959, he was judging practically full-time.
Artie got plenty of work from Honey Craven, who managed many shows — including the National at Madison Square Garden. He asked Honey why he kept hiring him so often, and Honey replied, “One of the hardest things to do is getting the right judge who’s not going to make a mistake and really know what they’re doing. I know I’m never going to have a problem with you or Steve, so I hire you both.”
As Artie observed, “That’s quite a compliment.”
Ironically, Artie did not like to compete himself.
His job at his family’s stable was “getting horses ready for my father; my brother, who was a lot better rider than I was, and my sister. I did the ground work and schooled the horses at home for them. I’d get too nervous going to the horse shows,” Artie recalled in an interview several years ago.
“I would shake like a leaf. If there were five strides going down one side, I wouldn’t know if I did four or 11.”
Discussing why he started the numerical system of judging that is the standard today, Artie noted, “The old-time judges would write the number of the horses on the side of the card; they’d put the number of the horse they liked best on top. Four horses later, if they had one they liked better, they’d put it above that. I said to my father, ‘I’ve got to figure a better way to do this.’ I could relate to the numbers so much better.”
They help differentiate among the fine points, he commented.
“At the end of the class, you could have six horses scored between 91 and 88, and the only variation is a little bit of the adjustment,” made by the rider.
“The perfect horse is the one that comes in, makes the circle and hits so many rpms. It doesn’t change it all the way around the turn, up the diagonal, across the other turn until they pull up finished. It’s very rare that that happens; what’s going to separate them is a little bit change of pace.” And what sets them apart is all done by the numbers,” Artie stated.
Unlike many judges, Artie would not mark down a horse for a limited display of equine enthusiasm.
“If a horse jumped down the line and showed a lot of energy and shook his head to say, ‘Man, that was great,’ I would never count it off. They’re not machines. I have never counted strides, other than an in- and-out.”
As he recounted his career, he expressed satisfaction, saying, “I’ve been pretty lucky. I’ve done all the major shows and judged the Maclay and the Medal eight times.”
by Nancy Jaffer | Jan 19, 2017
The short list for the second U.S. 4-star three-day event is very short. It’s been narrowed to two venues with experience in FEI competitions.
Although there had been talk of adding a second American 4-star to the spring Rolex Kentucky 4-star in 2018, the date was pushed to 2019 because the World Equestrian Game in Tryon, N.C., will be the feature of the year in 2018, and it’s being held in September.
The field of candidates for the new 4-star includes Fair Hill, Md., which has hosted the Fair Hill International fall championship 2- and 3-star events since 1992. The event is now sponsored by the Dutta Corp.
The Fair Hill Natural Resources Center near Elkton has a beautiful backdrop in the fall with its vast array of trees and their multi-colored leaves.
Stakeholders have begun discussions with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources about the 2015 Maryland Horse Park System Study, which recommended Fair Hill as an ideal equestrian field event venue to support the value of the state’s horse industry.
Interestingly, Maryland, like Kentucky, also has a Triple Crown race–the Preakness is at Pimlico, while the Kentucky Derby is at Churchill Downs.
The other 4-star possibility is Great Meadow in The Plains, Va., near Middleburg, a 380-acre field events center and steeplechase course operated under stewardship of the Great Meadow Foundation.It was where the U.S. eventing team had its final outing before leaving for the Rio Olympics last summer.
Other candidates for the 4-star that didn’t make the cut were Tryon, the Jockey Club in Ocala, Fla., Morven Park in Virginia and
A fall U.S. 4-star would be the seventh event at that level in the world. The only other country to have two such competitions is Britain, with Badminton in the spring and Burghley in the autumn. The other 4 stars are Luhmuhlen in Germany, Pau in France and Australia’s Adelaide.
by Nancy Jaffer | Jan 14, 2017
Tucker Johnson will be stepping down next week as the president and CEO of the Gladstone-based U.S. Equestrian Team Foundation, as former Boeing CEO James McNerney Jr. steps into the position. Jim and his wife, Haity, have a house in Wellington and own jumpers with Kent Farrington. Their daughters compete in the hunter and jumper ranks.
Jim,, who became a foundation trustee in 2014, left Boeing last March. He has an MBA from Harvard, and as Tucker noted, he’ll bring a new dimension to the job.
Tucker will remain on the foundation’s executive committee and continue to chair its investment committee, as well as continuing on the U..S. Equestrian Federation board.
by Nancy Jaffer | Jan 13, 2017
The Kentucky Horse Park, which hosted the 2010 World Equestrian Games in Lexington, has dropped its bid fro the 2022 FEI World Equestrian Games.
Since the only other bidder was Samorin, Slovakia, that facility looks like the winner.
The Kentucky Horse Park needs $12 million in improvements.
“We are committed to being good stewards of the Kentucky Horse Park,” said Tandy Patrick, chair of the Kentucky Horse Park Commission. “We do not think it would be economically feasible for the park to host the 2022 games.”
The international equestrian federation (FEI) likes to spread its championships around, so having two WEGs in a row in the U.S. would have run contrary to that precept. The 2018 WEG will be held at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Tryon, N.C. There has never been a WEG in Eastern Europe, which is a nice feature for Slovakia.
The Slovakian entry is an exciting new venue that presented the world endurance championships this year. It was also in the running for the 2018 Games that went to Tryon after the original winner of the 2018 nod, Bromont, Quebec, withdraw when financial issues couldn’t be solved. By 2022, there will be more facilities at Samorin (it’s missing an eventing cross-country course at the moment). It’s location little more than an hour’s drive from Vienna also is a plus.
The first WEG in 1990 was held in Stockholm. There were only six disciplines showcased then, but the one-venue approach enabled people to experience a variety of different horse sports. The WEG was not supposed to be held every four years when it started (it took the place of independent world championships every four years in the Olympic sports) but it went so well that the concept continued. Subsequent WEGs had varying degrees of success, but the FEI considers this championship an important asset and as such it will continue.
In addition to the Olympic disciplines, the WEG includes four-in-hand driving, endurance, reining, vaulting and para-dressage. Those sports also have independent world championships in addition to the WEG, so they have title meets every two years.
