Phillip Dutton will be riding Z this week on the U.S. eventing Nations Cup team in Aachen, Germany, one of the world’s most prestigious competitions.
But last week, it was business as usual for the Olympic individual bronze medalist, who came to Tewksbury to share his knowledge with riders at varying stages of development, from Advanced down to the lower levels. He gave a clinic at the Heron’s Landing stable, run by Heather Gillette at Ruby’s Meadow, the old Hill & Dale Farm that is now owned by eventing competitor Jacques Foussard.
But what, I wondered, do you do when you only have 45 minutes or so to work with two or three riders before moving on to the next group?
With an emphasis on correctness, Phillip said he tries “to do a little bit on the flat; simple stuff, where you get your horse to ride through a turn, keep him off your inside leg and adjust, being able to go forward and back.” Then it was time to do the same with the jumping.
“There’s a common thread between the dressage, the show jumping and the cross-country. You don’t do your dressage work and forget about it for the jumping,” said the two-time Olympic team gold medalist. “We do some cross-country exercises with fall-down jumps, and some basic show jumping.”
A serpentine exercise involved three jumps, coming from an oxer (think of it as a corner on a cross-country course) to a vertical in three or four strides, “holding a line on the horse so you’re coming into the jump (vertical) on an angle to make the line work,” as Phillip put it. After that, it was three strides to another oxer.
“The difficulty is holding the line and the horse understanding he can come into a jump on an angle and stay on the line that the rider brings him in on,” Phillip told me. That involves “the horse trusting the rider (so) they’re doing what they’re asked to do.”
He believes, “Most horses want to do the right thing. It’s just a case of getting them to understand. Most of the time, it’s usually not enough understanding from leg to hand. Your horse can’t ignore you when you say, `Okay, move forward’ or when you say, `let’s shorten up,’ because if they do (ignore you) and the jump’s there, it’s a problem. You’ve got to get that communication and trust going. I find with horses, it’s all repetition. It’s also coordination with the horses as well, that they have to learn to do it athletically.”
I often heard Phillip calling out the word “travel” as he worked with the participants, so I asked him what that was about.
“It means you’ve got to keep coming forward,” he explained.
“A lot of riders’ natural tendency coming to a jump is to be tentative and hold back. Our job as a rider is to give the horse confidence. The analogy is if you’re in a car with someone who’s driving, you get a feeling whether you’re safe in that car or not. The horse has to get this feeling from you, that safety, security and confidence. Coming into a jump, traveling or going somewhere and being definite about your ride in is what you’re trying to get across to your horse. Coming in tentatively or holding back, that doesn’t send that good message to your horse.”
As Phillip noted, “If you gallop on, get the horse going forward, it’s much easier to see a distance because your horse is in front of you or thinking forward, rather than holding back. Especially at home, you’ve got to get away from just relying on your hand to get to the jump, but rather, riding up to the jump.”
The first to work with Phillip were Heather, on Vincent Chase, an off-the-track thoroughbred, and Meg Kepferle on Anakin, third last month in the Advanced Division at the MARS Essex Horse Trials. Meg and Anakin will be following up their debut in that section at the Millbrook, N.Y. event next month.
“I need to be better than I am because my horse is better than I’m riding,” said Meg, explaining why she’s going to put an emphasis on lessons like the one she had with Phillip.
“My horse felt a lot more tired jumping 2-6, 3-foot rideability questions than he would jumping a big track. Jumping big is easy for him,” said Meg.
“You don’t have to jump big jumps to get better; you have to make an adjustable horse. You want these tools available for you, not just luck and an honest horse.”
Meg, who was the head groom and barn manager for international rider Sinead Halpin before opening her Mountainview operation in Long Valley, noted straightness has always been an issue for herself and her mount.
“He has a wicked right drift and I have a bit of a weak right leg,” she explained. The antidote? “All day long, square turns.”
“Phil’s the best of the best,” Meg said. “He knows how to read the horse and rider and the situation really well. It’s a privilege to be able to ride with someone like this. It’s kind of nice that he’s come to New Jersey. I hope he comes back.”
When I asked Meg if there was anything else she wanted to share, she replied, “People should know they don’t have to be wanting to go to the Olympics to ride with an Olympian. It’s important that they think they are approachable, because they really are, and they have a lot of good things to say.”
Heather wanted to bring Phillip to the farm because she rode with him when she was working with other horses. It was time for Vinnie, who has competed once at Preliminary level, to crank up, “so call Phillip,” she said, noting she also wanted to share his expertise with her students.
Since she is a judge and technical delegate, Heather is juggling a lot of things, which meant she was happy to have Phillip come to her instead of having her go to his place in Pennsylvania. Heather also is busy with lessons and barn renovations.
“We’re bringing the old farm back to life,” she said.
She told me that one of the things she learned from working with Phillip is that the serpentine line needs to be incorporated in Vinnie’s training. And “Instead of whoaing and turning,” she needs “to sort of keep coming through the turns and use a more open rein.
“I have a very nice young horse who wants to try hard but needs to be a little more rideable. I have to challenge him a little more, I need to be less of his protective mom and more, `If you’re going to be a big boy, step up and do it.’”
After nearly a quarter-century in Pennsylvania, Kevin Babington has set up shop in New Jersey again.
The Irish show jumper is now based at Hayley and Toby Carlson’s Ketcham Farm at Cream Ridge in Monmouth County, where he received a hero’s welcome last night with a surprise party. It was a celebration for his sweep of top placings in Sunday’s $100,000 Great American Insurance Group Grand Prix presented by Aon, as the Lake Placid, N.Y., horse shows ended their two-week run.
Kevin won with Shorapur (the runner-up in the previous Sunday’s $100,000 grand prix), was second on Debra Wycoff’s Super Chilled and third with his own veteran campaigner, Mark Q. He was the only rider to go fault-free in the seven-horse jump-off on the turf, his favorite type of footing.
Kevin on his way to victory with Shorapur at Lake Placid. (Photo by The Book LLC)
“I love the grass, so I think the horses sort of feed off that a little bit. Everything was aligned and it worked out. I’m still in a bit of shock,” Kevin acknowledged, but adding about his trifecta, “I never would have called it.”
His record at the show earned him the Richard and Diana Feldman Perpetual Challenge Trophy for Excellence and $2,000 as the rider winning the most prize money in the two grands prix.
Not surprisingly, he’s a fan of competing at Lake Placid (For more on the show, see the first On the Rail item on this website)
“I love it. It’s such a good atmosphere. I find it different than any other show in the country. People who have been going there have been going there forever,” he noted. “They go to make a holiday out of it.”
The youngest of 11 children and the grandson of a horse trainer, Kevin started riding at the age of nine at his home in Tipperary, inspired by the show jumping he watched on television. His heroes were the famous Irish international riders Eddie Macken and Paul Darragh, but he also had an eventing and dressage background. Kevin trained with Iris Kellett, an Irish horsewoman known around the world before coming to America.
He worked briefly for Beezie and John Madden before getting a job at Frank and Mary Chapot’s Chado Farms in Neshanic Station in 1989. His job was to ride the young horses. Logging time at local show gave him the advantage of getting mileage in the ring that he lacked with a background in dressage and eventing.
Kevin learned from Frank (who had been the U.S. Equestrian Team’s show jumping squad captain) to “let the horses think for themselves. They can either jump or they can’t jump.”
While he was at the Chapots’ farm, he went to a local show where he met his wife, Dianna, who lived a mile down the road. Since Kevin only worked until noon every day at Chado, he was able to start a freelance business in the afternoons.
After 2 and ½ years with the Chapots, he opened his own operations in Quakertown and Stockton. In 1996, he moved to Pennsylvania, where he worked with Saly Glassman who partnered with him on his most successful horse, Carling King.
It was aboard the Irishbred chestnut that he jumped a 4/0 in his first Nations Cup (at Aachen, no less!), won Great Britain’s King George V Gold Cup, finished fourth in the 2004 Olympics and wound up eighth in the 2002 World Equestrian Games.
In recent years, Kevin and Saly had been doing different circuits, so when the Carsons offered him a spot at their place, he was ready to move back to New Jersey.
“The time was right,” he explained.
In addition to finding the farm’s central location convenient to highways in horsey area near a lot of shows (expect to see him at Princeton Show Jumping competitions in the next few weeks) he has found the perfect setting for training.
“The facility (a former standardbred farm) is a horseman’s dream,” said Kevin. It has a half-mile grass track and an all-weather track (good for a warm-up to get horses “a little in their own balance”), as well as a seven-acre grand prix field, and big indoor and outdoor arenas.
Kevin also operates a Florida farm, but he likes having a northern base. Dianna, who formerly practiced law, helps with the teaching. Their daughters Gwyneth, 16, and Marielle, 13, are also successful riders.
In addition to his three grand prix horses, he has a group of up-and-coming mounts: Call Me Ruth; also Carrick, named after the town Kevin came from in Ireland, and a mare nicknamed Chip. They are owned by Diane Thomas and Vivian Day. Diane is also part of the group that owns Shorapur.
Kevin no longer travels to Europe to compete as often as he once did. “I’m not overly focused on that because I have a nice group of horses but I don’t have a championship horse,” he pointed out.
Staying abroad to compete, “you sacrifice a lot,” he noted, then quickly added, “I don’t regret a minute of it, it put me on the map, but it does put a lot of strain on your business and your family.
“There are so many good riders with good horses on the Irish team at the moment that I need to be a realist about it,” he observed. At the same time, Kevin pointed out, “Now that we have so many nice FEI shows in the U.S. I don’t feel the urge to go to Europe.”
After 30 years as one of New Jersey’s best-known equestrian facilities, Duncraven will be going on the market this month.
The 75-acre farmland-protected property in Titusville, Mercer County, is continuing to host horse shows run by Claudine Libertore while it is still owned by Tim Fedor, but it basically shut down as a boarding operation in May.
An aerial view of Duncraven.
Explaining his reason for selling, Tim said, “I sat down with my wife, we’re empty nesters now, and we decided to move on and probably head south.” He would like to see Duncraven remain as a boarding stable and/or show facility. Thank goodness its farmland protected status means it can’t turn into a housing development, as too many of our horse farms have done.
Naturally, Tim has many memories as he looks back over his time at the property. But he noted, “The one thing that stands out the most is meeting all the people and some of the young kids who come in as boarders and how they develop and change.
Duncraven is still the scene of many horse shows. (Photo by Paws and Rewind)
“The horses teach them a lot of responsibility and give them a lot of self-confidence. I’ve seen some dramatic changes in young women who come in as shy and timid and leave very confident, grown-up people. I’ve had customers who have been with me over 10 years and I’ve seen them go from 9- or 10 years old until they go off to college. It’s a pretty neat process to watch.”
The property initially was purchased as an investment for potential development. It was envisioned “as an equestrian estates type of development,” Tim recalled.
“Then my family kind of took a 360 and was more into preserving things. We also owned 75 acres across the street, which we sold to the Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space Program nine or ten years ago.”
A closoe-up view of the barns.
Getting involved with Duncraven “was quite the learning curve,” said Tim, who had not even ridden a horse when he started.
Trainers who have leased stalls at Duncraven have included the late Gary Kunsman, eventer Buck Davidson and show jumper Kevin Babington. But one constant through the years has been the facility’s own head trainer, Nancy Wallis.
“She has been with me the entire time. She is the most incredible person there is. The most hard-working, generous; I can’t possibly say enough about her. I don’t think I would have made it 30 years without her,” he emphasized.
The Duncraven property is a scenic place for shows. (Photo by Paws and Rewind)
Nancy, who freelances and does a lot of course design, has more than a sentimental attachment to Duncraven.
“It’s like the end of an era,” she said.
“If we ever had a Duncraven reunion, there would be 500 people there: People who have been affected through that business, whether working there, as a student or attending horse shows. Maybe we’ll all be standing by the ingate next year– it will just be somebody else’s place.”
A veteran pairing won the featured Advanced division at the MARS Essex Horse Trials today, as Will Coleman and the dependable Obos O’Reilly took the title by a wide margin.
Their beautiful trip around the formerly soggy course at Moorland Farm in Far Hills put a happy ending on a tumultuous few days for the division, being held at the event for the first time.
It drew 38 entries and an array of high-profile riders in addition to Will, who has been on the Olympic and FEI World Equestrian Games teams.
They included Olympic multi-medalist Phillip Dutton, Buck Davidson and Boyd Martin (who wound up winning the Preliminary Essex division yesterday). Those three, however, were among a total of 26 scratches in the Advanced ranks, with 18 bowing out after dressage, two retiring in stadium jumping and six overnight withdrawals.
A week of rain preceding the event, which was revived three years ago after a 19-year absence from the calendar, made things difficult despite impressive efforts by the organizers. The Advanced dressage and stadium jumping, which were supposed to be held Friday, were put off until Saturday, and the cross-country moved from Saturday to Sunday to allow the ground more time to dry.
There is no all-weather footing at Moorland, home of the Far Hills Race Meeting, so the grass surface for stadium jumping was not optimum, despite lots of divot-stomping and being rolled by heavy equipment. Some riders decided it was better to err on the side of caution than to take a chance with their horses. There were no fault-free trips in stadium among the 19 who did ride.
Although the footing was much improved this morning, course designer and event co-manager Morgan Rowsell felt it hadn’t tightened up enough. He decided to leave out nine jumping efforts on the last line, ending the course at the Buckeye Brush, a narrow obstacle after the Mars Sustainable Bay water jump.
“There was only one good question after that, so why force them to run through the deep going,” Morgan explained.
“Why not just play it safe,” added Morgan, noting the riders had expressed some concerns about the surface.
In the end, 11 horses started on cross-country. There were two falls on course, both at the airy Ditch Me Once oxer over a stream, six strides from the Von Stade road crossing, but those involved—human and equine—were able to walk away.
The course drew praise from those who did finish.
“I thought it rode great. It’s a shame we didn’t get to run all of it,” said Will, who complimented Morgan’s efforts. At the same time, he understood why some riders scratched as they were thinking ahead to future competitions, such as Phillip Dutton with Z, who is going to Aachen this summer.
I chatted with Will about his time at Essex, an event he cited for its “character,” and the regard he has for Obos.
Missy Miller made a big leap from 30th place after dressage to finish second on Quinn. She trains with Phillip Dutton, and although he and so many others scratched, she saddled up for cross-country and rode beautifully, finishing on 59.8 penalties.
It was only the second time Missy and Quinn have done Advanced, so you can see why she had a big smile on her face.
Hometown favorite Meg Kepferle of Long Valley was thrilled with Anakin, who finished third on 61.5 penalties after placing 23d in dressage.
“I never thought I would get to this level, to be honest,” she said, after joyfully crossing the finish line.
“After all the rain and the chaos of the weekend, in the back of my mind I was going to scratch,” she recalled.
However, “It just kept working out,” she said, noting how good her show jumping phase was, with only one rail down on a very difficult course set by Chris Barnard.
Meg made her final decision about running today with some outside help.
“I’m lucky to have some good advisors who told me it’s going to be fine. It was really good.”
Juli Sebring, who finished last in dressage in 38th place, made up for it on cross-country with Welbourne, winding up seventh overall with 121.8 penalties.
She got socked with time penalties because she stopped after veering off into the wrong galloping lane after the first fence, but when she learned she wasn’t eliminated for that, she literally got back on track and came home with a big smile on her face.
“My horse rode amazingly well. The footing rode fine,” she said.
Essex and the classic car show that ran with it today at the venue benefitted from weekend weather as sunny as the week was rainy. Attendance for the weekend was approximately 5,000, as ticket holders took advantage of vendors and activities for children in addition to watching the competition.
The efforts of the energetic volunteers drew raves from exhibitors about how helpful and friendly they were. I asked Ruth Beesch, who events at a low level and keeps her horse in nearby Tewksbury, why she decided to volunteer at Essex as an “event ambassador” who explains the sport to sponsors.
“It’s a local event that’s already becoming a premier event,” she told me.
“If those of us who are locals and love eventing and love our horses and our horse community don’t come out and volunteer for something like this, there’s something wrong with us.”
Erik Duvander, the U.S. Equestrian Federation’s eventing performance manager, was helping move jumps to secure the best footing on approaches to the fences for the Advanced stadium jumping on Saturday. A first time visitor to the event, he was enthusiastic about its potential and decided to pitch in.
Essex is definitely on the rise, despite the weather situation that affects any outdoor sport.
“We want to continue to grow the event and improve the event,” said Guy Torsillieri, who as the race meeting’s key player with Ron Kennedy, is the Essex event’s landlord.
“We had record rains. We never had it this wet, ever. We’re really good at making hard ground soft, but we’re not too good at making soft ground hard,” Guy observed.
Through the efforts of MARS Equestrian and other sponsors, he said that without losing the flavor of a smaller competition, “we’re positioned to make this an even better event.”
As Ralph Jones, who serves as the event’s co-chairman with Morgan noted, “We did the best we could. It was nice to have the armada of the Far Hills Race Meeting behind us to do some work on the course, because that showed the riders we would do everything we could for their safety during the competition, and that made a big difference to them, so I think we earned their respect.”
The MARS Essex Horse Trials didn’t have the weather on its side in the week leading up to this weekend’s competition, but the sun finally shone big time today, and so did the event at Moorland Farm in Far Hills.
The crowd was so large that auxiliary parking had to found, the cross-country course design was masterful and entries were excellent. Essex has a lot of elements that make it special.
“It’s what riders all dream of,” Boyd Martin said about the event after winning the featured Preliminary Essex section with Luke 140. He was first throughout the competition, despite time penalties on cross-country and a rail in show jumping, finishing on 30.10 penalties ahead of Cornelia Dorr with 31.10 aboard Daytona Beach 8.
It was Boyd’s first visit to Essex, but he was so enthusiastic, it certainly won’t be his last—despite soggy ground after days of rain. That led to a bunch of scratches in the Advanced division, which was being held for the first time. But listen to Boyd’s take on the event.
Revived for just three years since its last previous running in 1998, Essex got an amazing 38 entries for its Advanced division’s inaugural run. Only 18 riders showed up for stadium jumping, however, with Boyd on Contestor and Buck Davidson on Erroll Gobey retiring after having rails. None of the competitors jumped a clean round.
Sixteen will try the advanced cross-country at 8 a.m. Sunday. Because of the rain-drenched ground, Advanced could not run dressage and stadium on Friday as planned, and everything had to be rescheduled to take place Saturday and Sunday.
Leading the way in Advanced is Will Coleman on Obos O’Reilly with 35.70 penalties. Right behind him is Jennie Brannigan with I Bella on 37.30. Jennie had quite a day Saturday, taking first and second in the Open Preliminary with F.E. Connory and Hopscotch, respectively.
Like Boyd, Will was making his Essex debut, and he was very positive about his experience.
“I think it’s one of the best new events in America. They had bad luck this week with the weather, but I think we’re all just ecstatic with what they’ve done here and really, really excited about coming back next year,” Will said.
Cross-country course designer Morgan Rowsell, who co-chairs Essex with Ralph Jones, noted, “We got six or eight inches of rain over the last week. The only reason the footing is suspect is because the rain just came down and came down. I would rather the riders pull out if they feel this is wrong for their horses. It’s just a bad circumstance, but we’re having a good weekend.
“The riders accept and appreciate our efforts and they will be back next year. Running 16 horses, we’ll make a show of it.”
To hear Morgan’s thoughts about his cross-country course design for the Advanced division, watch this video.
We’ll wrap up our coverage of Essex tomorrow night, so be sure to come back to the website then.
The personification of dedication and fairness, he was an Olympian who made a seamless transition from the U.S. cavalry to decorated soldier and modern military commander, serving in three wars.
“The ability to lead other men in combat is a rare skill, and he found a home in the Army,” noted Jim Wofford, an Olympic eventing medalist who was a lifelong friend of Gen. Burton.
Jack went on to become a prominent civilian figure on the equestrian scene as well, serving as a judge, steward, committee member and inspiration, remaining an important part of the sport until just a few years before his passing. He served as a horse show official for the last time when he was 92.
He always made it his business to stay fit enough to do his job, whatever it was, and rode with the Loudon, Va., hunt into his 80s.
“He never takes the elevator, even if his room is on the 10th floor,” Sally Ike, the USEF’s director of licensed officials, observed a few years ago. She would always salute Gen. Jack when she saw him, and invariably received a snappy salute in return.
A native of Illinois, Jack was a member of the ROTC at Michigan State College when he graduated in 1942 in the midst of World War II. Four days later, he found himself taking an intensive six-week cavalry course at Fort Riley, Kansas, before being shipped to El Paso, Texas. There, as part of the First Cavalry Division, he patrolled the Mexican border, “looking for spies, saboteurs or whatnot,” he recalled a few years ago when I interviewed him for a story.
He got a good education in riding and horsemanship during college, because in those days, ROTC at land grant schools had horse cavalry or horse artillery, with a detachment of soldiers taking care of horses and a few officers to teach classes.
“The military system was based on the European system,” he explained to me once. The ROTC guidebook was “The Cavalry Manual of Horsemanship and Horsemastership,” vintage 1935. The instruction including shoeing, conditioning and stable management, as well as riding.
Jack Burton in his army days
But his time on horseback once he was serving with the Army turned out be short-lived.
The Australians were light on infantry, since they had shipped four divisions to fight with the British in the Far East, while the Japanese were on their doorstep in New Guinea, bombing Darwin and Brisbane.
So Jack’s outfit, was sent over, without horses, to “clean up New Guinea.”
While he was still in Australia, Burton saw an attractive blonde dancing during a gathering at a hotel.
“I cut in on her, got her phone number and it went on from there,” he remembered.
“When we took the Admiralty Islands, we spent six months building a naval base, and they let us go down to Australia on leave. I called her up and said, ‘Let’s get married.'” He and Joan were married in 194 and had two children, Jonathan Jr. and Judy Lewis. Joan pre-deceased him.
Jack didn’t get back to horses until after the war, when the show circuit started up again following a four-year hiatus.
Although the army had been mechanized, he was assigned to the cavalry school at Fort Riley, where he was the instructor for the last two years that horsemanship classes were held for officers.
Although it was clear that the cavalry was nearing the end of its days, “They finally decided they wanted to send a team to the 1948 Olympic Games in London, since the Army had sent teams to all the previous Olympics,” Jack recollected.
Jack Burton on Air Mail in 1948. USET Foundation archive photo.
He was in the elite group of officers who were getting ready for the Olympics, which had not been held since 1936.
“All we did was train,” he said. “We trained jumpers, three-day horses and what we had in dressage.”
While preparing for the Olympics, the Army team competed in jumping at the biggest shows, including the National at Madison Square Garden, as well as Dublin and Geneva.
“I was a junior officer, so I would travel with the horses. We’d go in baggage cars equipped to haul horses. When we shipped horses to Europe, we went by boat. It took about 11 days. Soldiers would clean the stalls, but I helped,” he remembered.
In 1947, the same year he was U.S. Three-Day Eventing Champion, Jack won the National Horse Show’s international individual show jumping trophy with Air Mail, beating the legendary Mexican General Humberto Mariles, whose country’s teams dominated the competition at the National for a decade.
Although Jack was selected for the 1948 Olympic jumping and eventing teams, his horse went lame and he found himself in the position of helping his teammates as reserve rider. It was the last gasp for the cavalry in the Olympics.
After the Army gave up its team in 1950, the fledgling U.S. Equestrian Team was formed. Jimmy Wofford’s father, 1932 Olympian Col. John “Gyp” Wofford, the USET’s first president, asked Jack, who was in Europe with the Army horses, to bring back any he thought could be candidates for the 1952 Olympics.
“I returned by boat with 12 horses that could be used on the team, one of which was Democrat. He could jump, he could three-day and he could dressage. He was a thoroughbred bred by Gordon Russell in the army remount system,” Jack had recounted.
“When we had 14 regiments of cavalry, we had to buy thousands of horses. The highest price buyers could pay for a horse was $165.”
Jack chose well. The fledgling USET won the bronze in eventing and show jumping, with Democrat playing a role in the latter success, then going on to major victories at the National Horse Show and elsewhere.
While Jack had hoped to ride on the 1952 Olympic team in Helsinki after missing his chance four years earlier in London, the Army had other plans for him. After serving in Korea, however, he finally made the eventing squad in the 1956 Olympics.
He fell off Huntingfield when the horse stumbled coming off an 11-foot drop on cross-country.
“In that day, we had a phase E after cross-country,” said Jack, who was picked up by his horse’s owner and thrown back into the saddle so he could complete the test.
“The horse galloped phase E, 1,000 meters, but when I arrived at the finish line, the Swedes there saw I was noncomprehensible and put me in the ambulance.”
After doctors determined Jack had a concussion, they said he shouldn’t ride in the jumping phase the next day. He followed their advice.
“There was no point, because one of the other U.S. riders got eliminated in jumping and the other was eliminated in cross-country. But I probably should have,” he said wistfully, “so we at least could have had a horse finish.”
That wasn’t his last experience with the Olympics, as his involvement with horse sports took another turn when he became an official. He judged eventing at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, as well as the 1966 World Championships in Burghley, England, and the 1982 World Championships in Luhmuhlen, Germany. At the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, he was on the appeals committee.
After two tours of duty in Vietnam, Jack retired from the military in 1975 as commander of the Third Armored Division and went on to be executive vice president of the USET.
Following World War II, there was nothing in the way of civilian eventing. The sport was known as “the military,” appropriate since it had started as a test of cavalry officers’ mounts.
“The Army once a year had an Olympic-level three-day event. It was the graduation of the advanced (officers) course. That was the only eventing in the U.S.,” Jack remembered a few years ago.
A correspondent for the Nashville Tennessean newspaper contacted him when he was stationed at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, asking him to come to Tennessee and help put on a civilian event in 1953.
“We went down to Percy Warner Park, where there was a steeplechase course. We added some tires and barrels and made a cross-country course. We didn’t have a rulebook, so I copied the FEI rulebook,” Jack said.
What would be a training/preliminary-level event today, attracted about a dozen riders, including some from Canada, and the sport grew from there.
“Denny Emerson (a former president of the U.S. Eventing Association) referred to Jack as the Johnny Appleseed of the eventing world,” recalled Jimmy Wofford.
“Wherever Burton would be stationed, suddenly an event would spring up. He got Pony Clubs involved in it; he got local combined training associations started. The interesting thing is that after he left, they still kept going, so he must have had some knack of developing things that could stand on their own two feet and didn’t depend on Gen. Burton being there.”
Jack adapted well to change, knowing from his experience in the military when to argue against it and when to fall in line and accommodate it. He served as president of the U.S. Combined Training Association (now the U.S. Eventing Association) and wrote the first U.S. rulebook for eventing.
He will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery last this year, and his memory will be honored in December at the USEA’s annual meeting in Boston. Jack was among the last of a great generation of horsemen, and we salute him.
