With two important competitions separated by 317 miles this weekend, Beacon Hill Show Stable’s crew handled the distance and came up a winner at both the National in Lexington, Ky., and the Washington International in Tryon, N.C.
The Colts Neck, N.J., stable’s team worked with 13-year-old Rylynn Conway of Fair Haven in the Hamel Foundation National Horse Show 3’3” Equitation Championship today, and yesterday coached 18-year-old Dominic Gibbs to the title in the WIHS Equitation Finals, his last competition as a junior.
Head trainer Stacia Klein Madden was with Dominic through three phases of competition, while Heather Senia Williams and Lydia Ulrich were ringside for the Hamel, which drew 177 contenders. The Washington was the only equitation championship on its weekend until 2018 when, coincidentally, Beacon Hill-trained Elli Yeager won there while Dominic was victorious in the inaugural Hamel.
Interestingly, Stacia recalled, several judges who watched Dominic in the Hamel said they hadn’t seen any teen ride the way he did since Conrad Homfeld was in the equitation ranks more than half a century ago. Conrad became an Olympic team gold and individual silver medalist, among other honors, and there are high hopes for Dominic’s future in the same vein.
It’s not surprising, considering Dominic’s considerable achievements since the Hamel (victory in the ASPCA Maclay last year and good placings in the Platinum Performance/USEF Talent Search and the Dover Saddlery/USEF Medal Finals) that Stacia believes the 3-3 “seems to have really taken off as a division, creating a nice introduction for the 3-6 equitation,” the height at which the Medal and Maclay are contested.
Dominic Gibbs on Cent 15. (Photo by Shawn McMillen)
Heather recalled how she felt in 2018, when she had to work the Hamel and couldn’t be at Washington.
“I’ll go this time,” she told Stacia, “but I really love Washington, so I don’t want to have to go every year.”
And then, she said of the Hamel, “I enjoyed it so much I’ve been coming back ever since.”
She also noted that as Beacon Hill’s business has gotten bigger, “There’s more weeks than not that we’re sort of separated and in different places.”
Rylynn, an eighth-grader who attends the U.S. Performance Academy on line, was aboard Crossbow, her first horse, who she said, “has taught me everything. He’s been perfect for me. I love him so much.”
She is the niece of Michelle and Christine Conway, once familiar names on the show circuit who trained with Stacia and in the hunters with the late Leo Conroy, a co-manager of the National until his death in 2015.
The Hamel has become both more popular and more testing since its inception.
Today, Heather pointed out, “A lot of difficult questions were asked. Do-able but difficult.”
Rylynn was geared up to handle them.
“All week, she’s had a cool, calm confidence about her. And the horse was performing great. She seemed super confident. So I had a good feeling about today,” said Heather.
Rylynn Conway after winning the Hamel championship with trainers Heather Williams (holding cooler) and Lydia Ulrich, as well as groom Felipe Martinez. (Libby Greene photo)
The trainer, who won the World Champion Hunter Rider Developing Pro Challenge at the Capital Challenge, characterized Rylnn as “a great student. She’s very intellectual, and she also has good feel. So it’s a great combination when you have a rider who’s a super good student and really sticks to the plan and then has natural feel on top of it.”
Stacia noted Rylynn is “a fierce competitor, deadly accurate and works very hard.”
Speaking about the Washington class, Stacia said, “To me, the win was more about Dominic just really having such unbelievable goals and composure. All along, he’s always wanted to develop his horse and develop his riding. We’ve worked together to have goals that weren’t based necessarily around results.”
But he’s gotten plenty of good results, though the Washington carried “a whole other level of added stress,” Stacia said, because it was his last junior class on Cent 15, a “special” horse he developed.
“He’s so easily adaptable,” she observed about Dominic.
“He’s learned it’s consistency that we’re after.”
Dominic was third in the hunter phase of the Washington, but didn’t get distracted by that, and went on to win the jumper phase. And then he aced it when he had to change horses in the final segment. The native of Colorado has had a lot of experience with catch riding, which will stand him in good stead as he pursues his equestrian ambitions. He’s taking a year off before going to the University of Miami and will work as a professional with Katie and Henri Prudent at Plain Bay Farm, where he gets his jumper training.
Unlike many horses who are sold when their riders age out of the equitation, Cent “is a Gibbs family member,” as Stacia put it and next year will be ridden by Dominic’s younger sister, Jordan.
Dominic noted that the “mental game has always been a really big thing for me. Having done the equitation for a few years now, knowing what the finals season is like, and having that under my belt was a really good thing coming into my last junior season. Knowing my horse, trusting my training, and trying to deliver my best rounds were really big thoughts in my head this week.”
