If Tamie Smith had won the MARS Maryland 5-star event with Mai Baum over the weekend, she knew exactly what she would do after stepping down from the podium.
“I can canter on his back standing up. I was hoping I was going to get to do that for the victory gallop,” she confided with a grin.
But it was not to be.
After she moved into the lead during dressage with the striking black 18-year-old German sport horse gelding, all eyes were on her the next day as she traversed the hilly cross-country course, a real test of endurance with an 11-minute, 15-second optimum time. For a horse without a lot of thoroughbred blood, that’s a challenge—and not always achievable.
“We went for it and tried to give it all we’ve got,” she recounted about her trip around the challenging route.
Tamie Smith and Mai Baum at the ninth fence on cross-country. (Photo © 2024 by Lawrence J. Nagy)
She explained that Mai Baum, “always gives me a time on the course where he’s a little bit tired and I say, `Come on, buddy,’ and he didn’t respond. So that was my cue to say `okay.’
“He just ran out of steam; I had nothing. I got to the top of the hill at the Sawmill (obstacle 17) and he just basically broke to the trot.
“I said, `Let’s go,’ and he said, `Yeah, no. We’re not doing this.’”
So she wisely raised her hand and retired.
“He walked back all proud of himself,” she said with a smile.
“I think he thought it was the finish line. He was great, those eight minutes (on course) but what can you do? You’ve got to listen to your horse. That’s what I try to pride myself on, listening to them.”
A big problem with the cross-country involved a lack of rain for weeks in the area, making the ground hard despite the organizers dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of water on it in an attempt to make it softer.
“Everybody did all they could do,” she said.
As Tamie and anyone else who has tackled Fair Hill under any type of conditions know, “it’s a long grade and hats off to the organizers and the team that tried to do all they could with the ground. The weather wasn’t on our side. It (the ground) was quite hard and I think you saw a lot of horses feel it.”
The hilly challenge is “one thing when the ground is absolutely stunning. It’s a different sport when it has rained a ton and it’s really deep; or it’s hard,” pointed out Tamie, the first American to win the Kentucky 5-star in 15 years when she did it in 2023 with Mai Baum.
She’s an admirer of thoroughbreds for the cross-country task: “it’s actually exciting to see those thoroughbreds gallop across that country. It’s beautiful, that’s what eventing is. As much as I love Mai Baum and he’s given me and taken me so many places, if he had a lot of thoroughbred in him, nobody could catch him — but this time they could.”
So what’s next for Mai Baum, better known as Lexus around the barn.
Tamie was happy to report that when she took him out the day after cross country to see how he felt, “he trotted up like a million bucks.”
“He’s not ready to retire,” she emphasized.
“He’ll do some showcases and I’ll do some 4-star shorts.”
Earlier in the week, she also had mentioned the possibility of trying hunter derbies and perhaps, straight dressage.
And she’s not going anywhere.
As the 50-year-old Californian put it, “I’ve got a lot more to do.”