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American Eventing Championships Return To Kentucky Horse Park For 2023, 2024

The United States Eventing Association (USEA) Board of Governors have voted to enter into contract negotiations with Equestrian Events Inc. (EEI) and Mary Fike to host the 2023 and 2024 USEA American Eventing Championships (AEC) at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky.

The USEA sent out a request for expressions of interest in June 2021 to host the AEC in 2023 and 2024. Several venues presented attractive proposals, and from those the USEA Board of Governors voted to select the Kentucky Horse Park as the 2023 and 2024 host site pending contract negotiations. The USEA has begun negotiating final terms with the organizing group of EEI and Mary Fike for the 2023 and 2024 AEC and hopes to complete that process within the next few months.

The 2022 AEC will be held at Rebecca Farm in Kalispell, Montana from Aug. 30 – Sept. 4, 2022. The proposed date for the 2023 AEC in Kentucky is Aug. 29 – Sept. 3, 2023, followed by the 2024 AEC from Aug. 27 – Sept. 1, 2024.

“EEI and Mary Fike are excited to partner with the USEA and welcome the AEC back to Kentucky in 2023 and 2024. The Kentucky Horse Park is a special place and hosting the AEC at this iconic venue creates memories that will last a lifetime. We are beyond thrilled to host this championship and the amazing competitors who will attend,” said EEI Executive Director Lee Carter.

Among the interested venues for the 2023 and 2024 AEC, there was a strong bid from Stable View in Aiken, South Carolina. Ultimately, the Board made it clear through its deliberations that the popularity of the Kentucky Horse Park and their trust in the management team of EEI and Mary Fike were central to their decision. EEI and Mary Fike first organized the AEC at the Kentucky Horse Park in 2019, which recorded 925 starters making it the largest event in North American history. Due to COVID-19, the 2020 AEC was canceled but the event returned to the Kentucky Horse Park in 2021. The 2021 AEC garnered over 1,200 entries and ran 939 starters, which broke the 2019 record as the largest event in North American history.

“We are truly elated for the AEC to return to the Kentucky Horse Park,” said USEA CEO Rob Burk. “Our partners at EEI and Mary Fike have developed a strong working connection with our staff over the previous three years. The USEA Board of Governors had a difficult decision to make and I want to thank all of our bidders including Barry Olliff, Molly Bull, and the entire team from Stable View. We received an overwhelming amount of feedback from the membership about their desire to return the AEC to Kentucky, and we are happy to deliver this news to the USEA members.”

The Kentucky Horse Park maintains 600 acres of cross-country courses, 1,200 permanent stalls with accessibility to additional temporary stalls, and world-class arenas including the iconic Rolex Stadium. The Kentucky Horse Park was home to the 2010 World Equestrian Games and hosts the Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event every year in April, which is also organized by EEI.

About the USEA American Eventing Championships

The USEA American Eventing Championships (AEC) is the pinnacle of the sport for the national levels. Held annually, the best junior, adult amateur, and professional competitors gather to vie for national championship titles at every level from Beginner Novice to Advanced. This ultimate test of horse and rider draws hundreds of horses and riders from around the country to compete for fabulous prizes, a piece of the substantial prize money, and the chance to be named the national champion at their respective levels.

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Horowitz On OTTBs, Presented By Excel Equine: Thanks To Genetics, Thoroughbreds Are The Ultimate Shapeshifters

Let's talk about what a Thoroughbred truly is.

A Thoroughbred is an athlete. Through centuries of crafting a vision and meticulous breeding to bring that vision to life, the Thoroughbred has become the wonder of horse lovers and sports lovers and the source of big business and cultural richness around the world.

The vision for the Thoroughbred started about 350 years ago with the goal of producing the ultimate racehorse, but the selective breeding to create horses that could excel at racing has also produced horses that can be successful at many other equine sports. That's because of what has become intrinsic to the breed beyond just physical prowess.

“The Thoroughbred looks out into the far distance,” said Chris Ryan, who has worked with Thoroughbreds at the highest levels of horse racing and eventing for more than four decades. “His horizon is way out there and he feels he can get there whenever he wishes. This gives him tremendous forward thinking. A horse thinking forward is going forward. Watch his ears!”

After finishing his education in 1976, Ryan entered the horse racing world, working with Thoroughbreds in both flat and jump racing, first for trainer Thomson Jones in the United Kingdom. He would then become head lad for trainer Jim Bolger in his native Ireland, among other roles as jockey, trainer, breeder, and sales producer.

“A chestnut race mare, Stanerra, winner of two Group 1s, two Group 2s now upgraded to Group 1s, a Group 3, and European Champion Older Horse of her year, probably gave me the best insight into the Thoroughbred,” Ryan said. “I was on my own with her for long periods of time and got to know her so well and she me. What a privilege to be accepted by her to such a level you could tell what she was thinking while on her back and even at 200 yards distant.”

Ryan's understanding of what made Stanerra tick took the mare from winning just one of 13 starts as a 4-year-old in 1982 to winning two races in one week at Royal Ascot and then becoming the first European-trained winner of the Japan Cup in 1983.

Now, Ryan serves as a judge for the United States Eventing Association's Young Event Horse Series and Future Event Horse Series, where he evaluates the potential of horses to excel at the highest level of the equestrian sport of eventing that the website for the FEI, the international governing body for equestrian sports, dubs “the most complete combined competition discipline.”

“I love their intelligence, their beauty, their refinement, and their courage under fire,” Ryan said of the Thoroughbred. “Nature (100 percent genetics), and nurture (everything else) have given the Thoroughbred a most amazing anatomy and physique, a designer heart to lung ratio and a mind which can process data at speed which allows their engine to 'tick over' at an amazing 35 miles per hour — the Formula 1 of the equine species.”

Ryan's assessment of Thoroughbreds — now one that I'm embracing as I've gone from announcing horse races to eventing on OTTBs — is that the nature of the breed goes beyond its original intentions of racing. So, a Thoroughbred does not lose its nature once it finishes what those in horse racing perceive as its primary purpose. Nor does it take on a new identity if it goes from racing into a new sport like eventing or show jumping or barrel racing or any of the other disciplines that retired racehorses can now excel at as part of the Thoroughbred Makeover.

In fact, the qualities that the Thoroughbred possesses have inspired crossing other breeds with the Thoroughbred. For example, the Irish Sport Horse Stud Book that has excelled in eventing has developed through crossing with Thoroughbreds.

Horses with a high percentage of Thoroughbred blood were some of the highest sellers at the recent Monart Sale and Goresbridge Go For Gold Sale for event horse prospects in Ireland.

“The Thoroughbred is the most noted Studbook improver,” said Ryan, who was the pedigree announcer for the Goresbridge Go For Gold Sale.

From the sale of eventing prospects then to the highest level of the sport, the Thoroughbred has stood out.

“We saw in the recent excellent Maryland 5 Star cross country the ease of travel of the pure Thoroughbred and those with a high Thoroughbred influence,” Ryan said. “Those that lacked found it hard work.”

The author in his role as an announcer of OTTBs at Twin Rivers

The impact of the Thoroughbred goes beyond anything Captain Robert Byerly, Thomas Darley, and Lord Godolphin could have ever envisioned when they each imported a stallion from the Middle East that would bear their name and become the three foundation stallions for the modern Thoroughbred.

So, when you see a Thoroughbred leave the starting gate or the cross country start box or the barrel racing chute, it's an opportunity to appreciate how the breed has evolved over more than three centuries to be an elite sport horse, regardless of what that sport is.

Understanding and embracing the true nature of the Thoroughbred means that events like the Retired Racehorse Project Thoroughbred Makeover, programs like The Jockey Club Thoroughbred Incentive Program, and retired racehorses competing at horse shows can be appreciated as representations of the strengths of the breed, and not just something different that happens after a racing career ends.

My next column, a conversation with outgoing Retired Racehorse Project executive director Jen Roytz, who, like Ryan, also has both a racing and sport horse background, will explore how the nurture side of Thoroughbreds' evolution through the racetrack has also prepared the breed for success as sport horses.

Indeed, horse racing is the catalyst for the Thoroughbred's success across the entire equine world.

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Champion Jockey Rosie Napravnik Takes OTTB To First Eventing Championship

Rosie Napravnik finished in 10^th place at the United States Eventing Association (USEA) Preliminary Rider division at the USEA American Eventing Championships (AEC) presented by Nutrena Feeds. The 2021 event is both her and her horse, Sanimo's, first eventing championship ever. However, she is no stranger to standing in the winner's circle aboard a Thoroughbred. At only 33 years old, Napravnik is one of the most decorated Thoroughbred jockeys of her time, having achieved the status of highest-ranked woman jockey in North America by 2014 and had lifetime earnings of $71,396,717.

Born the daughter of an eventing and Pony Club coach in New Jersey, Napravnik spent her childhood competing at the lower levels of eventing and participated in her last event at the Training level when she was 12 years old. For the majority of the following 15 years, her life was consumed by racehorses.

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“From the time I was 17 years old till I announced my retirement, I lived for racing,” she explained. “I was blessed to be a part of the absolute best of racing and I loved all of it, but when my husband and I decided to start a family it was time for me to retire.”

Her retirement announcement came on the day she won the Breeder's Cup Distaff and, in an overwhelmed state of emotion, she made the announcement in the winner's circle to the entire world on national television.

“Winning that race was truly my storybook ending,” Napravnik stated.

Already six weeks pregnant at the time, she took a brief hiatus from the saddle but continued to work in the training side of things with husband Joe Sharp till the birth of their first son in June of 2015.

“Joe and I just worked so well together because we both really respect each other's areas of expertise,” she detailed. “We met when I was riding at the stable where he was an assistant trainer in 2009. He went out on his own shortly before I found out I was pregnant and for the brief amount of time I rode for him we were an extremely successful team.”

Shortly after ending her racing career, she committed to the idea that she would return to eventing after giving birth. That vision came to life with the purchase of a horse she had won several races on in her previous career. She followed the mount closely and bought him in a claiming race and then produced the older mount up to the Training level despite his laundry list of physical ailments.

“That horse is what lit a fire in me for retraining racehorses before it was even a big thing,” she confirmed. “It wasn't something I had ever really considered before, but his strength and continued determination inspired me.”

Napravnik now runs her own Off-Track Sporthorses where she specializes in retraining and competing retired racehorses for the eventing sport as well as rehabilitating various injured or laid-up Thoroughbreds. She takes on many horses from the string in her husband's facility under the tutelage of Dorothy Crowell.

“Working with Dorothy has been truly invaluable in my riding endeavors; she is a Thoroughbred guru,” Napravnik laughed. “More than anything, it has made me addicted to learning new things and having new experiences with the Thoroughbreds.”

Her current partner, Sanimo, a 6-year-old Thoroughbred gelding (Smart Strike x Sanima) came out of her husband's training program as a young 3-year-old and after a year hiatus was already the clear winner in the eventing section of the 2019 Retired Racehorse Project.

This season has been both Napravnik's and Sanimo's debut at the Preliminary level, but she continues to look forward to their future development with excitement.

“Everyone assumes that because I was riding at such a high level in the racing that I must be competing at a very high level of eventing, but that is not the case,” she said. “At this point, I have had several top clinicians tell me they think we have what it takes to continue to move up and my plan is just to keep going until I either run out of money or get scared! I have had my glory days, so to be able to do this with no pressure and just enjoy myself and enjoy the horse has been an incredible experience.”

Strides For Equality: Scholarship Winner Makes Her Mark In Eventing With Retired Thoroughbred

While preparing one morning last week for the Millbrook Horse Trials in upstate New York, Helen Casteel said, “I never thought I would get here. It's so very, very cool.”

Indeed. Not only was Casteel at Millbrook, but she was training with five-star eventer Sara Kozumplik Murphy and her husband, Irish show jumper Brian Murphy, as part of her award for being the first recipient of the Strides for Equality Equestrians and the United States Eventing Association's Ever So Sweet Scholarship.

The unique scholarship, the first of its kind for riders from diverse backgrounds, provides Casteel the opportunity to train and care for horses while her expenses are covered for three months.

It also gives her a chance to work with her partner Abel.

Abel, you see, is retired Thoroughbred Unapproachable, who has taken Casteel on the ride of her life.

“He's so great, so willing…he's a Thoroughbred. They are just so smart. I didn't think something like this would be possible” she said.

Abel, or Unapproachable, is a Virginia-bred son of Not For Love who raced 18 times at Laurel Park, Pimlico Race Course, Charles Town and Colonial Downs for Hillwood Stable LLC and trainer Rodney Jenkins between 2011-2013. Fifth in the Maryland Million Turf Stakes in 2012, Unapproachable won three races and earned $78,040 before retiring.

“Yeah, I remember [Unapproachable],” recalled Jenkins, a multiple graded stakes-winning trainer based at Laurel who is also a member of the Show Jumping Hall of Fame. “He was a nice looking, big horse. He was a pretty strong-made horse.”

Unapproachable was originally to be trained as a fox hunter at Pleasant Prospect Farm, but that wasn't working out. Meanwhile, Casteel, who graduated from George Washington University and had been intrigued by eventing since attending Groton House in Massachusetts as a high school student, was serving as a barn manager and giving pony club lessons in exchange for lessons for herself at Waredaca.

That's when Abel entered her life.

“He was one of three horses from Pleasant Prospect,” Casteel said. “He was the third I looked at. He was a little immature at first, but I was in no rush. I wasn't planning on making him an amazing eventing horse. I mean, it took two, three years before we really got going.”

Abel and Casteel, who made their eventing debut in 2016, have since moved up to Novice and have had a Top 10 finish in the 2018 Waredaca Novice Three-Day and a Top 20 in the 2019 USEA American Evening Championships Novice Rider Championship.

Jenkins isn't surprised.

“Not at all,” he said, “because he's the right type. That's a big, strong horse that has a big stride. He's physically built to be able to jump and gallop. He was a decent-minded horse, too.”

Added Casteel: “I'm really fortunate to have a horse that was trained by Mr. Jenkins. The thing with Thoroughbreds is they go through a lot of training when they're young. They're smart. They want to please you. And right now, he's just thriving and he always wants to do more. He's eating up all this training.”

For more information on Strides for Equality visit: https://www.stridesforequality.org/

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