A thoroughbred ex-racehorse shows he can handle one of the USA's most demanding three-day events when he comes through for rider/trainer Holly Payne Caravella, who has always believed in him despite a series of setbacks.
Santino passed the test for Holly Payne Caravella of Gladstone at the Dutta Corp. Fair Hill International 3-star event. The Dutta Corp. Fair Hill International three-day event was a big step up for Santino, an off-the-track thoroughbred who is revealing his possibilities for rider/trainer Holly Payne Caravella of Gladstone.
Fair Hill, with its rugged terrain, is known as a proving ground for equestrian ambitions. Last weekend, conditions were uncharacteristically perfect (bad weather usually hits for at least one day of the competition) but it was still a major test over a cross-country course designed by the respected Derek Di Grazia.
Santino had done well in shorter CIC competitions and was eighth in May's Jersey Fresh 3-star, but whether he could handle the grueling 3 1/2-mile up-and-down 3-star route in Maryland was the question for Caravella.
She was using Fair Hill as a test to see whether she should enter the horse in next April's Rolex Kentucky event, the only 4-star in the western hemisphere and one of just six events worldwide to receive the highest rating for the discipline.
"You don't know until you get out on a 10-minute course and see how they feel. I was super-impressed," said Caravella, who was only 11 seconds over the optimum time, logging 4.4 time penalties and no jumping penalties. That elevated her to ninth place among the 51 entries that started on cross-country, from a tie for 12th on 50.2 penalties after the opening dressage phase.
"He went exactly where I wanted him to be. He was up to the challenge. He's finally coming into his own and figuring it out; he's getting more confident," said Caravella. She ended up 12th on 60.6 penalties after dropping a rail and incurring two time penalties in show jumping the next day.
"He could have been a little bit fitter," she observed, however, noting there had been problems keeping shoes on the 12-year-old chestnut gelding. He wore glue-on shoes for a while to ease stress on his hooves. And a series of injuries including cellulitis and a trailer accident injury for him, a broken foot for her, had cut back on conditioning efforts.
"I was hoping his thoroughbred side would come out, which it did," said Caravella about her trip around the Fair Hill course.
The competition was a selection trial for the 2016 Olympics, but Caravella had no ambitions in that direction because her mother, Marilyn, will be a judge there and can't officiate with a family member participating.
Making a team eventually is the goal, but while Santino is "a very competitive horse," at this point "I don't know if they would pick him because he's had this inconsistency in his past. It's taken until this year for him to have a very solid season. I think the selectors are going to want to see that continue," said Caravella
She is hoping to receive a grant to ride at an overseas event in the fall, but at the moment is "playing it by ear."
Santino, known as Sonny after the nickname of Santino Corleone, the eldest brother in "The Godfather" movie, had one quirk that Caravella needed to overcome.
"He's always been a bit funny about brush jumps. It seems silly, but he's a bit careful and didn't like to brush through it," she explained.
While it's possible to get away with that at the lower levels, she pointed out, at the higher levels, the brush is too big and imposing for a horse to clear it with air to spare.
"If they don't want to brush through it, they're going to opt to run out or stop, and that's what happened with him this spring. He lost confidence because of it."
But Caravella found a solution. When some of her students wanted to give her a group gift for her wedding shower earlier this year, she told them, "Get me a cross-country jump. I want a brush jump." She received two of them. Who needs a blender or coffeemaker anyway.
"It was perfect. Every time before I go to a competition, I make sure I school the brush jumps," she said.
"Now he'll jump them like a cross-rail. He doesn't even care."
Santino originally belonged to a working student of Canadian eventer Rebecca Howard, who didn't think he would make it as an upper-level horse. Holly got him as an "amateur-friendly" mount for Rob Groblewski of Far Hills, who won his first event, a novice competition, with Santino. But Groblewski and his wife, Beth, decided they enjoyed watching Caravella compete the horse and were interested in his journey, so Santino struck out on a different path.
At the 2-star level, he was on the U.S. Equestrian Federation's 2013 winter training list, but that was the season Caravella was out with her broken foot.
"Every time we'd get a break with him, it was one thing after another," she said. Through it all, though, his personality never changed.
"He's very sweet, a total pet, like a puppy dog," she said.
"He's the easiest horse in the barn to deal with."
Caravella has only a few more stalls to fill at her new base, Shelby and Austin Godfrey's Old Fox Farm in Chester Township, where she is running an eventing training operation.
She has lots of family encouragement not only from her mother and her father, Richard, but also her brother Doug, a fellow competitor and author of the "Riding Horse Repair Manual." Her supportive new husband, Eric Caravella, who was on duty in the vet box during Fair Hill, is not a rider but takes part in adventure racing, which involves running, cycling, water sports, hiking and orienteering.
More eventers, like Holly Caravella, are becoming fans of thoroughbreds, which once were the breed of choice for eventing. Warmbloods took over, but thoroughbreds or warmbloods with lots of thoroughbred genetics seem to be making a comeback. Will Coleman, for instance, won the 2-star at Fair Hill with Tight Lines, a thoroughbred ex-steeplechaser.
"There is nothing like a thoroughbred," contended Caravella. She noted that if she had attempted Fair Hill with a warmblood prepared in the same limited fashion as Santino, "I probably wouldn't have gotten around. They have this natural stamina and the mind for it too."
At the eight-minute mark, she noted, he started to feel tired, but then he got a second wind when a warmblood "might be tapped-out at that point."
"I don't think I would ride anything that didn't have thoroughbred in its lineage," she commented.
"They want to please, they're athletic and they try so hard."
ON THE RAIL -- A busy hunter pace/organized trail ride season is drawing to an end. Entries close Nov. 8 for the last major fixture of the year, the Nov. 15 Turkey Trot, which includes both riding and driving and is billed as a pleasure event, though ribbons and trophies are awarded.
Held at the Horse Park of New Jersey in Allentown and the adjoining Assunpink Wildlife Area, it is presented by the Horse Park and the Eastern States Dressage and Combined Training Association. For information, contact gary@esdcta.org...
The Rutgers University Equine Science Center is offering two programs next month. Author Wendy Williams will speak Nov. 2 about her new book, "The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion" and be available to sign it.
She traveled from Mongolia, through Europe and around the U.S. in her research. The volume deals with the 56-million-year story of the horse, the science behind how horses think and act and the evolutionary forces that shaped them.
The lecture, entitled, "Can Horses Read?" is free to the public at 7 p.m. in the Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health building on the G. H. Cook Campus in New Brunswick.
At 6 p.m., there is a VIP reception. Tickets for that are $75 and include a copy of the book.
On Nov. 12, it's the science center's annual Evening of Science and Celebration from 5-9 p.m. at the Cook Campus Center, 59 Biel Road, New Brunswick.
Current research on several topics will be aired, and guest speaker Carol Stull of the University of California at Davis will discuss "Crossing the Rainbow Bridge: Dealing With Your Horse's Death and Euthanasia." Admission is $15 for students, $35 for others and includes dinner, which begins at 6 p.m. The program starts at 7 p.m...
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday for Alice (Appie) Lorillard of Bedminster at St. Elizabeth's Church, 34 Peapack Road, Far Hills.
Following the service, there will be a reception at the Essex Hunt Club, 48 Holland Road, Peapack. Donations in memory of Mrs. Lorillard, a longtime supporter of Essex, may be made to the Essex Foxhounds, P.O. Box 295, Gladstone, NJ 07934...
Ronnie Massarella, who managed the British show jumping team for 30 years, died last Sunday in England after an illness. He was 92. A genial, outgoing silver-haired master of perpetual motion and energy who retired in 2000, he guided Britain to silver medals in the 1980 alternate Olympics and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and gold in the 1979 world championships and 1985 European championships.
ACTIVITIES SCHEDULE
Today: National PHA Finals Show, Centenary College Equestrian Center, 12-56 Califon Road (use this address for GPS), Long Valley; CJL Show, Duncraven, 1300 Trenton-Harbourton Road, Titusville; Readington Trail Association Halloween Costume Ride, Cole Road, Readington (9 a.m.-noon, readingtontrail.org); Horseshoe Bend Park Benefit Trail Ride, Horseshoe Bend Road, Kingwood Township (9 a.m.-noon, contact megsleeper@icloud.com to register); New Jersey 4-H Round-Up Benefit Hunter Pace/Trail Ride, Lord Stirling Stable, 256 S. Maple Ave., Basking Ridge (10 a.m.-2 p.m.); Sussex County Benefit Show, Sussex County Fairgrounds, Plains Road, Augusta; Jersey Palms Dressage Show, 177 South Stump Tavern Road, Jackson; Mane Stream Therapeutic Riding Open House, 83 Old Turnpike Road, Oldwick; Baymar Farms Show, 38 Harbor Road, Morganville.
Saturday: CJL at Duncraven Show, 1300 Trenton-Harbourton Road, Titusville; The Pumpkin Chunkin' Halloweeen Hunter Pace, Atlantic County Park at Estell Manor, 109 Route 50, Estell Manor.
Nov. 1: Stuff the Turkey Hunter Pace (benefitting the Food Bank Network of Somerset County) Lord Stirling Stable, 256 S. Maple Ave., Basking Ridge (9 a.m.-1 p.m.); Spring Valley Hounds Hunter Pace, Route 615 (Long Bridge Road), Allamuchy (9 a.m.-12:30 p.m.); Covered Bridge Trail Association Hunter Pace and Poker Ride, Cane Farm, 99 Kingwood-Stockton Road (Route 519), Rosemont (8:30 a.m.-Noon, turn right on Raven Rock Road and use third driveway); CJL Show, Centenary College Equestrian Center, 12-56 Califon Road (use this address for GPS), Long Valley; Barrel Racing, Horse Park of New Jersey, Route 524, Allentown (noon start); The Ridge at Riverview, 3 Wolverton Road, Asbury (Hunterdon County).
Nancy Jaffer: nancyjaffer@comcast.net.