Gold Medal Rider Read online

  Bruce lives on a farm in Pennsylvania with his wife and two children, Buck and Nancy, who are becoming successful riders like their father. His Olympic horses—Plain Sailing, Irish Cap, J. J. Babu, and Dr. Peaches—are all dead now, but all of them, even the ones that never belonged to him, are buried on his farm.

  Right now Bruce is riding several new top horses, and one of them might be his next Olympic mount. However, making the Olympics again is not one of his goals. “My goals are to make myself a better rider, to make my horses better, and to make the lives of my horses better,” he said. “I do think that I give my horses a better life than they might otherwise have. I let them be successful at something.”

  Lendon Gray

  Not all gold medal riders win gold medals. Lendon Gray has made a terrific impact on the sport of dressage without ever winning an Olympic medal. What Lendon has done instead is take ordinary horses and make them shine. Many people think only big, fancy, expensive horses can do well at dressage. Lendon likes to prove them wrong.

  “I think I’m still the only Olympic rider who has only American training and who was riding only American-trained and American-bred horses,” she said. Most top American dressage riders go to Europe to train, and they ride imported horses. Lendon rides Arabians. She rides Appaloosas. She rides Morgans. She rides ponies. And with her in the saddle, they all do well.

  She made her first Olympic team in 1980, on a horse named Beppo. When she got him, she had never even seen a top-level dressage competition. “I was loaned Beppo when his rider died unexpectedly,” she said. “He was not terribly sound, and he was basically a castaway.” Lendon learned a lot from Beppo: In four months, the two were competing at the highest levels and won the last spot on the United States’ 1978 World Championships team. Two years later they were on the Olympic squad.

  Three years after that, Lendon won the U.S. Grand Prix Championship—the highest level of dressage—on her best-known horse, Seldom Seen. Part Thoroughbred and part Connemara, an Irish breed of pony, Seldom Seen was only fifty-nine inches high—one inch taller than a pony! He looked like a midget next to the giant horses he competed against. At first even Lendon didn’t expect him to do well.

  “Every season I’d think, This is it,” she recalled. “First he did first and second level. Next we moved up to third and fourth level, and I thought, Well, any horse ought to be able to do first and second level. This is real dressage now, and we’re in over our heads. He was undefeated at third and fourth levels. Next year we moved up to Prix St. Georges and I thought, This is it, but he was undefeated at Prix St. Georges. When we moved up to Grand Prix (international-level competition) I thought, Well, this is absurd. He won a record number of national championships.”

  “I don’t do this for the ribbons I can win or for the international competitions,” Lendon said firmly, though she competed in the Olympics a second time in 1988. “Right now I’m working with a horse that will probably never be in a show. He’s actually what you’d call a physically handicapped horse. The vet said we should put him down, but now he walks and trots and canters comfortably.

  “My philosophy in dressage is to take a horse and make it the best that it can be.”

  Like Mike Plumb, Bill Steinkraus, and Bruce Davidson, Lendon Gray is a gold medal rider.

  The author gratefully acknowledges the help of many people, including L. A. Pomery, who handles public relations for the United States Equestrian Team; John Strassburger, publisher of The Chronicle of the Horse; Jo Whitehouse, of the United States Combined Training Association; and Olympic riders Bruce Davidson, Lendon Gray, Lisa Jacquin, Carol Lavell, William Steinkraus, and Jil Walton.

  Don’t miss Bonnie Bryant’s exciting companion novel to Gold Medal Rider …

  GOLD MEDAL HORSE

  The Saddle Club #55

  World-class excitement continues for The Saddle Club when Southwood tries out for the Olympics.

  Nigel and Dorothy have bought the beautiful and talented horse. They both agree that he could go all the way—to compete for gold at the world’s most exciting equestrian event! What they don’t agree on is which Olympics he should go for. Dorothy and The Saddle Club think Southwood is ready to try for the upcoming games. Nigel wants to wait four more years.

  Things come to a head when the girls travel to watch Southwood compete at a big-time event.

  It takes the ghost of a horse whose promise was never fulfilled to make them all realize what a gold medal horse is … and to make them do what’s best for Southwood.