United States Eventing Association

Last year was a big one for USEA Young Event Horse program graduate Arden Augustus. He made a successful move-up to Modified with Sharon White in the tack, followed by a smooth transition to Preliminary, then went on to win two CCI2*-S divisions and ended the year with a CCI2*-L win.

For those efforts, “Gus” topped the 2024 USEA 6-year-old leaderboard as well as the Preliminary Horse leaderboard.

Bred by Anita Antenucci, Gus got his start with Melissa Bauman before White took over the ride in late 2023.

Gus’ dam, Juneau, was a horse White bred. She was out of a line of mares that Canadian five-star rider Peter Barry bred, one of which White had competed to Advanced. Antenucci chose the popular Selle Français stallion Jaguar Mail because of his high percentage of Thoroughbred blood.

White said that Gus surpassed both she and Antenucci’s goals for him in 2024. Considering he’s a large horse, she knew she wanted to take her time with him at the Preliminary level.

“I just wanted to let him develop his strength and bump up to Prelim and see what he would tell me,” she said. “He told me that he was good with it all, so I just kept taking him where he showed me he wanted to go. I tried to plan good events for him to develop his strength, because when they're big young horses, you have to be careful and give them time to get strong—so better venues with good galloping courses with hills I think are really useful.”

The pair ended the year in November by winning the CCI2*-L at Virginia Horse Center Eventing, a venue that has a very hilly cross-country course. “I thought that would help with his base—to put a base foundation on him for the rest of his career,” she explained.

White described Gus as very genuine. “I'm always shocked at how unbelievably genuine he is. He's really easy for a big horse. He's really easy to go fast on because he's just so amiable about the whole thing. It is easy to go fast on horses that aren't running off with you! So I've always been just so shocked at how he travels across the ground so easily. He just steps over jumps. He puts in no effort whatsoever because he doesn't have to.”

White and Gus have already had their first outing of 2025 in a 7-year-old Preliminary Young Horse division at Ocala Winter I in Florida, and White’s hoping for an Intermediate move-up soon. She says a CCI3*-L at the end of the year isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

“It will depend on how he bumps up, how he finds that, how his fitness is, what he is telling me mentally?” she said. “I've worked hard to make sure that he's a very quiet horse, but he internalizes a bit so it’s just getting a horse very confident in their job, and teaching him to breathe. He holds his breath in a dressage test better than any horse I've ever sat on! I worked all last year on just getting him to breathe in a dressage arena, and he came out this year and just breathed throughout the dressage test. I thought that was so cute. I was so proud of him, like he was trying so hard to breathe. That was really fun.”

White’s been friends with Antenucci for over 20 years, and they’ve partnered on several homebreds. “She's one of my very best friends, and it's so fun to do things with her because I have nothing but respect for her,” she said. “She perhaps loves horses more than I do, which is saying something. And she is as hardworking as anybody I know, and as genuine as anyone I know. I mean, who doesn't want to be around that? I feel very lucky to have her in my life. And it's really fun to do this breeding together, and to have a horse as good as Gus is just really fun.”