United States Eventing Association

Cindy Wood, an active Adult Rider in Area II, who resides in Newark, Maryland, shares the story of her incredible young Connemara/Thoroughbred gelding, “Unbelievable.” Though “Lee” got a rocky start in life, find out how he and Wood are well on their way to becoming a well-known team in the eventing community.

(Photos are from the Carol Kozlowski clinic last summer. Joshua Walker Photography.)

I just wanted to tell the story about “Unbelievable” better known as “Lee” a 6-year-old Connemara/Thoroughbred gelding. Lee is by Erin Go Bragh, “the little horse that could,” and out of a TB mare by Rockpoint, who is my main foxhunting mount. Seven years ago she pulled a suspensory and I had a breeding to Go Bragh, so the rest is history you could say.

When Lee was only 12 hours old, his mother began to colic and required transportation to New Bolton Veterinary Hospital with a diagnosis of a uterine artery bleed followed by a large colon twist that required surgery. Therefore, poor little baby Lee came home at two days old already drinking from a bucket and was raised by my husband and I as an orphan foal, with the help of “Pantyhose,” a foal-loving pony mare that taught him to be a horse! Lee’s mother survived, but by the time she came home there was no real connection between her and her young foal.

Fast-forward to three-year-old Lee. The bay gelding had been broke to ride and we started

riding out in the hunt country of Camden Hunt in South Carolina, learning to jump small aikens and logs. Late in the fall of his three-year-old year, Lee did his first un-recognized Beginner Novice events, going clean at both. The spring of his four-year-old year he did one more unrecognized Beginner Novice event and then moved up to Novice. We competed the entire year at Novice winning two, going to the Wellpride American Eventing Championships and participating in the Spalding Labs USEA Young Event Horse championships. It was quite a year!

On to the five-year-old year and we started right out at training level with the Training Level Three-Day in our sights as a year-end goal. We took clinics with Lucinda Green and Carol Kozlowski, who both loved him, and by summer we were schooling preliminary questions. Being from the eastern shore of Maryland it is always a challenge to condition for events and with the drought last summer and hard ground it made it even tougher, but we kept at it, replacing the gallops with more trot sets. Of course, the T3D came and it ended up being the first significant rain of the fall, and boy did it rain!! We had a decent dressage test putting us in to 6^th place. Then came XC day… I put the biggest studs I have ever used into Lee’s shoes and off we went!! Lee handled things like an old pro, not a young five-year-old. He came into the vet box with a temp of 99 degrees and respiration was very good. Cross country was awesome!! Pat Mansfield at the XC start box had to laugh at Lee as we went into the box – I turned Lee around and he stood there and cocked a hind leg, like oh hum another day to go a gallop in the rain! We had some time penalties and were 47^th on course and no one in our division made the time – I was thrilled!!. We ended up getting the “Best Conditioned” of the entire event, which was a real honor! Lee jogged up great the next day and gave me the show jumping round of my life going double-clear and moved us up to 2^nd overall!!! I have a real 3-day horse!!

Fast forward to this spring and after a terrific clinic down in North Carolina at the Carolina Horse Park with Lucinda Green, we had our debut at preliminary at Sporting Days Horse Trials in February 9th. Dressage was surprisingly very very good with us being in first place with a 28.9. WOW!! I couldn’t believe it! On to show jumping and I pulled one rail, entirely my fault, picked picked to the base–oh well!! Then we went out and ate up the cross-country course, it had all the questions, just not too big!! Corners, bounce, water, coffin and some great galloping fences – we had some time but I was thrilled and we ended up 6^th overall!! Not to bad for my little homebred pony!!