Being spontaneous has paid off for Kevin Keane and Sportsfield Candy.
“I bought him on a Wednesday and showed him on a Thursday,” Keane recalls about his first event with his Irish Sport Horse gelding, then 9 years old, at Plantation Field Horse Trials (Unionville, Pennsylvania) in September 2016. “I owned him for part of a day, and the next morning I showed up at a CCI and jogged him up for a two-star, and we went clean and clean and clean.”
They jumped clear and finished 14th of 55 in the CIC* (now CCI2*-S). Keane and “Candy” then won their first event at the Pine Top Advanced H.T. (Thomson, Georgia) at Intermediate in February 2018. That was their lone blue ribbon together until November 2022 when they won the CCI2*-L at the Tryon International 3-Day Event (Mill Spring, North Carolina) as part of a large field of 54. It was Keane’s first FEI victory, and it ultimately earned him the title of Capital Square USEA Adult Amateur of the Year on the USEA Leaderboard for 2022.
However, the decision to enter at Tryon was spontaneous and wasn’t initially on Keane’s show schedule for last year. They initially planned to wrap up their 2022 campaign at the CCI2*-S at the Morven Park Fall International (Leesburg, Virginia). However, things didn’t go to plan.
“He basically went solidly, except I made a mistake in the show jumping and cut a corner,” Keane said. “I thought I could prevail and be in the top-three, and that ended up not happening.”
Keane and Candy were 15th, still a solid result in a field of 43. However, Keane said he didn’t want to “throw the towel in” and finish the season on that note.
“I called my coach, Phillip Dutton, who’s also like my best friend, which is very convenient, and I said, ‘Phillip, I’m really just disappointed. I cut this corner on the show jumping and ended up not being in the top-three there. I’m going to do another one and stretch the year out and go to Tryon,’” he recalled.
At Tryon, Keane and Candy went double clear on cross-country and in show jumping to finish on their dressage score of 25.7, their lowest finishing score in more than three years.
“[Morven] didn’t go to plan, so we rerouted and finished the year, and it was really fun to get a win,” Keane said. “So many of my friends were there, who were as equally happy for me as I was for my horse.”
When Keane’s not being a successful eventer himself, he’s helping other event horses and their riders succeed in his role as a veterinarian based in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania, where he runs Sports Medicine Associates of Chester County. Keane’s expertise is diagnosing and managing musculoskeletal injuries in racehorses and sport horses, including many upper-level event horses.
“My clinic, I call it a tenth of a mile from Phillip [Dutton], but it’s actually less than that because we’re just across a country road, which is where I keep my horses,” he said. “I live about two miles from there. I’m about a mile and a half from Boyd Martin, about half a mile from Erin Sylvester,” and he proceeds to list more “people that form a combination of highly respected eventing colleagues, good friends, and most of them are clients.”
“What has happened with me as an event rider is that it has made me a much more astute veterinarian to understand the client’s description of their concern,” Keane said.
Frequently, clients become competitors—in the friendliest sense of the word—and after finishing second to Boyd Martin in the CCI3*-S at Bromont (Quebec, Canada) in June 2019 for his highest placing in an FEI event before Tryon, it was Martin whom he defeated to win the CCI2*-L at Tryon.
Back in March 2018, one month after the previous blue ribbon Keane and Candy earned, he suffered open fractures of his tibia and fibula while working with a young horse. That kept Keane out of competition for almost a year.
Earning the title of Capital Square USEA Adult Amateur of the Year returns him to the achievement he also had in 2011 and 2012. That was when Keane was campaigning another bay Irish Sport Horse gelding, Fernhill Flutter, who took him all the way up to the four-star (now five-star) level, finishing in the top-half of the field at the 2014 Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event.
Keane said he looks to continue to perfect his craft as a rider and as a vet.
“The next thing I want to do is to be able to do it in the best position, form, and style,” he said about eventing. As a veterinarian, Keane said, “After all this time, I still absolutely love my job, and I am anxious to get to work in the morning, which I feel very fortunate about. I’m a lucky guy.”
Welcome to the Show Me state and to Area IV USEA members! The 2023 USEA Annual Meeting & Convention kicks of tomorrow and features four full days of educational seminars, committee meetings, and social gatherings all with one aim—to bring the eventing community together to continue to improve upon and celebrate the sport that we all love. This year’s Convention takes place in St. Louis, Missouri, at the Marriott St. Louis Grand in downtown St. Louis from Dec. 7-10, and we have rounded up everything you need to know to make the most of your time in the heartland.
To accompany the 2023 USEA Annual Meeting & Convention, USEA Educational Partner STRIDER has prepared Digital Resources to Maximize Education & Access for the Eventing Community. In keeping with the USEA’s mission to expand the sport of eventing, this webinar outlines ways in which digital tools can be leveraged to increase access and education across equestrian opportunities. As part of STRIDER’s popular Professional Development Webinar Series, this presentation aims to provide a quick overview of best practices and digital tools used across the equestrian industry to boost growth.
Every horse who participated this year in the USEA Young Event Horse (YEH) program has a story—a background that involves a breeder who labored over bloodlines, veterinary care, initial training, and so much more. This year’s highest-placing U.S.-bred horse in the 5-year-old division at the Dutta Corp./USEA Young Event Horse Championships, Arden Augustus, is no exception. His breeder and owner, Anita Antenucci of Arden Farms in Upperville, Virginia, started her program nine years ago and said that the Warmblood gelding was a more emotionally driven breeding for her than others due to his connections with Antenucci’s long-time friend Sharon White.
Have you ever wondered why professional riders love bringing their horses through the USEA Young Event Horse (YEH) program? USEA Podcast host Nicole Brown chats with two of this year's YEH Champions, Caroline Pamukcu who won the USEA YEH 4-year-old East Coast Championship aboard HSH Afterglow, and Andrea Baxter who won the USEA YEH 5-year-old Championship with Camelot PJ, to discuss this year's Championships and all of the great things that the program has to offer.