United States Eventing Association

Requiem For a Friend

When I contacted Becky Holder late Tuesday, she thought she’d be able to talk about Ollie the following morning.

“Can we do it tomorrow when I have my emotions more in control?” Holder wrote in an e-mail Tuesday night. Of course, I wrote back, I understand completely.

It wasn’t until Friday morning that Holder could summon the strength to share her memories of Call Me Ollie, the 11-year-old gelding she first met in a snow-blanketed field during a Minnesota winter five years ago.

A registered Holsteiner/thoroughbred — though his silky, squeezable nose suggested a Velveteen Rabbit somewhere in his distant pedigree — Ollie was campaigned by Holder from Novice all the way up to Advanced before leaving her Atlanta barn to continue his career with Boyd Martin two months ago.

Of all the unspeakably sad details that came to light in the wake of Tuesday’s barn fire at True Prospect Farm in West Grove, Pa., which killed six event horses in Martin’s program, none was more heart-wrenching than the report of firefighters having to physically restrain three young event riders from running back into the burning barn in a vain attempt to save more horses.

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