When Will Coleman first sat on Chin Tonic HS as a 3-year-old, he knew the horse oozed talent on the flat and over jumps, but his future as a top-level eventing horse wasn’t so certain.
“He was a pretty stunning horse,” he said. “You watched him trot up and you were just kind of drooling over him, even at that stage. I rode him in this very small indoor [in Europe], and you couldn’t believe that you were riding a 3-year-old horse. Just the presence and the way that he sort of just connected into the bridle was just a very incredible, athletic feeling but he was not really a galloping horse. He was more of dressage and show jumping breeding, so I think it’s taken him a little while to develop a step on cross-country.”
It was a beautiful but chilly weekend in the pines at the Setters' Run Farm Carolina International. After a record-setting 19.4 in the CCI4*-S dressage, Will Coleman became the first three-time winner in the event's history when he led from start to finish on Hyperion Stud's Chin Tonic HS.
Sometimes you just have to be a goldfish, as Ted Lasso says to his team on the Apple TV series of the same name—forget what happened quickly and move on.
Will Coleman came into the CCI4*-S show jumping today at the Setters’ Run Farm Carolina International on top of the class with Chin Tonic HS and in third with Off The Record, but by the end of the class he was ready to forget his wild day.
Will Coleman came to the Setters’ Run Farm Carolina International with two totally opposite horses in Off The Record and Chin Tonic HS, but at the end of dressage day for the CCI4*-S, they both proved they have one thing in common—talent in the sand box.