United States Eventing Association

I am heading to the USEA American Eventing Championships presented by Nutrena Feeds on my 8-year-old Connemara/Thoroughbred cross Ridgetop Pirate Blue.

I’d like to preface my story by saying that I have been a 30-year hunter/jumper rider and trainer. I run a large training and lesson farm in Monroe, Georgia, and up until April of 2024, I would have considered myself a hunter/jumper through and through, and let me just say my world has been flipped upside down in the best way possible!

My story began in July of 1995 when my parents bought my dream horse, B.B. Babauska, “Babs,” from Bruce Davidson when I was 17 years old. She was part of Bruce’s homebred program and related to the great JJ Babu.

Until this past May, qualifying for the USEA American Eventing Championships presented by Nutrena Feeds let alone actually making plans to compete, seemed like a far-off dream. Going into this show season the AEC was a goal I had set in the back of my mind but maybe only said out loud a few times.

As a young girl growing up in Connecticut, I had ponies and horses and was an active 4-Her. My family didn’t have a lot of money so my riding was primarily limited to 4-H and small sanctioned hunter shows. I was very fortunate that my parents supported my passion and my father, as a carpenter, built my barn and outdoor arena.

I have been working towards my goal of qualifying for AEC for quite some time now. I made the switch from hunters to eventing about eight years ago because I loved the adrenaline rush of cross-country. Although my family wasn’t able to buy a horse that had “been there, done that,” they have shown so much support for me in this dream.

I am heading to the USEA American Eventing Championships presented by Nutrena Feeds on my 10-year-old thoroughbred Special Reserve (The Visualizer x Deco Jazz). "Chip" is special to me in so many ways but particularly because three years ago he lost total vision in his left eye. I bought him from Chya Johnstone, a jockey from Oklahoma, who knew he was a talented horse that might make a nice jumper or event horse. He was 5 years old and Chya had started to jump him. So when I bought him I started training him in dressage and cross-country.

It had been decades since Barb Nikolajczyk had sat on a horse due to family and career aspirations, but 16 years ago, a stop at her cousin Sharon Church’s farm in Culpeper, Virginia, on the way to the Outer Banks for vacation led to a renewed interest in her passion. Nikolajczyk didn’t have much time to pursue hobbies as she and her husband raised their two sons and while she worked towards a PhD and post doctorate work in the field of diabetes research in the suburbs of Boston, but that first trip to Virginia stuck with her.

“Every horse, at least once in its life, deserves to be loved by a little girl.” The now 19-year-old Thoroughbred gelding Belmont (Boundary x Capiana) has been lucky enough to have been loved by several little girls in his life. For almost three years now, he has been helping his current girl, Adalena Campisi, solidify her love for eventing and make her dreams come true.

Back in 2020, I was casually looking for my next horse to bring along. For years I had been competing my two steady-Eddie Thoroughbred’s Command Approval (With Approval x Takitforgranit) and Diamond Legacy (Unfold x Kiwi Trip) and had been pretty successful with them including being named Training Rider of the Year in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Both of my boys were aging quickly though, and I needed to figure out my future competition ambitions. I had also just lost my long-time trainer, coach, and mentor Packy McGaughan unexpectedly earlier in the spring of 2020. I thought focusing my energy on another horse might be useful during such a difficult time.