United States Eventing Association

Lexington, Ky.—April 25— Double-clears across Derek Di Grazia’s five-star track at the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event were few and far between this afternoon, but it’s no surprise that one of the four horses who were able to accomplish that feat had the heart of a Thoroughbred.

“‘Max’ was a champion,” said New Zealand’s Monica Spencer who held onto her overnight lead following dressage with longtime partner Artist. “He ran and jumped the whole way to the end, and he gave me a great ride today.”

Spencer and the 15-year-old Thoroughbred gelding (Guillotine x Maxamore) have now successfully completed six five-star cross-country tracks together without jump penalties. Their five-star debut in 2023, however, didn’t start out on the same track. The pair were eliminated at Adelaide in Australia on cross-country when Spencer parted ways from Max. She said she feels the difference between today and that ride comes down to her skills as a rider.

“I just think probably I've matured and learned how to go out in the lead, which was, I guess, where it fell apart a bit a few years ago when I did my first five star at Adelaide,” she noted. “I think I was more focused on the time there, and we just had, like a little blip in a combination where we got there a bit quick and had a mistake. But yeah, just maturity on my behalf, like learning to know on the approach the jumps, you think of the jumps, and on the landing of the jumps, you think of the time. I'm fortunate with him being such a good galloper that I can take my time setting up for the jumps, and then push the button on landing, and off he flies.”

Historically, show jumping has not been Artist’s strong suit, but the pair does have one rail in hand tomorrow sitting on their dressage score of 22.3. Spencer’s focus at the moment, however, lies elsewhere.

“We are very much in the moment and focusing on recovering horses and enjoying a good day today, and then our next phase is the trot up,” she said. “So we'll do that, and then after that, then we'll do jumping.”

A double-clear round produced by Will Coleman and his five-star first-timer Diabolo (Diarado x Roulett M) moved the pair up from fifth after dressage to second going into the last day of competition on their score of 27.3. Coleman was thrilled with the Diabolo Group’s 13-year-old Holsteiner gelding’s first time running a five-star cross-country track.

“I thought it was a very challenging track when I walked it,” he noted. “I thought the time would be hard enough to get. Everything to me rode sort of how I envisioned it. The only thing that I thought the horses were having a little bit of a harder time reading was the coffin. The approach itself was a little bit discombobulating coming around that hairpin turn, and it was just very hard to get the horses to really settle on the line. The terrain there just takes you so hard left that the way you had to set it up just seemed to slightly confuse the horses, and that was probably the only moment where I felt Diabolo be a little bit unsure. But everything else sort of went how I had walked it planned out in my head, and it's a pretty rare thing at five-star, but I think that's a testament to my horse and just how amazing he was today. It's his first go at this level, and I just just overjoyed with him.”

Coleman and his wife, Katie Coleman, thoroughly enjoy producing horses and seeing them grow as athletes over time. “Dab” is no exception.

“We've always thought a lot of the horse,” said Will, who took over the ride in 2023. “He's had a few kind of bits of bad luck, but that's horses, you know, it's life. We were lucky that we were able to kind of keep working with him and keep making him stronger, keep sort of trying to establish a bit more trust and just make each other better. And I think today's just a product of that. We really like training horses and developing horses, and he's just been a really, really cool one to have to do that with. Hopefully he has a few more years to keep doing it.”

Adding just 2 time penalties to their dressage score to slide into third place was Caroline Pamukcu and her “best friend,” HSH Blake. She felt like having the opportunity to ride some of Di Grazia’s courses earlier in the season really prepared her and “Blake,” who is a USEA Young Event Horse program graduate, for what they took on today.

“I have to say, leading up to it, Derek gave us a couple good runs at Carolina—the double corners, the first corners, were the same at Carolina as they were here, just one less stride. All season, and even last year, at Plantation [Field], he was kind of hinting at what he was gonna design here, so I thought that was extremely useful. It was hard. Five-star is a monster, in a way, and you just have to be so on it. And if they make a mistake, or you make a mistake, your reactions have to be perfect.”

She and the 11-year-old Irish Sport Horse gelding (Tolan R x Doughiska Lass), who she owns with Mollie Hoff, Sherrie Martin, and her husband Deniz Pamukcu, go into the last day on a score of 28.6.

The remaining two double-clear rounds were accomplished by Great Britain’s David Doel and Galileo Nieuwmoed, who jumped from 12th to fourth, and Australia’s Sophia Hill on her Thoroughbred Humble Glory, who had quite the climb up the leaderboard from being tied for 23rd to now sitting in ninth.

Horse inspections for the CCI4*-S will begin at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, and the CCI5*-L will follow immediately after.

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