Most grand prix riders at this year’s Rolex FEI World Cup Show Jumping Final are riding horses bred, raised and aimed from birth for the top of the sport.

Not Rich Fellers.  He’s on Gyro, a 14-year-old gelding who just jumped his first jumper course four years ago, at the ripe age of 10.  And while Fellers and Gyro didn’t have the speed round Fellers would have liked—he went conservatively and Gyro kind of dove through one combination for a 4-fault score—he’s got his eye on the future.

“It was one of those rounds that we have in show jumping, where you’re very pleased but yet very disappointed at the same time.  I was impressed with how he performed, but I was disappointed that he got a little green and stage-struck.  He looked into that light-blue combination and made an inexperienced horse error,” said Fellers.

But it’s not bad for a horse who just jumped his first Sunday grand prix class in September, 2006. 

In 2003, Fellers was on the hunt for a new horse after losing one of his favorites.  “Harry and Molly Chapman, who are wonderful owners for me, had a horse Stealth Sprenger years ago, who was quite a fabulous horse.  He was injured years ago, and just was not healing.  It was very frustrating, and two years went by.  He finally died—he had some cancer and all of a sudden passed.  The vets said that that’s why he wasn’t healing—his body was trying to fight the cancer, so the suspensory branch wasn’t healing,” Fellers said.

“Harry and Molly had been reducing the insurance on Stealth Sprenger, since he wasn’t a competitive horse anymore.  When he passed away, they collected the insurance money.  It wasn’t enough for a really nice, going grand prix horse, so I went to Europe in search of something.  My friend Alan Waldman knew of this horse. 

“Gyro was a foxhunter, owned by a wealthy businessman in Holland, who also owned a farm in Ireland.  He would ship the horse over there for the season and foxhunt.  I rode him and really liked him, but he was 10 years old and had never show jumped.

“His owner had a dressage rider who worked for him and rode the horses and kept them rideable, so he was pretty broke.  But it was hard to keep him rated to a jump; he’d go on and off the aids.  He really had an incredible talent.  He was very brave—we tested him quite a bit over quite big fences.

“So, I took the video home to Harry and Molly.  I told him his story, and discussed the risks of buying an older horse with so little experience.  They were comfortable with it.  He reminded them, and me, a lot of Stealth—he is a big powerful horse.

“He arrived in the fall of 2003, and we got him fit and going.  I rode him in a George Morris clinic that winter.  George got on him, and I think he liked him.  Gyro was pretty raw at that point.  I remember when he got on him and cantered him, he turned and looked at me and said ‘This is a lot of horse.’  He’s got such a powerful canter.  He’s kind of hard to stay with.

“I started showing him in Indio, and we kept him right to the edge of what we could do with him.  Physically, he had all kinds of ability, but mentally he was very green.  Being as old as he was, I felt like we needed to press on with him.  He ended up jumping 1.40-meter classes by the end of the year.

“We had some issues with him.  He wasn’t a real winner for a while.  He wasn’t very clever or quick in jump-offs—he’d make mistakes.  It’s been a process.  But I could always feel from the beginning that he had lots of ability; it was just a matter of containing it and modifying and controlling his big movement and all that energy.  We needed to stay in sync from the beginning to the end of the course.  I needed to keep him organized from the beginning to the end of the course.

“The lead changes were difficult for him.  When you’d ask for a change, he would just run and pull you over the front of the saddle; he’d plunge forward.  In this last year, as a 13-year-old, is when things started coming together, and we started getting more and more clear rounds.  We had more courses where I felt like I had good control over him from beginning to end, and got the lead changes easily.

“This last fall, we thought he’d be ready to go and do the World Cup-qualifiers.  So, in September, he jumped his first big Sunday grand prix of his life.  He’s been super-consistent in all the World Cup classes—clear or 4 faults in every one.

“The bottom line is that he’s green at this level, and I wasn’t planning on bringing him here.  I was planning on bringing McGuinness, but that didn’t work out,” said Fellers.  McGuinness, Fellers’ seasoned grand prix horse, incurred a minor injury in March and is recuperating.

Fellers knows that jumping the big courses in the tight Thomas & Mack arena for the World Cup Final is a challenge for Gyro.  “It’s a lot for him to see.  He’s a big rangey horse, but he’s very sensitive.  He has a Thoroughbred mind in a big, warmblood body.  It’s a fine line putting enough pressure on him to keep him lively and energetic enough to come out of those sharp turns and jump those big fences without putting too much pressure on him and getting so he’s out of control,” he said.

Currently, with their slow time and four faults, Gyro and Fellers are in 27th before the second leg.  But regardless how the weekend ends up, Fellers is happy that he has a horse—however unlikely—for the future.  “I really like him.  He’s a sweet horse and he tries hard.  We’ve been asking a lot of him right from the beginning, and he’s coped with it.  I think he’s going to level out and develop into a really good horse,” he said.