The Kansas-based grand prix rider saddles her daughter’s junior hunter to top the $10,000 class at the HITS Arizona Desert Finals.

In order to find a mount for the $10,000 Fast Lane Farm High Performance Hunter Classic, Brandie Holloway had to borrow a horse from a very tough customer: her 11-year-old daughter.

With a stable full of jumpers, Holloway spent most of her trip to Tucson, Ariz., for the HITS Arizona Circuit earning grand prix ribbons, training students and watching her daughter, Hunter, compete in the small junior hunters aboard Burberry. But when Hunter packed her tack trunk just before the HITS Arizona Desert Finals, March 4-8, to head back to school, her mother put her own saddle on Burberry to take a turn in the hunter ring.

“Hunter saw [online] that I had jogged second in one of the working hunter classes and called me up and demanded to know what I’d done wrong,” said Brandie with a laugh.

Brandie sorted out whatever foibles she’d made in time to top the derby-style class ahead of Barely Primitive and Jacqueline Toomey. Theodore Boris, 15, took third aboard his equitation mount Ducalme.

Twelve horses contested the two-round competition, which included sections at 3’9″ and 3’6″ and was loosely modeled off the USHJA Hunter Derby format, with both the classic and handy rounds featuring options for more difficult fences. During the handy round competitors began in the main hunter ring and rode into the grand prix ring, with spectators watching from the pavilion between the two.

Second to go in the 3’9″ section, Burberry set the bar high in the classic round with a positive, forward ride to earn an 89 from judges Gary Duffy, Mike Rosser and Peter Lombardo. “I knew that if I didn’t miss he’d score well,” said Brandie. “It was really about me controlling myself. I know he’s perfect.”

After the fences dropped a hole, juniors and amateurs rode hard to top Brandie and the small roan Dutch Warmblood, but no one could quite catch up. California native Allison Fithian came closest aboard her junior hunter Lucky D’Etenclin, scoring an 85.

While the first round proved inviting, cantering directly into the grand prix ring mid-course during the handy trip backed off plenty of horses and riders. “I ride the jumpers all the time, but riding your hunter in that ring was intimidating,” admitted Allison Kroff, who finished ninth with Dark Dream. “It had a completely different feel.”

Flush with confidence garnered during a schooling session earlier in the week, the entire field attempted the most difficult of three bank options without encountering any major problems, although the more straightforward fences shed a few rails and had horses planting their hooves. Brandie decided to keep it simple, opting out of an airy vertical or slicing turns too tightly to lay down a smooth, if slightly conservative, trip.

“I tried not to read too much into the course,” she said. “He has no issues with the bank or the trot jump or anything. I just tried to ride the forward distance and not question myself.”

Toomey put in one of the bolder rides of the day aboard Barely Primitive to earn the high score of the round, an 83, securing the red ribbon.

Making It Fun

Brandie, Topeka, Kan., rarely ventures into the hunter ring, focusing instead on breeding and bringing along young jumpers. Her latest project, a 7-year-old named Alley Oop, started the circuit competing in the level 5 class and rounded out the six weeks in Tucson by winning a level 8 class and joining Brandie’s top mounts, Gabriella Z and Argentina, in Sunday’s $25,000 HITS Grand Prix.

“I really don’t do the hunters much, but it was such a neat opportunity to do this,” she said of the classic. “I love doing the derby stuff with the banks and rollbacks and big oxers. It’s great that there are handies in all the rated divisions—I wish we’d done it years ago. It makes it fun.”

Holloway purchased Burberry three years ago as an investment prospect, intending to leave him with Tracey Fenney and Mike McCormick to accrue some hunter miles while she focused on the jumper ring. But after a few months her daughter’s pony came up lame, leaving her horseless in the middle of the season.

“I called up Mike and asked if there was any way Burberry could possibly pack my 8-year-old daughter around the children’s ring,” said Holloway. “At the time he was 7, doing the first years. Mike said sure.”

The placid Dutch-bred proved a perfect partner for the young equestrian, and they stepped up to the juniors after a show or two. His stellar jump and reliable mind earned him a permanent stall in Holloway’s barn.

“He’s just a dog. He thinks he’s a person, not a horse. He fetches, he bows, he does all those tricks—you’d never dream of longeing him. He’s just perfect, really a member of the family,” she said.

Toomey couldn’t have been happier to finish as runner-up to Holloway. She entered Barely Primitive in the class on a lark when entries looked like they might be low. “I thought that my trainer [Paul Rohrbach] would ride him!” she said. “Then I found out I’d be doing it and couldn’t believe it. My biggest fear was embarrassing my trainers, but they pointed out that I had nothing to lose so I just went for it.”

Barely Primitive started his career as an eventer, and Toomey competed through training level with him before switching to horse shows. The versatile Thoroughbred gelding by Primitive Rising has taken turns in the jumper, hunter and equitation rings, and these days Toomey focuses on the former when she’s not buried in her pre-med studies at the University of Denver (Colo.).

A Hunter Dream

Aside from three shows in the short stirrup division, 24-year-old Allison Kroff has spent her entire riding career aboard jumpers, deeming the hunters too boring for her tastes. So when she decided to take a shot at finding a top hunter prospect to bring along, her father, who sponsors her endeavors, didn’t jump on board right away.

“We went to try horses and watched this one go, and they said, ‘Look at him, he could be a grand prix horse,’ ” recalled Kroff. “I took one look at him and said, ‘He’s a hunter! Stop jumping him so high!’ ”

Kroff convinced her father that if the horse didn’t make it as a hunter he could always “fall back” on a career in the grand prix ring. That horse, Dark Dream, proved that would be unnecessary at the HITS Arizona circuit, picking up the series award in the first year green hunter division.

“It’s been a blast to have a horse with all the talent, who’s a great jumper and mover,” said Kroff. “Knowing that you can walk in and win if you do it right makes it fun. He’s very brave even though he doesn’t have a lot of show miles. He’s still pretty green for a first year horse, so he came along just great over the circuit.”

Though Dark Dream spent two years in the pre-green division before stepping up, Kroff kept his show schedule light, giving him the summers to relax at her Mesa, Ariz., farm while she headed east with her jumpers.

With her top mount, Nomograaf, starting to slow down at 14, Kroff has set her sights on developing more young jumpers in hopes that someone will fill his formidable shoes. The largely self-taught rider started getting pointers from Canadian John Pearce and plans to regain her amateur card in August.

“Doing the level 6s and 7s is fine, but the junior/amateur-owner classic gives a different degree of difficulty,” said Kroff. “It’s almost like giving the horses a grand prix experience—except the jumps are a hole lower—because of all the attention and the hype.”

Although she enjoyed her brief tenure in the hunter ring, Kroff bade farewell to Dark Dream in Arizona, and the Oldenburg moved to his new home in Northern California with Hope Glynn after the last week of circuit.

From Horse Country To The Desert

Leaving the heart of horse country in northern Virginia to relocate to a border town in southeast Arizona wouldn’t be a decision most serious equestrians would make willingly. But when the Army asked Col. Besty Checchia to transfer to Fort Huachuca in 2006, she decided to look on the bright side.

Checchia sold her tractor, big trailer and farm equipment with the intention of buying a young prospect to bring up the hunter ranks. That optimism paid off at the HITS Arizona circuit, when her purchase, The Quiet Man, secured the baby green hunter series award with trainer Susie Straus. She also rode her own Foursquare to some top ribbons in the low adult amateur jumper division.

“Quiet Man is only 5, but he’s a steady Eddie. He’s just very simple and easy going,” she said. “The other one is the complete opposite. He’s 10, but he can be a complete brat and really hard to deal with. It’s a nice balance.”

Back in Virginia Checchia spent as much time foxhunting with Rappahannock Hunt (Va.) and Bull Run (Va.) as she did showing, but with the nearest hunt in Flagstaff, hours away, Checchia has focused on getting in the show ring whenever she can. She dropped Foursquare down to the low adult amateurs from his usual post in the highs while he got back in the groove after suffering a quarter crack.

“You have to show whenever there’s anything nearby just because there aren’t that many shows,” said Checchia. “When I got down here and said I was looking for a show barn, they told me I’d have to go to Phoenix—I knew that wasn’t going to happen.”

But Checchia stumbled across Straus, and as a life-long horseman felt a special joy in supporting the talented young professional as she builds her business. Her mounts live at Straus’ Tucson farm, and Checchia faces a 70-mile commute each way to ride. She hopes to move to Tucson after retiring in October to help manage Straus’ Wellspring Farm and spend more time with her horses.

A Valiant Victory For Brave Heart

When Bjorn Ikast sits down to do his entries every Monday, he follows one rule of thumb that’s served him well over the years: if he doesn’t think the horse has a shot at winning, he doesn’t bother entering.

So, although he was thrilled, Ikast couldn’t claim to be entirely surprised that Brave Heart outraced 25 other competitors during the $25,000 HITS Grand Prix on March 8 during the HITS Arizona Desert Finals.

“Today’s course really suited my style of riding and my horses,” said Ikast. “It was more European, with shorter distances. There were some very technical places and required that your horse could come right back. I had a choice of which horse to take first. Many people would take their best horse first, but I prefer to save my best one for last. That would be Brave Heart—he always lives up to his name.”

Six pairs found their way around Danny Foster’s first-round course fault-free. Both Ikast and Brandie Holloway qualified two mounts and raced each other for the top spot. Last to go, Brave Heart and Ikast found the shortest track to take blue ahead of Holloway and Gabriella Z. Ikast’s second mount, Day Dream, took third a full 2 seconds behind the winner.

Ikast—who shows primarily in the United States but sports a Danish passport and a Mexican address—opted to head to Arizona this year rather than Gulfport (Miss.) for a change of pace, and his decision paid off when he spent the better part of his time picking up blue ribbons. The win marked the 15th grand prix victory for Brave Heart during their 41/2 year career together, and they picked up another grand prix win during the fourth week. Day Dream won three of the welcome stakes.

“Both of these horses went so beautifully the entire time,” he said. “I think over six weeks Day Dream had 1 time fault, and that was entirely my fault, and Brave Heart had one rail all circuit, again, probably my fault. I always say that you’re only as good as your horses, and mine make me look really good!”

Mollie Bailey