Elkton, Md. – Oct. 15   

Jennie Brannigan’s experienced incredible highs and incredible lows at the Dutta Corp. Fair Hill International.

In 2014 she won the CCI*** with Cambalda but in 2009, her top horse Cooper injured himself in show jumping during the CCI*** and was later euthanized due to complications.

Now she’s on top of the CCI** after cross-country with Stella Artois, a special mare with a connection to her past.

Brannigan was in Germany for the Luhmühlen CCI**** a few years ago when she found “Toddie,” who’s nicknamed after her former owner’s connection with Mark Todd.

She thought she’d put together enough money to purchase the Hanoverian mare but when a potential buyer fell through, supporter Elsbeth Battel stepped in to buy half, while Brannigan used the insurance money she received after Cooper’s death to pay for her half.

“She’s quite tall, and she’s a bit exuberant about everything. I don’t really know what the right word for that is, feral maybe?” Brannigan said with a laugh. “She’s a very sweet horse. She’s a bit of a character.”

Jennie Brannigan and Stella Artois. Photo by Lindsay Berreth.

Brannigan, Kennett Square, Pa., and Toddie failed to complete their first CCI** at Jersey Fresh (N.J.) in May when they fell near the end of the course, but other than that blip, the mare is strong across the country according to Brannigan.

“I like to be competitive, but my main goal was to give the horse a good go. I think she is a three-day horse, and she has all the right stuff to be the real deal,” she said. “She’s always been that horse that I feel like is probably one of the most talented horses that I have, but I have yet to have that day where you put it all in on one day.”

Derek di Grazia’s two-star course rode tough, with only nine pairs making the time, including Brannigan and Toddy, who moved up from second after dressage. Of 41 starters, 35 finished. There were two rider falls, Michael Walton and Woodstock Wallaby and Rachel Wilks on River King, but all horses and riders were reported to have walked home.

There were three eliminations, one pair retired and 13 picked up one or more refusals.

“I didn’t even look at my watch the last two minutes. My main focus was just to give the horse a go and just hopefully be as quick as I can. I’m just trying to enjoy the fact that it was a good go for her and a safe day, and whatever happens tomorrow happens,” said Brannigan. “That mare I will say is a very bold horse and very honest. The only problem I’ve ever had on course was when she fell at Jersey at the final combination. For me it’s just about rideability, but it all jumped really well. Everyone was saying the time was going to be harder, and I wasn’t thinking that. I think it was interesting it worked out that way. The whole time I was just thinking, ‘Alright keep your head and don’t do anything stupid.’”

Emily Beshear and Silver Night Lady. Photo by Lindsay Berreth.

Dressage leaders Emily Beshear and Silver Night Lady dropped to second place when they picked up 2.0 time penalties.

“I thought it looked like it was one that was allowing for a lot of galloping,” she said of the course. “You definitely had to make sure you had the communication for the technical jumps. There were plenty of big jumps. I think it proved whether or not a horse was going to be ready to move up to the next level. I think we definitely had pretty perfect ground, so that seemed to make it much easier at the end to keep galloping.”

Beshear’s partnership with “Silvy” is new this year, but she felt they’ve begun to click in the lead up to Fair Hill.

“I didn’t really know what to expect with mine because I’m still getting to know her. I went out and was a little slower than I would liked to have been early on, but was just figuring out some fine tuning, then had a really great go through the majority of the course, then lost quite a bit of control at the end,” she said. “I definitely had to waste time at the end just making sure I kept her on her feet and got her focused on the jumps. I think now I know when she gets tired she just keeps bowling on to things including me, so I’m going to have to keep working on that for the future. It definitely encouraged forward riding. I feel like Derek really set us up to be successful with our forward riding. He gave you approaches that made you set the horse up and balance while you kept going forward.”

For full results, click here.

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The final horse inspection is at 8 a.m. tomorrow, followed by CCI** show jumping at 10:30 a.m. and CCI*** at 1:30 p.m.

Be sure to check out the November 7 issue of the Chronicle for a detailed analysis of Fair Hill.