Kirsten Coe, of Katonah, N.Y., was a busy rider on Tuesday at the Capital Challenge Horse Show, piloting five horses in the second year green division alone.  Coming out on top was Heartfelt, who accrued 29 points and earned the championship, leaving the reserve to John French and Andiamo with 24 points. 
     Coe went into the final jumping class knowing that Heartfelt had a chance to collect the tricolor but tried to put that out of her mind. She said “It was going to work out the way it was going to work out, and I just had to put in some nice rounds.”
     Coe was relieved when the division was over.  She said, “I’m just glad that all the horses went well, especially him.”
      Coe has been showing the 9-year-old gelding since May and knows how she has to ride him to get the most out of him.  She said, “I always have to take my time on the entrance, and I have to be very calm.  He does it very easily, and I just have to make sure I’m taking my time.”
      Heartfelt is owned by Laura King Kaplan and shown by Kaplan in the amateur-owner division.
     Pleased with her day Coe said, “He’s off to a wonderful indoor start.”   
     The battle for the regular working hunter champion came down to the final over fences class.  When Liza Boyd, 28, of Camden, S.C., posted an 87 to win the stake class aboard Brunello, it secured the championship.
     Boyd knew that the final round was the deciding factor and enjoyed the competition. She said, “I think that kind of pressure makes everyone ride better because you just grit your teeth and go for it.”
     Boyd couldn’t be more positive about Brunello. She said, “He’s such a super horse, he’d go any way you want. All you have to do is leg him, kick and drop and he just fires.”
     She likes to keep him happy, which in turn keeps him at peak performance. Before showing she took him out in the field and trotted around. She said, “I just tried to keep him happy. He knows his job. My main thing is just to stay out of his way.”
     Brunello came to the United States last January after Boyd’s father and brother, Jack and Hardin Towell, went to Belgium and tried the 10-year-old gelding.  Boyd said, “He was supposed to be Hardin’s horse.  He tried him and came home and he said, ‘This is the most amazing horse ever.’ I said, ‘Hmmm’. I let him ride him the first day, and I said, ‘Yeah, you’re right.’ And so I just conveniently took the ride over.”
     Boyd started showing Brunello in the first years in Wellington, Fla., and by May had moved him up to the regular working division.  She said, “He has so much scope and so much jump that it seemed fun. We tried it one time, and he was so good that we said let’s just stay here.”
     The Capital Challenge championship is Brunello’s biggest win. Boyd explained that despite the gelding’s talent it took some time for him to settle in to his new job as a hunter in this country.  She said, “It took him a little while to learn the hunter style.  This August in Blowing Rock [N.C.] it all clicked. He was second in a $25,000 Hunter Classic there.  He just understood his new life. He goes smoother. I think he’s really happy.”
     Brunello also shows in the amateur-owner, 36 and over, division with owner Caroline Clark Morrison.