Remount Produces Horses For Three-Day
Fred Lege III January 16, 1948
The horses that our Olympic Equestrian Team will ride in the 1948 Olympics are not super horses. On the contrary, they are, for the most part, half-Thoroughbred or better. They are the result of careful selection from the U.S. Remount breeding and purchasing program. After they have shown an above-average aptitude for jumping, they are turned over to the Army equestrian team for intensified training. The results are very gratifying, when we realize that the average price the U.S. Remount was permitted to pay for these horses was $165 a head. Some countries pay $10,000 to $30,000 for horses they think will win the Olympics for them. The next most experienced horse will be the 14-year-old Democrat, a Thoroughbred gelding by Gordon Russell out of Princess Bon. He was on the three-day event team in 1940. Since the team was reformed in 1946, Col. Franklin Wing Jr. has shown him in international [show jumping] competition. [The pair finished fourth in 1948, then helped the U.S. win the team bronze in 1952 with Col. John Russell aboard.] [The three-day team won the team gold on former remounts.]

F.E.I. Meeting H. W.
January 4, 1952
A meeting of the Federation Equestre Internationale held in Paris decided on one important question to the United States. After prolonged debate, the F.E.I. ruled in a 13-5 decision that no lady rider will be permitted to ride in the Prix des Nations at the Olympic Games in Helsinki this year. This decision necessitated a change in the U.S. team in so far as Mrs. Carol Durand would not be able to compete. In her place William Steinkraus, up to then the alternate on the team, became a regular member, and Norman Brinker, at present serving with the U.S. Navy, will be the alternate. [The U.S. team won the team bronze, with Steinkraus, who would earn the first U.S. individual equestrian gold 18 years later, producing the best American results. Marjorie Haines was permitted to ride on the U.S. dressage team, but no woman rode on the U.S. show jumping team until Kathy Kusner and Mary Mairs contributed to a sixth-placed finish in 1964. Lana du Pont Wright became the first woman to ride in the Olympic three-day event in 1964.]

U.S. Equestrian Team Training U.S.E.T. Correspondent
February 12, 1960
W hile nine of the veteran horses of the U.S. Equestrian Team’s Prix des Nations squad are enjoying a well-deserved rest in Tryon, N.C., coach Bertalan de Nemethy has opened his 1960 training campaign with 10 of the younger prospects at the Boulder Brook Club in Scarsdale, N.Y. The vacationing jumpers include Miss Eleo Sears’ capable pair, Ksar d’Esprit and Diamant, Miss Joan Maid’s First Boy, Mrs. W. J. Barney’s Master William, Hugh Wiley’s Nautical, Mrs. John Galvin’s Night Owl, Mr. and Mrs. Bernie Mann’s Riviera Wonder, Miss Ellen Dineen’s Sinjon and the team’s own Trail Guide. Mary Litchfield and Kathy Kusner are working daily in the big indoor arena at Boulder Brook. The Three-Day Center is also in full operation in the somewhat more salubrious climate of Ranch San Fernando Rey, Santa Barbara, Cal. Here under the direction of manager Richard Collins and trainer Erich Bubbel, seven riders and an extremely promising squad of horses are hard at work. Heading the riders’ group is team captain Walter Staley Jr., joined by Michael Page and Michael Plumb. The trio is augmented by J.E.B. Wofford, Ernie Simard, David Lurie and Chan Turnley. During the May-June period, present plans call for tryouts from which a maximum of four riders and eight horses may be selected for participation in the Olympics.

U.S. Equestrian Team Plans
February 24, 1964
At the annual meeting of the U.S. Equestrian Team, Inc., President Whitney Stone discussed plans for 1964 as follows: Prize of Nations–tryouts for ’64 Olympic squad to be held at Gladstone, May 19-23. About the end of June, the squad will depart to participate in several shows in preparation for the Games. The team to ride in the Games will be selected following this tour. Three Day–A group of horses and riders will train at Camden, S.C., from the end of January until the middle of April. Tryouts for the Olympic squad will be held at Gladstone, N.J., June 5-7. About July 1, the selected squad will resume training at Gladstone and the Olympic team will be selected in September. Dressage–The date for the Olympic tryout has not been determined; however, consideration is being given to conducting it at Gladstone the end of August or early September.

U.S.E.T. Three-Day Squad Will Compete At Badminton
March 15, 1968
Four riders and five horses from our three-day squad will be sent to England about the middle of March to compete at the Badminton Three-Day Event in April. They will also compete in the preliminary events including Crookham, Liphook and Kinlett. The riders selected are Michael Plumb, Michael Page, Rick Eckhardt and Mason Phelps. Five horses will be taken from among the following probables: Foster, Gladstone, Bean Platter, Johnny O, Plain Sailing, Thunder Road. These will be stabled with Mrs. Alan Oliver in Berkshire. Other riders, candidates for our Olympic team, are already in England, and will also be competing at Badminton. These include Charlotte Robson, who recently bought Royal Imp from the Team; Sally Lord with Evening Mail; William Haggard with Chilean, and Evie Thorndike. Jim Wofford will send over his Kilkenny with which he will also compete. [The U.S. team won the silver in washout conditions at Mexico City, and young Wofford, competing in his first Olympics, would have won the individual gold had Kilkenny not slipped and fallen on the rain-sodden show jumping course.]

U.S.E.T. Three Day Olympic Squad
March 31, 1972
The U. S. Equestrian Team’s three-day squad left for Europe and five months of pre-Olympic training on March 29. Five riders, Coach Jack Le Goff and 14 horses boarded the chartered airliner at Kennedy Airport in New York. The riders include three with Olympic experience–Mike Plumb of Chesapeake City, Md., Kevin Freeman of Portland, Ore., and Jim Wofford of Leesburg, Va., and two newcomers, James Powers of Dover, Mass., and Bruce Davidson of South Westport, Mass. The two newcomers are both 22 years old. Both are products of U.S.E.T. screening trials and have been working under Le Goff for a year. “We will be training in Hampshire in the south of England,” Le Goff said. “During July, when the spring season has ended, we plan to concentrate on dressage and jumping at our training base.” All five riders will go to the Olympics, but with only six of the horses. “Right now our top horses are Johnny O, Foster, Kilkenny, Plain Sailing, and Good Mixture,” said Le Goff. U.S.E.T. President Whitney Stone explained that the team left so far in advance of the Olympics because of an embargo on U.S. horses after March 30 because of last year’s Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis outbreak. [Le Goff’s first U.S. team earned the silver, led by Freeman, who placed fifth, at the Munich Olympics marred by the kid- napping and murder of members of the Israeli team.]

Olympic Dressage Candidates
May 21, 1976
Training and evaluation sessions for the dressage candidates for the Olympics have recently been conducted at Gladstone, N.J., under the supervision of dressage coach Col. Bengt Ljungquist. The Colonel also conducted a session in California. Attending the session at Gladstone were Alexsandra Howard, Cindy Mikolka, Linda Zang, Linda Jaskiel and Anne Gribbons. Dorothy Morkis, Sally Winter, Elizabeth Lewis, Nancy Harris, Carole Grant and Kay Meredith were at the second Gladstone training session, and Col. Ljungquist worked with Hilda Gurney, Kyra Downtown, Janet Garbed and Laurie Salvo in California. The Dressage Selection Trials will be held at Gladstone in June, after which a short list of horses and riders will go into final training. The panel of judges will be Col. Alexander Sommer of Denmark, Col. Donald Thackeray, Lt. Col. Hans Moeller, Jack Le Goff and Jessica Ransehousen. [The U.S. dressage team won the bronze, the team’s first dressage medal since 1932.]

On The Road To Los Angeles
Molly Bliss April 20, 1984
Although dressage, three-day eventing and show jumping are separate Olympic sports with different techniques and training requirements, instruction from an expert outside one’s own discipline can be an enlightening experience. One person who realizes that is USET three-day coach Jack Le Goff, who, in order to better prepare the riders long-listed for the Olympics, invited former Olympic show jumper George Morris to work with eight riders at the team’s final training session in late March. Prior to Morris’ appearance in the Southern Pines, N. C., training session, Le Goff had spent two weeks working with Mike Plumb, Karen Stives, Karen Reuter, Mike Huber, and Derek di Grazia. Torrance Fleischmann, Peter Green and Jimmy Wofford joined the group for the Morris session. Le Goff stressed that the three training sessions held this winter would not determine who will ride in the Olympics. “The performance is most important in the upcoming trials,” he said. [Los Angeles, in which the U.S. three-day riders captured the team gold medal, with Karen Stives earning the individual silver, climaxed Le Goff’s illustrious 13-year career with the U.S. Equestrian Team.]