What do you do when someone makes a negative comment about your horse or pony’s suitability for a sport in which you hope to compete? If you’re 13-year-old Gina Pansari, you turn that comment into a show name.      

“This lady at our old barn said, ‘Morgans can’t jump,’ ” Pansari said. “So when we found out that he actually could jump pretty awesomely, we made his name Morgans Can’t Jump.”

Pansari has spent the past two years working with her Morgan pony, “Bravo,” to teach him how to jump. Pansari has been riding since she was 9, but she started out taking lessons and competing with a saddle seat barn riding gaited horses in breed shows. That’s how Pansari first met Bravo (Mi Black Ice—LPS Last Dance, Born to Boogie) three years ago.  

“We were trying to see if he would be a good match to show saddle seat,” Pansari said. Bravo had been broke to ride and drive and competed in Morgan competitions under the name Fieldcrest Bravo as a 4- and 5-year-old. “We found out he wasn’t going to be a good match for me in saddle seat, because he’s too fast. He was just so excited to do everything and so fast.”

Gina Pansari riding Morgans Can’t Jump in saddle seat in their early days together. 

Even though Bravo wasn’t suitable for Morgan competitions, Pansari didn’t want to look for a different horse or sell him—he was her Christmas present, and Pansari had grown rather fond of his personality.  

“I really loved him; he was my favorite horse ever because he’s so sweet; he’s amazing,” Pansari said.

Morgans Can’t Jump—then named Fieldcrest Bravo—was a Christmas present for Gina Pansari.

So Bravo went out to pasture, and Pansari continued riding saddle seat on different horses around the barn for two years.      

“I eventually got a little bored with saddle seat, so I asked my parents if I could move Bravo [to a different barn] and try jumping,” Pansari explained.

Pansari had gone to a horse summer camp where riders got to try jumping small crossrails, and she thought she’d try her hand at the discipline. Her parents found a show jumping stable near their home in Whitehouse Station, N.J.—professional Heather Rufolo’s Stone Hill Stables.

“We brought him there, and my trainer Heather Rufolo would ride him around, and she said he was just crazy. He was so fast; he could barely walk in the beginning,” Pansari said with a laugh. “So she took a few months to get him to calm down, and when he did I would ride him, and she would help me train him.

“I did a lot of flatwork, a lot of getting him off the leg, and we had to break the gait, because he was gaited,” Rufolo said. “He had almost like a Standardbred kind of thing. it’s a very fast trot, kind of pacey.”

After Rufolo got Bravo’s flatwork solid, she started introducing ground poles to the mix, and that’s when she found out Bravo had some serious hops. 

“Where he came from they didn’t have obstacles or poles; they didn’t have anything in the ring,” Rufolo said. “He just started jumping the poles, and he was jumping them four feet in the air, and that’s when we were like, ‘Uh, this is a little freak of nature pony.’ We would try so hard to get him to just trot, and he would just jump and jump.”

So Rufolo gave him something to jump—Pansari got on the pony, and they set up a crossrail.

“We tried a crossrail, and he just over-jumped it by so much it was insane. He loved to jump,” Pansari said. “So we kept going and kept jumping, and after a few months, I think it was in the second month, he jumped three foot already.”

Pansari started going to shows with Rufolo last year and entering different crossrail classes just to get Bravo experience with the show environment. This year has been their first competing at the rated show level—they started in January in the .85-meter classes and are now contending the low and high children’s jumper and pony jumper classes.

Gina Pansari and Morgans Can’t Jump showing this summer.

In July Pansari and Bravo placed second in two low children’s jumper classes at HITS on the Hudson (N.Y.), proving Bravo’s show name wrong one class at a time.  

“Every show we go to people stop us and go, ‘Oh my God, this Morgan is something else,’ ” Rufolo said.  

What is equally remarkable to Bravo’s rapid progression in the jumper ring is Pansari’s—all of her competitive jumping experience has been with Bravo, so they’ve both progressed from ground poles to 1.15-meter fences in a year. Pansari and Bravo finished their show year in November with ribbons in the pony jumpers and the high children’s jumpers—including in the WIHS/NAL Classic—at CJL Inc. Horse Shows (N.J.).

“She really works so hard with him. She rides him every day, and she takes two lessons a week,” Rufolo said. “When she sets her mind to something, there’s no stopping her, and they just came together so great.”

“I ride every day that it’s not raining, because we only have an outdoor,” Pansari said. “Which makes it tough in the winter, but we manage. When it snows the owner of the property plows the ring for us, so we can still ride.”

Ask Pansari what her plans are for Bravo, and you’ll get a road map for the next five years—this teen doesn’t think short term. With no end to Bravo’s scope in sight (Rufolo said Pansari jumped a 5’2” fence to win the barn’s high jump contest this year), Pansari is dreaming big. 

“In 2019 I actually made a goal to get on the [North American Junior and Young Rider Championships team]. That’s like 4’6”, and I really want to do that [with Bravo]. So that’s my 2019 goal,” Pansari said. “And my goal for next year is to start doing the pony jumpers and to make it to Kentucky [for USEF Pony Jumper Finals]. I really want to go to Kentucky; that would be so fun.

“And after [NAJYRC], maybe a grand prix if he really wants to, we can try!” Pansari said eagerly. “I’d like to get a horse someday to, but I’d like to keep Bravo.” 

Gina Pansari and Morgans Can’t Jump.