Beezie Madden laughed when she remembered Leslie Wexner telling her about his travel plans to the 2006 FEI World Equestrian Games. He planned to watch Madden ride his wife, Abigail’s, horse Authentic in Aachen, Germany. “But he’d booked tickets only for Saturday and Sunday [the individual final rounds]. We warned him, ‘You know you have to qualify for those days.’

“And he just said, ‘Yep, I know. See you Saturday and Sunday,’ ” Madden recalled.

That’s the kind of faith that Authentic inspires in his connections. And he didn’t disappoint, carrying Madden to the WEG team and individual silver medals.

“There’s not a class that I go into with that horse that I don’t believe I have a chance to win,” Madden said. “When he feels good–which he almost always does–you don’t anticipate any problems, and that makes my job a lot easier.”

When John and Beezie Madden first bought Authentic as a 6-year-old, they dreamed of top international performances in his future. They backed up those dreams with patient, logical training and strategic planning of his show schedule. But in the unpredictable world that is training and competing horses, it’s rare that a plan works to perfection. That’s why John and Beezie were thrilled that Authentic followed the plan and came home from the 2004 Athens Olympics with team gold. Little did they know that Authentic would do everything right yet again at the 2006 WEG.

The Maddens tend to downplay their contribution to Authentic’s successes. “It’s nice to think that we had something to do with it, but he just gives you a lot of good chances,” John said.

“He teaches you a lot about letting a good horse be a good horse and not messing him up,” Beezie added. “You realize just how lucky you are to have a horse like that, when you look back on his career.”

And while Authentic has helped Beezie realize medal dreams she’s harbored for decades, the Maddens see into the future too. “I hope that things like the Olympic Games–where I thought he was fantastic–and the World Games, become just part of his career, not all of it,” said John. “We didn’t want to be second at the World Championships at the expense of the horse’s future. We want all that success to be part of more, of a big career.”

But a major part of Authentic’s success is the rapport Beezie has with him. “I saw Authentic as a green horse, and I thought he was an American Thoroughbred,” recalled U.S. Chef d’Equipe George Morris. “He’s a very delicate horse, and very careful. He’s too sensitive to have been in the wrong hands. Beezie holds his hand in just the right way.”

John and Beezie planned Authentic’s 2006 carefully, with the WEG in August their ultimate goal. “Basically, all year, we tried to prepare him for all the rounds of the WEG. Beezie tried to practice winning the first class, and then maintaining that consistency through the week. That’s difficult, but he lets you do that because he’s got a great temperament,” John said.

The Maddens created a “mini-WEG” for Authentic during the Spruce Meadows (Alta.) summer show series in July. They showed him in multiple classes over two weeks, and Authentic finished the intensive 10 days by winning the $176,698 ATCO Power Queen Elizabeth II Cup for the second consecutive time. “That gave us a lot of confidence going into the WEG,” John said.

The practice paid off, as Beezie and Authentic topped the world on the first day of WEG competition, blazing to the win in the speed leg of the competition. They backed that up with a double-clear performance in the Nations Cup, helping the U.S. team to the silver medal. A single toe in the water in the first round of the individual competition, followed up with yet another clear round, put Beezie and Authentic on top of the individual standings after five grueling rounds over the world’s most imposing courses.

And in John’s mind, that performance stands out. “That’s what we really train for–the relationship between the horse and rider, over really big fences and tough courses. That part couldn’t have gone any better,” he said.

But in the individual final, the top four riders after the individual competition all trade horses and ride a round on each. Neither Beezie nor Authentic put a foot wrong. The individual medals came down to a jump-off between Beezie, Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum and Jos Lansink, all on their own horses. Going last, Beezie and Authentic were on their way to gold, but the game bay gelding tipped a toe to the front rail of the final oxer, dropping them to the silver medal behind Lansink. Beezie is philosophical about the dramatic mistake. “I don’t think I would have done anything different there. Normally, he would have sailed right over it,” she said.

“When he and Beezie had the last fence down, you kind of had to say to yourself, ‘What more did you want out of him?’ You can’t hold that against him in any way,” John said. “He got a little ahead of himself. He’s so smart–he’d already jumped it four times, and he knew it was the last jump.”

That one mistake made little difference to Beezie’s enjoyment of the moment. “It was very exciting–almost more so now, looking back on it. At the moment, you’re kind of wound, concentrating on what you have to do to win a medal. But when you look back on it, you realize all over again just how hard it was to do,” she said. “And to do it on a horse we’ve brought along from the beginning was very special. We’ve had him since he was 6, and he’s been a fun horse his whole life. He’s fast, he’s careful, and he’s scopey. You always have a chance to win on him.”


Personal Profile
Description: Bay, gelding, 12, Dutch Warmblood (Guidam–Gerlinda, Katell), bred by G.H. Morsink, the Netherlands.

Nickname: Bud.

Home: John Madden Sales in Cazenovia, N.Y.

Owner: Abigail Wexner, New Albany, Ohio.

Biggest Strength: “His brain,” said John Madden. “He has it all figured out. I’ve had just a couple of horses in my life who seem to understand the game, and he’s definitely one of them. He doesn’t clear the jumps because he’s scared, or because he’s afraid to hurt his legs. He doesn’t hit a lot of fences because somehow he understands that he’s not supposed to knock them down.”

His Ride: “To me, he’s pretty easy to ride,” said Beezie Madden. “He pulls a little, or he pulls a little more. It’s not really complicated. Now, he’s more mature. He can go right into a big class a lot fresher than he used to.”


2006 Competitive highlights
Farnam/Platform USEF Horse of the Year
Team and Individual silver–FEI World Equestrian Games (Germany)
2nd�Samsung Super League Nations Cup, Aachen, Germany (0-ret.)
3rd�Samsung Super League Nations Cup Final, Barcelona, Spain (16-0)
2nd�CN Nations Cup, Wellington, Fla. (4-0)
1st�$176,698 ATCO Power Queen Elizabeth II Cup (Canada)
1st�$25,000 WEF Challenge Cup Round IV (Fla.)
1st�$25,000 WEF Challenge Cup Round VI (Fla.)
3rd�$75,000 Bainbridge Idle Dice Classic (Fla.)
4th�$118,510 Longines Grand Prix of Barcelona (Spain)
6th�$200,000 Budweiser American Invitational (Fla.)


Molly Sorge