It all started when a fellow eventer told Todd Trewin, “I need an FEI buddy.”

Trewin, 66, who was on the U.S. eventing team for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, last competed at the international level in 1995, running the Kentucky Three-Day Event aboard his Olympic partner, the New Zealand Thoroughbred Sandscript. Last weekend—three decades later—he returned to the FEI level with a splash when he topped a field of 19 to win the CCI2*-S division at the June Aspen Farms Horse Trials, held June 14-16 in Yelm, Washington.

Trewin and Cooley High Society finished on their dressage score of 30.3. They started the weekend in fourth, and added nothing to that score with a clean show jumping round on Saturday. 

On Sunday, after a clean cross-country run on the horse Trewin calls “Newton” and his wife Tracey Trewin, who owns the horse, refers to as “Newt” (after Newt Scamander from the Harry Potter universe), Todd headed back to the barn and was trying to pry ice out of the freezer for the Irish Sport Horse (Rehy High Society—Forans Sunny Hogan) when he found out he had moved up into first. 

“Everybody just assumed he had held fourth,” Tracey recalled with a laugh. She told him, “Oh my God, you won.” 

Todd called Morgan Rowsell’s cross-country “quite a stiff course” and praised the excellent footing at the popular Pacific Northwest venue, which also ran its first CCI4*-S last weekend.

The couple purchased Newt, now 10, for Tracey as a 5-year-old. Kelly Prather had imported the “chunky” chestnut, and he had only two events under his belt when Tracey went to try him in Florida. 

“We had tried like 16 horses, and he was on the second day,” Tracey said. As soon as she jumped him, she told Todd, “I’m pretty sure he’s my horse.” 

Watching Todd get on and jump him over a “big prelim table,” Tracey asked Prather, “Has he jumped that before?”

“No,” Prather replied, “but I guess he can.”

Newt is now a barn favorite at the Trewins’ Rimrock Equestrian in Fall City, Washington. “We call him our golden retriever,” Todd said. 

Tracey competed the horse through novice, but Todd took over the ride in 2021 when it became clear that as Newt (now 16.3 hands) got wider and taller, he was not as suitable for her to ride on cross-country. (It was not— despite what Todd likes to tell people, Tracey said with a laugh—because the horse bucked. Aside from kicking up his heels in excitement over fences in the cross-country warm-up, Newt had already stopped that.)

It’s been 30 years since Todd has competed at the FEI level. After the 1992 Games, he continued competing Sandscript until 1995, when the horse semi-retired to teach his lower level students and Todd switched his focus to training. 

“His focus has definitely been on developing his clients and their horses,” Tracey said. “He loves to teach people at all levels and see both horses and riders grow and improve.”

In addition to competing and training through the couple’s business, Todd is the president of the board of the Washington State Horse Park, a nonprofit near Cle Elum, Washington, that he’s served on the board of for nearly 20 years. The horse park hosts horse trials, hunter/jumper shows, western competitions, driving and more and is something he’s been working on since he competed in the Olympics, he said, testifying before the state legislature in the early 1990s about the recreational, competitive and tourist opportunities a horse park would bring. 

With Todd in the irons, Newt moved up to training and then preliminary level. Todd and Tracey say riding with Todd’s fellow 1992 Olympian, Erik Duvander, who teaches clinics in Washington, has been a key to Newton’s development. 

“After all this time, you never stop learning in this sport,” Todd said of his rides with Duvander.

Todd also praised his work with dressage trainer Debbie Dewitt, who he says helped get Newton more up in front. “He doesn’t want to work that hard, let’s put it that way,” Todd said, laughing.

For Todd, who last rode internationally on a Thoroughbred, bringing out the best in his quirky Irish partner has been part of the process.

“The thing that’s been the coolest,” Tracey said of watching Newton and Todd’s partnership develop, is that for many years Todd “just didn’t make it a priority” to bring along a horse of his own.

“I think that what’s been fun for me is there is a whole generation of riders who have never seen him ride cross-country. And he has groupies now,” she added, recalling a group of teenagers she heard gushing over seeing him ride at Aspen Farms.

And although Todd and Newt had already worked their way up to the preliminary level when Rachel Brickman joined the team at Rimrock last fall, she was the one who pushed him to consider entering Newt in a CCI2* when told him she needed an “FEI buddy.” It was perfect timing, as Todd and Newt were winning at the preliminary level and wanted a new challenge, but he worried intermediate might be too big of an ask for the horse.

Soon Tracey and Todd found themselves rushing to renew Newton’s expired FEI passport. “This better be fun,” Tracey said as they got everything together for Todd’s return to the international level. 

When Brickman found out about Todd’s win, she told him, “Way to go, FEI buddy.” 

Todd’s groupies will have a chance to watch him go FEI again, as the duo is aiming for the CCI2*-L at Rebecca Farm (Montana). He will be going with Brickman, who has entered the CCI4*-S on her horse, Finally DG.

“After not doing it for 30 years and going back to it,” Todd said, “it was fun to do.”