When Will Faudree is asked to describe the personality of his five-star partner Mama’s Magic Way, his answer is instantaneous: “He’s like a 3-year-old little boy on a sugar high at Disney World that’s gotten away from his parents and is applying for a job there.”

Another apt description for the 14-year-old gelding? “He’s like one of Boyd Martin’s children.”

“Left unsupervised, you’ll find him on the roof of a building,” adds groom Christina Curiale. “He’s a sweetheart though; he loves to snuggle.”

“There’s not a malicious bone in his body,” Faudree notes.

Now that we know “Mason” would be a fan of Disney World, the next most important question is clearly: What would be his favorite ride?

“Oh, Splash Mountain. He would be all about Splash Mountain, or that other roller coaster where it’s all in the dark [Space Mountain]. He would like that,” Faudree says. “But then he would like to go in It’s A Small World and then sing that on repeat for seven days and annoy everybody. He would like Splash Mountain and It’s A Small World, and he would probably go back and forth, back and forth. He wouldn’t need anything else.”

While Mason can be like a small child trapped in a horse’s body, he’s also superbly talented. The Hanoverian (Mighty Magic—Straightaway, Star Regent) was bred and produced in Germany by amateur rider Mareike Leers-Schreiber. She sent him to German Olympian Andreas Dibowski, who brought him to the three-star level. Faudree tried him the Monday after Fair Hill (Maryland) in 2018, and Jennifer Mosing and Sterling Silver Stables purchased the gelding for him. Since then Mason has been in the top 15 at the Land Rover Kentucky CCI5*-L twice, was 16^th at Burghley CCI5*-L (England) and completed the Badminton CCI5*-L. Last spring he was second in the Tryon International CCI4*-L (North Carolina).

We caught up with Faudree and Curiale to learn more about Mason, who, in Curiale’s words, is “just excited about life all the time.”

• Mason has never met a stranger.

“If he’s not getting attention, he’ll grab his halter and just spin it around,” Faudree says. “And if people walk by, he’ll spin it around and throw it at them. He just loves to be cuddled. He’s a little bit like me in the regard, where it’s like, ‘All right where are we going? What are we doing?’ ”

• “He [marches] to his own drum,” Faudree says. “We all live in Mason’s world. It depends on how many voices are in his head on certain days, depending on what sort of mood he’s going to be in. You never look at him and think, ‘Oh God, he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.’ ”

• While you can spot Mason napping out in the field occasionally, that’s not his MO. His paddock is perfectly situated by Faudree’s jump arena, which gives the gelding a great vantage point for watching Faudree teach lessons.

“He watches everything, and he could probably teach a pretty good lesson,” Faudree says.

• He’s stalled next to another of Faudree’s five-star horses, Pfun, and while “Ted’s” just trying to take a nap, Mason will be nipping at him the entire time.

“It’s like that cartoon [“Family Guy”], ‘Mom, mom, mom, mom,’ ” Faudree says.

• Mason likes to put his mouth on people—a lot—especially when Curiale is trying to put on his blanket. It’s never a true bite but a constant motion, which Faudree likens to the scene in “Finding Nemo” where Dory is chasing a light from the anglerfish: “I’m gonna get you! I’m gonna get you!”

• “If there was a six-star, I’m sure he could do it,” Faudree says. “I don’t think my nerves would hold up to a level beyond what we do, but on him I would figure it out. He’s just amazing.”

• He’s a naturally fit horse, so he doesn’t need to have an as intense gallop schedule as some other upper-level event horses. It wasn’t until they were gearing up for Burghley—his fifth five-star—that Faudree started galloping him more frequently.

• He’s the type that comes off an 11-minute cross-country course and is sad it’s over.

“Mason’s certainly not tired when he finishes, and I have to then untack him and do him off, and he’s like, ‘WHY ARE WE STOPPING?’ ” Curiale says.

But once you get him in his ice boots, he’s good. For those 20 minutes, he’s perfectly content. But he also knows when he’s done and will take himself out of the boots if a human doesn’t get there first. And while he’s usually pretty careful, sometimes he’ll knock them over, so Curiale has to be quick to catch them.

• Mason wears Soft Ride hoof boots when standing on the trailer because he is a master of pulling his hind shoes off.

• His breeder still keeps up with him and came to watch when he competed at Burghley in 2023. She came armed with a giant bucket of his favorite German horse cookies, and Mason promptly stuck his entire head in. In Faudree’s barn in Southern Pines, North Carolina, now there’s always a bucket labeled with Mason’s name.

• “You learn something from every horse, and he’s taught me a lot. He’s taught me a lot of patience and to stay on the subject,” Faudree says. “The biggest thing he’s taught me is don’t change the question; wait for the right answer. Give him the opportunity—because he wants to do it so well. If I put my aid on to canter, and he doesn’t, he needs a second. I’ll just sit and wait and let him canter, where some horses I’d put my leg on and be like, ‘Come on’ when they don’t react. So he’s taught me a lot of patience—he’s demanded it—because you can’t tell him that he’s done it wrong.”