In addition to Mark Watring at Twin Rivers, Puerto Rico had an honorary representative on the other side of the country as well on the weekend of Sept. 25-27.

Jonathan Holling has signed up to coach and help prepare an eventing team for Puerto Rico for the 2010 Central American and Caribbean Games.

“The Fédération Equestre Internationale and the U.S. Equestrian Federation have an initiative to send a few four-star riders down to Central American countries and try to get teams put together to compete at the Central American Games next year. I was chosen to go to Puerto Rico, which is a beautiful country with such nice people. Fortunately for me, they all speak English, which makes my job easier,” Holling said.

Puerto Rico will host the 2010 Central American and Caribbean Games in July in the city of Mayagüez. Holling, Ocala, Fla., flies to Puerto Rico once a month to teach and advise. Most Puerto Rican riders compete in show jumping, but a few volunteered to convert to eventing as team prospects.

“I’m really excited about it. Most Puerto Rican riders haven’t even seen an event, much less ridden over a cross-country jump,” Holling said. “But they’re great riders. They have a better eye to a fence than most people, even the very young and less experienced riders.”

At the Poplar Place Horse Trials in Hamilton, Ga., the same weekend as the Twin Rivers event, Holling rode the Puerto Rican horse Apollo in his first event. Apollo and his owner, Michelle Ramira, have signed up to transition from show jumping to eventing in the hopes of competing in the Games, which are run at the one-star level.

Holling rode Apollo at training level. “He was a little wide-eyed at the beginning, but he got better,” Holling said. “He had a great dressage and was great in show jumping, but there were a couple of funny-looking jumps on cross-country, and his eyes just about popped out of his head, so we had some stops. It’s just the kind of stuff that a horse coming out of the show jumping ring doesn’t have any idea about. He was much better by the end of the course.”

Ramira was at Poplar Place watching and stayed the week after to train with Holling. She’ll hopefully make her eventing debut later this fall.

Apollo was one of the few horses Holling didn’t win on at Poplar Place. He took the blue in every division in which he rode, including the CIC** aboard Safdie, the preliminary horse division on Fan Music, and the training horse division on Downtown Harrison.

Holling is in a rebuilding phase after losing his advanced
horses last year. Direct Merger died from a pulmonary hemorrh-age on course in 2008, and Lion King retired after suffering a recurring atrial fibrillation.

“I’ve had to start again from scratch. I’ve got a really good string of nice horses coming up. Three of them are going intermediate, so we’re not too far off, but it takes time to put it all together. I can say it is collectively probably the best group of horses I’ve ever had in my barn,” Holling said.

He bought Safdie this summer from Ruthie Harbison.

“She’s one I have big hopes for to be an international competitor for a long time to come. She’s 8, so by next season the plan is she’d be my advanced horse,” Holling said. “The more you challenge that horse, the better she is. That’s something I really like about her. She’s an exceptionally good jumper and a lovely mover. I don’t normally end up buying mares, but she seemed like she was just tough enough to be a fighter and want to go and do the job.”