On paper it’s a completely unremarkable result. Professional trainer Jenn Simmons, who has ridden around three-star tracks and developed multiple horses to the advanced level, piloted a horse to a bottom-of-the-pack score while competing at beginner novice at Sporting Days Farm Horse Trials II (S.C.) on March 1.

There was no ribbon attached to that result, for sure, especially since Simmons was competing hors concours. But a post she made on her Facebook page that evening showed just how intensely special Shannondale McGyver’s performance had been for her.

“He is a horse so eager to please, despite being worried beyond belief, and scared of his own shadow,” Simmons wrote. “To say he’s been a journey the last year is an understatement. To have a horse totally trust you when he’s scared to death is completely priceless, and what makes the day so special. Because this horse is special, and sometimes a horse like this just needs one person to think they are before they start to believe it. Thank you Shannondale McGyver for a great day with a great horse. Great things await you.”

He’s Sharp

Simmons, who is based in Delaplane, Va., but spending the winter in Aiken, S.C., bought Shannondale McGyver, then 4, last winter from his breeder after just seeing a video online. She left the gelding in Ireland to be broken, sending him to a trainer.

But eventually she got the inkling that it wasn’t going well. “I was far away, but you know, you learn to pick up on things when you’re talking with people,” Simmons said. “The guy who broke him was a bit quiet about the horse; I would have liked a bit more information about how the horse was doing. I made plans to ship him here after three months and he kept delaying it. When I asked him why, he said to me, ‘I’ve taken him to some shows and I just can’t get him to settle. He’s a little sharp.’

“I laughed and said, ‘Well, he’s 4, so that’s OK.’ He told me he’s really spooky and allergic to the jumps, but he’s tricky. I said ‘That’s fine, just put him on a plane.’

“Then he said to me, and I remember it loud and clear because it explained everything, ‘You can ride this horse all day and you’ll never get to the bottom of him.’ And I thought to myself, ‘OK, you know that because you’ve tried it.’”

McGyver arrived in Virginia in May and got off to an inauspicious start with Simmons. He was difficult for the shippers and then jumped out of a rehab paddock the first day he was turned out. It was obvious McGyver wasn’t a sedate soul.

And while Simmons is no stranger to difficult horses and has been a professional for decades, even she was a bit taken aback by McGyver under saddle. “I’m smart enough, I know how to keep myself out of trouble, but I had some moments when I thought to myself, ‘You might be in over your head with this one.’ I haven’t had that feeling about a horse in a long time,” she said.

“I told a few people, ‘I just get the feeling that he could hurt me.’ He’s very sweet and genuine, there’s not a stubborn or aggressive side to him. I didn’t think he would intentionally hurt me, but he’s so sharp and so worried. When they’re like that, sometimes they just quit thinking. When horses don’t think, that’s when bad things happen. So, I did think that, but it was just a couple of moments when I was riding him that it crept into my mind,” Simmons said. She did get bucked off McGyver, as did her groom.

She didn’t have much time to get McGyver going under saddle, though, because every now and then she’d feel him take an off step. It took a while to diagnose him, but her vet discovered via an MRI that he’d strained the impar ligament, which connects the navicular bone to the coffin bone, in both front feet.

“I’d never heard of an impar ligament injury before, but I know about them now! My vet told me that a 4-year-old should never have that injury,” she said. “It probably happened when he got ridden for a whole day trying to get to the bottom of him.”

McGyver got six months off to recover, and by the time Simmons was ready to get back on him this winter, they were in their winter home of Stable View Farm in Aiken.

Dude, You’re OK

“When he came back into work, I just went super slow. He spent some time on the rope and I roped him over some little jumps. We started with cavaletti and I got bucked off a few times,” Simmons said.

“But we’ve gotten him into work here in Aiken where it’s bustling and busy. There are a lot of people riding and traffic in the ring. I was quite worried about him in that kind of environment, so we were really careful. First we rode him in the ring at times when no one else would be in there, or at least no one jumping. He’d have moments when he’d check out and panic. But he progressed, and he could work with a few people riding, and then he stood outside when people were jumping in the ring. Then he could stand inside the ring while people were jumping jumps. He got better and better about everything.

“He’s one of those horses where the more you’re like, ‘Dude, you’re OK, you’re good’ and pat him on the neck, the more he relaxes. He’s starting to believe me when I tell him he’s OK.”

By the end of February, McGyver had jumped a few small courses and been cross-country schooling twice. Simmons wasn’t planning to take him to an event anytime soon, but when a student’s horse came up lame a few days before Sporting Days, she didn’t want the entry to go to waste. Event secretary Mary Coldren fit her and McGyver into a beginner novice rider division riding hors councours.

“I told her, ‘Mary, this horse is wild. He might do the dressage, but if he loses it, he won’t. If I get the dressage done, I might go check out show jumping.’”

Simmons fully expected to just ride McGyver’s dressage test and be done, avoiding the hectic warm-up of the jumping phases. “He’s funny about noise and horses cantering past him. I wasn’t sure. A horse trials is a lot of atmosphere,” she said. “But he was unbelievable. He didn’t put a foot wrong.

“I figured I’d just give the jumping a go. He had 9 time faults in show jumping because he trotted most of the jumps and the he cantered and trotted around the cross-country. He was as good as gold,” Simmons said.

Jenn Simmons on Shannondale McGyver on cross-country at Sport Days. Photo by GRC Photography

“I just kept rubbing him on the neck and telling him he was awesome and I could feel him say, ‘Really? OK, let’s go.’ All the things we do with our horses and the places we’ve gone and the levels we accomplish, and then you just have those moments when you think, ‘This is totally why I do this.’ It is so completely about the partnership at whatever level you’re doing it,” she continued.

Simmons was so excited about McGyver’s performance that she called his breeder that night to report on his progress. “I told him, ‘Today was the best day ever. That’s such a phenomenal little horse. He has a heart of gold. He needs some time and some patience, but he’s going to be a great horse.’ And he was beside himself. But yeah, I was excited enough that I felt like I needed to pick up the phone and call the person who had brought that horse into the world,” she said.

Simmons noted that McGyver seemed quite proud of himself the day after his eventing debut. “He was all smiles on Monday around the farm. I caught him resting his chin on the ledge around his stall, snoozing. I think he does know how good he was. When we got back to the trailer after cross-country I stuffed him full of treats, but it’s more than that. I definitely think he knows,” she said.

TIP FROM JENN:

“It’s really important when you’re teaching young horses to be their friend. You can be the alpha, but in a way that they learn that you’re the one that will keep them out of trouble and show them the ropes. And it’s going to be fun while we’re doing it.

“Then they get to the point where they have the tools in their toolbox and you can say, ‘OK, show me your stuff.’ You have to give your horse enough skills so that you know that when you test them, they’re going to be successful. I never test my horses in any kind of way when I think there’s a chance they’ll fail. I make sure that however I question them, if they make a mistake it’ll be one they learn from, not one that scares them. You have to be very careful about what kind of questions you ask and how you ask them with the end goal to be that the horse is successful.” – Jenn Simmons