You don’t have to be anthropomorphic to believe that Winsome Adante recognizes when he’s at an important competition. He’s excelled in every three-day he’s contested–in fact, he’s been first or second at every one–except for the 2002 World Equestrian Games, where he finished sixth but still contributed to the team gold medal.

Even some of the very best horses in the sport–Custom Made, Molokai, Biko, Dr. Peaches, Ready Teddy–have stopped, fallen, or been eliminated at a major event; that’s just the nature of the sport. Winsome Adante’s freakishly brilliant record over the last five years–without a blemish–defies the odds of an unpredictable game.

“More impressive [than any one win] is how he’s always, consistently there,” said Kim Severson, 30, who brought him from a preliminary horse to a two-time winner of the Rolex Kentucky CCI**** and the Olympic silver medalist in 2004. “That’s more impressive to me than a horse who wins the World Championships or Olympics, and that’s all you hear of them.”

David O’Connor, one of Severson’s teammates in 2002, has watched Winsome Adante and Severson in action for many years. “You’re rubbing your hands together when he and Kim are on a team together beside you. You know he’ll have a good dressage, one of the fastest cross-country rounds, and his show jumping keeps getting better and better,” said O’Connor. “He’s a top-five horse, and if you have one or two of those on your team, you’re going to win gold medals, which is exactly what happened at the WEG.”

But Severson and “Dan’s” owner, Linda Wachtmeister, weren’t sure what they had when they bought the English-bred, bay gelding from Jan and Craig Thompson in 1999. The Thompsons had just imported the horse through respected English horse dealer Susie Pragnell.

“Jan and Craig called to say they had a nice horse and I should come see him,” recalled Severson. “He wasn’t anything mind-blowing, but he seemed nice enough to resell or do whatever he was going to do.”

But things didn’t start out so well for Dan when he first arrived at Plain Dealing Farm, in Scottsville, Va. He started having soundness issues and required surgery on both ankles to remove chips. Since then, though, he’s been uncommonly sound for an upper-level event horse.

Dan contested his first three-day event, the Radnor Hunt CCI** (Pa.), in the fall of 2000. He won that event, and Severson took aim on the Foxhall Cup CCI*** (Ga.) in the spring of 2001. When she finished second there to Karen O’Connor and the venerable Prince Panache, she decided this horse wouldn’t be for sale. “I thought, ‘This could be a really nice horse,’ ” said Severson.

He rewarded her judgment by winning the Blenheim CCI*** (England) five months later. Then, in the spring of 2002, Dan emphatically showed that he was a four-star horse by winning the Rolex Kentucky CCI****. He was a shoe-in for the 2002 World Equestrian Games, and his finish there (with the fastest
cross-country round) would be the highlight of most horse’s careers.

Bad Things Come In Threes

But in 2003, Dan’s fairytale-like career hit the inevitable bad luck that seems endemic to
sport horses. Early that spring, he’d suffered from atrial fibrillation after a gallop. “He had to have his heart shocked back into a normal rhythm,” said Severson.

The fibrillation wasn’t a permanent problem, but Dan didn’t do a three-day that spring, anyway, because Severson broke her leg competing another horse at the Plantation Field Horse Trials (Pa.). She was forced to stay at home instead of defending Dan’s 2002 Rolex Kentucky win.

“We just went into the mode of taking care of Kim’s leg, not thinking about what she’s missing,” said Wachtmeister.

Severson was bravely back aboard in August, in time to win at Over The Walls (Mass.) with Dan, on their way to the Burghley CCI****
(England). But while in England, before he could compete at Burghley, Dan colicked. Royal Venture, Severson’s other mount for Burghley that year, also colicked.

“Someone compared it to winning the lottery twice,” Severson said. “I rode Dan in the morning, and he was fine, then 30 minutes later he was uncomfortable, and then he got very uncomfortable.”

Within 30 minutes of arriving at a veterinary clinic, he was in surgery for an impaction in his small colon. “People talk about horses who’ve had colic surgery, that they don’t come back the same, so you always wonder,” said Severson. “But he didn’t have any of his intestines removed [which may have helped his recovery].”

According to Wachtmeister, no one even worried about Dan’s career at the time. “We just wanted to get him home and get him well,” she said. “Things were looking pretty darn bleak because Royal Venture had colicked too.”

But she saw a silver lining in the missed season. “The horses don’t get a lot of breaks,” she said. “For Dan, he came back even better and stronger. Sometimes I feel that when they’re forced to take time off, it’s actually good for them.”

And no one at Plain Dealing Farm lingered on the string of bad luck in 2003. “When [something bad] happens, it’s hard to believe, but that’s the nature of working with horses,” said Wachtmeister. “Something’s bound to happen. When you’re ready to get back on, you just continue.”
Dan returned home in November and went back to work in December. As 2004 started, Severson wasn’t sure what she could expect from him. But she knew one thing–she didn’t have a single horse qualified for the Olympics.

Comeback

Dan proved he was back to being competitive in 2004 when he finished second in the North Georgia CIC*** (Ga.) in April. But as Severson prepared for Dan’s second trip to Rolex Kentucky, she had an unusual kind of pressure–she had to complete the event in order to be qualified for the Olympics.
“That was the one time I felt pressure,” she admitted.

As she arrived in Kentucky’s 10-minute box, Capt. Mark Phillips told her that the Lexington bank, with two corners on the top, near the end of the course, wasn’t riding well. He instructed her to take the long way there to ensure that she would finish safely.

“That’s part of the reason I was so fast,” she said. “I get a little panicky when someone tells me I have to [take a long route] at the end of the course. Those last few jumps were nerve-wracking.”

By the end of the weekend, Dan had easily won the event for a second time, finishing on his unanimously first-placed dressage score. “It was an amazing thing to win that two years, especially after everything we’d been through,” said Severson.

Of course, that win wasn’t a surprise to most people including Jim Wofford. “There wasn’t any doubt in my mind [that Kim and Dan were] going to win–it was a done deal,” he said. “There’s not many horses you can say that about.”

As the celebrations after Kentucky quieted, Severson focused on her bigger goal for the year–the Olympics. Four years earlier she’d been so close, only to have her 1999 Rolex Kentucky winner, Over The Limit, incur an injury at the last minute. “I’d come to terms [this time] with the fact that I couldn’t make it happen,” said Severson of her trip to Athens. “It was either going to, or it was not.”

In addition to just missing the 2000 Olympics, Severson and Over The Limit had been named to the 1999 Pan Am Games team but had to withdraw just before the horses shipped to Canada.

“We barely got there this time, too. Rolex was our last chance to qualify, and it was coming down to the wire,” said Wachtmeister. “Then we had four horses qualified [after the spring three-days] and three horses on the shortlist. But one after another, they were taken off [the Olympic shortlist]. So to get there with Dan was really special. I kept saying, ‘This may never happen again, so really enjoy it. Don’t take it for granted.’ “

“It’s your lifelong goal, and it’s an amazing thing,” Severson said of her first Olympics. “I couldn’t have asked to have a better horse there.”
By winning the individual silver medal and leading the team to the bronze, Dan proved his place as one of the top horses in the world. “He’s got to be the best cross-country horse in the world, or very close to it,” said Severson.

With all the talk of the eye-catching French horses, who took the team gold medal, Severson pointed out that traditional three-day horses, bred in England or Ireland–gold medalist Shear L’Eau, Winsome Adante, and bronze medalist Primmore’s Pride–still finished as the top three.

“The ones who were first, second and third are the ones who are going to be at Badminton, or wherever, and that means a lot to me, because they would be the top horses at any three-day,” she said. “The top three horses were the best. Quietly, the ones that do well [in eventing] are the ones who still do well [even in the new format].”

Severson concedes that Dan doesn’t have the movement of the French horses or the innate carefulness in show jumping that some horses have. Instead, it’s cross-country, and especially his speed cross-country, that’s his forte.

“His dressage is catching up with his cross-country; he’s getting more trained and stronger,” she said. “I think his show jumping issues come from me. It’s very hard to stay with him when he’s jumping–he jumps so hard, it’s hard to stay off his back so you don’t have rails. We went through a phase where we had rails regularly. As with anything, it’s an ongoing thing to work on.”

In dressage, Severson attributes his obedience to their winning scores. “He doesn’t miss a thing. You can count on him not to have an error, to do everything to the best of his ability,” she said.

Even though Dan isn’t the fastest horse or the most efficient galloper, the cross-country courses, even at the four-star level, just don’t seem to challenge him. “You can ride him at the jumps fast, and he lands faster than he took off, so it’s easy to make time on him,” Severson said. “He wastes very little time to and from the jumps. You can point him at anything, and he’ll go do it.”

Agreed O’Connor, “On cross-country, he’s probably one of the fastest horses away from a fence in the world. He ranks up there with the top horses–Ready Teddy, Custom Made and several of Bruce [Davidson’s] horses.”

Wofford admires the horse’s intelligence and comprehension of the sport. “He understands what he is doing in all three phases, and has the superlative physical capabilites to do it.”

And he has a rider on his back who can put away the pressure of being a favorite, whether she’s at Kentucky, the Olympics or anywhere else. “He’s not a horse you stop and think, ‘That’s the nicest horse.’ He does it because of his heart and Kim’s training,” said O’Connor.

Danimal The Wild Animal

Anyone who spends much time around Severson and Dan knows that he affords her much more respect than he does most people.

“I obviously love the horse more than anything, but when I’m on him, we work,” Severson said. “He doesn’t like me to groom him–I don’t do it right.”
So Lili Bennett, Caroline Goldberg and Molly Hooper tend to Dan’s daily care, at their own risk. “He has a sense of humor, and he can be naughty with the girls,” said Severson. “I’ve heard stories, and I’ve witnessed it.”

Dan lives outside all of the time when he’s at home; he has a field with a run-in shed where he lives year-round, regardless of the weather. So when he’s kept inside at three-days, his grooms try to get him out of his stall as much as possible to preserve his sanity.

Bennett recalled that he was especially cranky by the end of the 2002 WEG. “In the awards, the other horses were tired and quiet. Dan was being an absolute jerk, kicking out, spinning around. I think Mark [Phillips] went to pet him, and he flung his head up and hit him in the chin. I tried to handpick a little grass to keep him quiet, but it wasn’t working. I ended up having to neck twitch him a little to make him stand still. I felt so bad, because he had just won the gold medal, but that’s just the way he is.”

Dan can be a special challenge in the 10-minute box too. “Even when he’s cooling off in the recovery area, he doesn’t seem to believe it’s over,” said Goldberg. “He’s running around and won’t accept too many people, just one person to hold him and two to sponge and scrape. In Athens, I had to tell people over and over, ‘He kicks, he’ll be all over the place, and we can’t have too many people.’ “

When Dan returns to work after having time off, there is always debate among everyone in the barn regarding who has to ride him first. “We call him ‘Danimal the Wild Animal,’ ” said Goldberg with a laugh. “He gets a little out of control.”

Body clipping Dan can be a similar experience. “You have to sedate him if you want to get out alive,” Goldberg said.

But everyone works around Dan’s needs, because he is always business when it matters. “He’s a very smart horse, which is maybe something they need to perform at his level,” said Goldberg. “He loves his job. He gets so excited for cross-country; he just knows when you put his cross-country bit in, and you can see it in his eyes. Dressage tack doesn’t have the same effect.”

Wachtmeister sees her horse transform when the season starts. “He’s not the most beautiful horse, and when you see him in his paddock, there’s nothing special about him,” she said. “But when he’s fit and braided, he has this fire and energy and love of what he does, and that’s what makes him special. If people love and admire him, it’s that that they see in him. He’s a very proud horse, and he has an incredible fire inside him.”

When he’s at home, Dan works five days a week, with weekends off if he’s not competing. He hacks three of those days, and Severson schools him the other two days. He never schools cross-country–he just doesn’t need to.

“I never have the thought, ‘What if he doesn’t get around?’ ” said Goldberg of Dan’s cross-country trips. “He will get around, and he will do a good job. I know he can take care of himself, and if he needs help, he has Kim Severson on his back. They know each other’s every move.”

“I’ve always thought that he isn’t the fanciest horse or most talented jumper, but he and Kim do have a special partnership,” said Bennett, who’s cared for Dan since he arrived on the farm in 1999. “She gets the most out of him, and I don’t think many other people would do it; he’s not the easiest ride. What he and Kim have is really special.”

Wachtmeister, who said that a website will soon be available for Dan’s fans, most appreciates what Dan has been able to do for Severson’s career, vaulting her into the most sought-after rider for U.S. teams. “I’m so thankful that Dan has been there for Kim,” Wachtmeister said. “She deserves to be doing as well as she is in her career, and I hope he’ll be there for her for the next Olympics.”

Severson isn’t sure yet what 2005 will bring. “I’d love to go to Badminton, as anyone would, however, I don’t want to do it enough to do the steeplechase,” she said. “I’d feel stupid if I injured him on the ‘chase if I had the option not to [do a steeplechase]. If I’m going to have to do a steeplechase, Kentucky will probably be the place.”

And if he returns to Kentucky to try for an unprecedented third win, Dan will know exactly where he is–and why. “He knows what his job is, and he loves and appreciates it; that’s what makes him tick,” said Severson. “If he never went cross-country again, he’d be very sad.”

But that day should still be in the distant future. In the meantime, Severson still sees plenty of things to accomplish in the rest of Dan’s career. “You always want to win the World Championships or Olympics,” she said. “This horse can do whatever he wants to do.”

Personal Profile

Description: 1993 English-bred Thoroughbred, b. g., 16.1-hands, by Saunter–Juswith Genoa, Bohemond

Breeder: Janet Gooch, Staffordshire, England

Owner: Plain Dealing Farm Inc., Scottsville, Va.

Rider: Kim Severson, 30, Keene, Va., USEA Lady Rider of the Year & FEI Rider of the Year

Grooms: Caroline Goldberg, Lili Bennett, Molly Hooper, USEA Grooms of the Year

Veterinarians: Dr. Keith Brady & Dr. Brendan Furlong

Farriers: Todd Meister & Steve Teichman

Chiropractor: Dr. Scott Anderson

Feed: Pennfield’s Enduroevent and Smartpak supplements

Career Highlights

2004–1st place Rolex Kentucky CCI****; 2nd place North Georgia CIC***; individual silver and team bronze, Athens Olympics; USEA Horse of the Year
2003–1st place Over The Walls (Mass.); 2nd place North Georgia CIC***
2002–1st place Rolex Kentucky CCI****; 1st place Pine Top Horse Trials (Ga.); 1st place North Georgia; member of gold-medal World Equestrian Games team, sixth individually; USEA Horse of the Year
2001–1st place Southern Pines (N.C.); 1st place North Georgia; 1st place Blenheim CCI*** (England); 2nd place Foxhall Cup CCI*** (Ga.); USEA Horse of the Year
2000–1st place Radnor Hunt CCI** (Pa.)