In her own quiet way, this determined woman has given to all levels of eventing all over the country.

Imagine someone who organizes one of the biggest events in the country, a true destination event in the West. Then, picture someone who owns multiple event horses for multiple riders at all levels. Next, think of someone who cheerfully volunteers to fence judge at beginner novice level on a hot day. And then envision someone who has served on several U.S. Eventing Association committees and supported many educational programs.

Now, imagine that all those are the same person.

Meet Rebecca Broussard.

“Many visionary people have made a difference in the sport, and Becky’s one of them. She has a big vision for the sport, and then she has the gumption to roll up her sleeves and make it happen,” said USEA President Kevin Baumgardner.

“She doesn’t want to always be known for what she’s doing, and I think a lot of times people just see the tip of the iceberg. They don’t realize what a far-reaching, positive impact she’s had on the sport. She is, hands down, the most important person in eventing in the Western United States. I would say that she’s arguably the most important person in eventing in the entire United States. And it’s because of the number of things that she does, both visibly and behind the scenes,” Baumgardner continued.

The most visible manifestation of Broussard’s dedication to the sport is The Event At Rebecca Farm in Kalispell, Mont., which began in 2002 and now runs divisions from novice to a World Cup-qualifying CIC*** and CCIs at the two- and one-star levels. They also host 4- and 5-year-old Young Event Horse and Future Event Horse divisions, as well as a classic-format preliminary three-day.

“I’ve traveled all over the country to events, and I have to say that Rebecca Farm is the best event in the United States,” said Olympic veteran Amy Tryon. “They go out of their way to cater to the horses, with the footing and everything else.”

Broussard, 68, also owns or has owned horses for riders such as Tryon, Karen O’Connor, Phillip Dutton, Cathy Wieschhoff, Ralph Hill and Cindy Burge, competing at levels from training to advanced.

Her hands-on approach led her to serve on the USEA Board of Governors for nine years. Broussard has also helped with the USEA’s Endowment Fund and served as an adult rider coordinator and young rider coordinator. She’s also very active in the U.S. Equestrian Federation’s High Performance Event Owners Task Force.

“There isn’t anything in this sport that someone has asked her to do that she hasn’t done. It’s remarkable,” Tryon said. “The Broussards have had a lot of influence in Area VII as far as donating money to events that need to upgrade their courses and supporting our young rider and adult programs. It’s not just their event that they support.”

Area VII riders can also thank Broussard for sponsoring training grants, clinics and training sessions.

“She stays quiet about all that she does. She’s not out there talking about it—she almost gets embarrassed when she gets acknowledged for doing something, but she’s an incredible person,” Tryon said.

Thinking Big

The Event At Rebecca Farm has humble beginnings in a former Area VII event, Herron Park Horse Trials. Broussard took over as organizer for Herron Park in the mid-80s.

“I didn’t have a clue, but they came to me and said, ‘It’s no big deal, we’ll do the work, you just have to sign the papers,’ ” Broussard said. “That was how they got me. I had no idea what it involved.”

But the event was small, and Broussard enjoyed organizing for the handful of riders she saw each year.

“When we hit 30 competitors, we thought we were really big-time!” she said, laughing. Herron Park grew every year, and by 2001 it had more than 200 entries, effectively outgrowing its location.

“We’d gotten to the point where you could barely get a toothpick in the stable area,” Broussard said. “And we needed more room for cross-country courses.”

Broussard and her husband, Jerome, had searched for two years before finding the 640 acres in Kalispell, Mont., that now hosts The Event At Rebecca Farm, in 2001. The ground—perfect for footing—and topography were the main attractions.

“This valley has areas of excellent footing, and there are a lot of underground aquifers that help. It had been a farm for 100 years, so the land had been worked. It doesn’t have a lot of trees, and it has a couple of big hills,” Becky said. “I had several people, event organizers and course designers, look at it and approve. It was a little unusual in that we pretty much mapped out where the course would be before we even bought the property.”

Baumgardner remembers having dinner with the Broussards in late 2001, while Montana was blanketed in snow.

“She spread the plans for Rebecca Farm out on her living room floor and told us what they were thinking of doing,” he said. “It’s been magical to see everything that they wanted to do happen, and then to see it become a transcendental event. It’s become a must-do like Rolex Kentucky is. To me, it’s been incredibly rewarding to see them come up with a real vision and make it happen.”

Capt. Mark Phillips has designed the courses at Rebecca Farm since the first event in 2002, and there are always whimsical reminders of the Flathead Valley’s heritage and history on course. Fish, moose and bear are all represented, and builder Bert Wood worked all winter on a train for this year’s event.

“This area’s history is very tied to the Burlington Northern train system,” Becky explained. “We have the whole engine and caboose and passenger car and logging car. It’s going to be the last jump.”

Dreaming Into Reality

This year, the Broussards hosted about 425 horses that competed on July 21-25. “That’s about as much as we can do. We’re limited by hours in the day for cross-country, even though we run two days,” said Rebecca.

“Mom jokes that the first few years that she organized the Herron Park Horse Trials, basically she did everything in a spiral-bound notebook, and she only used the first third of it,” said the Broussards’ daughter, Sarah Kelly, who serves as secretary of The Event At Rebecca Farm. “Stabling, entries, the program, times—she did it all hand-written in one notebook. And now it’s done with computers and 450 entries and 30 officials. It definitely has morphed into something she may have dreamed of, but didn’t actually realize it could be. But if she dreams it, it comes to reality.”

In 2004, Rebecca Farm began hosting a World Cup-qualifying CIC***. “We always like to give our Western riders opportunities without having to go back east,” Becky said.

The level of competition has not only saved West Coast riders some travel, it’s also inspired top East Coast riders to journey to Montana as well. This year Buck Davidson, Karen O’Connor and Phillip Dutton were among the big names flying west to Rebecca Farm. In Becky’s ultimate dream, her farm would host the first FEI World Cup Eventing Final to be held outside Europe.

The World Cup designation doesn’t help just to bring riders to the event. It also helps with sponsorship and spectators. The Flathead Valley of Montana is skiing country, and residents are familiar with the prestige of a “World Cup” competition. More than 20,000 spectators flocked to Rebecca Farm for the event in July.

“We work very hard on getting spectators. For a start, we do not charge admission. It’s something a family can do together affordably. We’ve advertised heavily in local TV, radio and newspaper,” Becky said.

The event has a real community following despite the fact that equine competitions are few and far between in the area.

“One thing that really shows the type of almost pied-piper personality Becky has is her ability to get people excited about the sport,” said Baumgardner. “She just gets people excited, and then they want to do more, and they become involved. That’s something I think she’s done on a lot of levels.”

Just A Horse-Show Mom

Becky can be found nearly everywhere during the Rebecca Farm event, solving problems and watching rides, but she keeps a low profile.

“One of my favorite memories of her is seeing the satisfaction on her face when she’s handing out the awards at Rebecca Farm,” said Tryon. “The look of contentment and happiness on her face is wonderful. She understands that she’s created such a fantastic facility and atmosphere and how much people appreciate the opportunity to be able to ride there. That’s how I always think of Becky—sitting back and watching from the back row of the bleachers, with a real look of satisfaction on her face.”

An entire army of workers comes together to make the event happen each summer, but Becky’s right-hand man is her daughter. It’s appropriate, since Kelly is the one who got her mother involved in horses and eventing in the beginning.

Kelly started riding while the Broussards lived in Jamaica in the early ’80s. Becky also took up riding for a few years, dabbling in show jumping.

“A lot of Americans at that time went down there for clinics,” Becky recalled. “That’s where I met Mark Phillips and Jack Le Goff. When we moved to Montana, Sarah and two of her friends continued their interest. She was doing show jumping and eventing and gradually narrowed it down to eventing.”

Kelly had a stellar Young Rider career but then scaled her riding back when she went to college. When the Broussards bought Rebecca Farm, she returned home to help run the event and the property. Her husband, Drew, is the farm manager.

As Kelly worked her way up the levels of the sport, Becky also accelerated her involvement, from horse-show mother to event organizer and horse owner.

“She loves the close-knit family aspect of eventing,” Kelly said of her mother. After Kelly slowed her eventing career, Becky stayed involved and started owning horses for other riders.

“That door opened for her, and she stayed in that role and enjoyed being able to help people out and watching horses run. She’s a horse-lover, so that’s part of why she stayed in the sport,” Kelly continued.

“She’s one of those people who loves to be behind the scenes,” said Tryon, who has ridden multiple horses for Becky. “She was one of the first people I ever approached about purchasing a horse, and she was incredibly generous. She enabled me to ride horses that were previously beyond what I would be able to afford.”

Kelly believes that part of what makes Becky such a popular owner is her understanding of the vagaries of the sport. She fully understands that in order to have the ups, you have to have the downs, too.

“She’s been strong enough to support all her riders through the downs,” Kelly said. “She knows that even if things aren’t good, they’re going to get better, and she sticks with them until it does. She totally understands that horses are creatures that will do things that boggle the human mind. She never lays blame anywhere; things happen, and unfortunately, sometimes bad things happen.”

Big Shoes Indeed

One of the personal downs Broussard has had to weather is a continuing fight against breast cancer. She was first diagnosed 12 years ago and was in remission for more than a decade. A recent minor relapse has slowed her down a bit, but not much.

“She just doesn’t have the energy to do everything that she did last year,” Kelly said. “So I say, ‘That’s what I’m here for.’ For about three or four years, she’s been threatening that she’s going to give me the organizer role, and she’ll just sit back in the stands and watch. But it’s impossible for her to do that. So I just take whatever task she’s able to let go of.”

This year, Kelly’s been able to step more into the organizer role, while newly minted Rolex Kentucky organizer Christina Gray, who served as Kelly’s co-secretary for four years, has stepped more into the main secretary role.

“She has a group of people around her that are so capable and able to fill in,” Kelly said of Becky. “I’m not saying that anyone around here can actually fill my mother’s shoes—definitely not! But a group of us can step in and try to fill those shoes.

“My mother faces the world straight on and deals with what comes,” she continued. “She is a very determined person. You give her a task, and it will be done, and it will be done well. If she can’t do it, she’ll find the person who can do it.”

Part of Becky’s innate competence comes from the training she endured to gain her masters degree in nursing. And while her financial situation allows her to be very generous in getting things done on a monetary level, her contributions to the sport go much deeper.

“She always does more,” said Baumgardner. “I think the reason for that is that she comes from a background where you work hard. She’s picked out a lot of hooves in her life. She’s got that grounding, that the way you get things done is to roll up your sleeves and do it.”

Baumgardner said he’s seen firsthand the two ways that individuals blessed with financial resources tend to solve problems. One is to throw money at things and create something very flashy, but often that doesn’t last very long.

“The second way is to lead through being visibly involved in something, but also pulling other people in. It’s not just giving money; it’s thinking about how you can help make the whole greater than the sum of the parts and how you can be a leader who brings other people in,” he said.

“That’s what Becky does behind the scenes. She gets excited about something, and she goes out and very quietly talks to other people about how she and they can get it done,” Baumgardner continued. “She lends her own time as well as resources. Then you end up getting something that has a broad base of support, and it’s sustainable.”