It’s not often that you see the stars and stripes at the top of the leaderboard of an international event on foreign soil, but this weekend, Clark Montgomery and Loughan Glen proudly represented the U.S. at the Belton Horse Trials CIC*** in Lincolnshire, England, taking the win in a huge class of 115 that included names like Mark Todd, Bettina Hoy, Paul Tapner, Mary King and more.

We caught up with Montgomery, who’s now based at Mark Phillips’ Aston Farm in Tetbury, England, after his big win to talk about what he’s been up to with his group of horses and what’s next for “Glen”, a 12-year-old Irish Sport Horse (Limerick—TattyMacall Mustard, Cut The Mustard) owned by Holly and William Becker and Kathryn Kraft.

COTH: What a weekend! Tell me about your win.

Montgomery: When you look through the entry list, there were some heavy hitters there. Any win over here is extremely difficult to get, so when you do get them, you definitely cherish them. I was very happy and because he didn’t have the greatest year last year [Montgomery retired Glen from the Badminton CCI**** (England) mid-cross-country course and then they were eliminated on cross-country at the Aachen CIC*** (Germany) for three refusals. They also had a run-out at the Boekelo CCI*** (the Netherlands).], and this year he seems to be starting out on an upswing.

Belton is kind of the first event of the year with a lot of atmosphere and a big trade fair around the arena and lots of people. A lot of horses get quite nervous and tight, but Glen just loves that part. He went in there and did his typical good test [scoring a 39.8 for second place].

Show jumping is on terrain so it can be quite difficult. I kept him jumping all winter—more than I’ve ever done before. I took him to show jumping shows and kept him as jump fit as possible. It seems to have helped him. He’s come out jumping really well.

[The cross-country] is designed by Mark Phillips. It’s big enough and technical enough. To me, it’s the first real test of the season. This one really lets you know where you are so far in the year.

I set out wanting to go quite quickly. Everyone kind of knows that quickness and and going the distances with him on cross-country has been an issue. At Boekelo [(the Netherlands) last fall], when I opened him up at the end of the course and went to set him up at the second-to-last fence is when he did that run-off to the left thing [they were given 20 penalties for a runout]. I set out on this course quite quick between the fences to test my control and response to the aids to make sure that was getting better and it seems that it is.

He just did it to me again on Sunday [before Belton], his first cross-country run at Weston Park [England], where we had to make a really sharp right turn. As soon as I pulled on that right rein, he dove off to the left like he did at Boekelo, so at Belton, I put a bit burr on the left side, which he reacted to phenomenally, so I think that’s what he’s going to run in for awhile to stop that bolting off to the left when I pull hard on the right rein.”

Talk about last year. On paper, it doesn’t look like it went as well as you would have liked.

At the beginning of the year, we had kind of a stupid thing happen at Belton at the sunken road, so that wasn’t anything to be too concerned with. [At the Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials CCI****], he wanted to run fantastically, but the footing got to him, compounded with the size of the fences, which happened to a lot of the horses. [They retired on cross-country.] I think that really hurt his confidence quite a bit and it took me a few events to get it back. 

He ran like crap at Aachen [CIC*** [Germany)] and didn’t really want to try at all. And then the same thing at a little horse trial back in England. I just decided to try and give him some time off and when I brought him back late in the fall, he seemed clicked back into it mentally again. He wanted to have a great Boekelo and then had a stupid thing happen at the second to last fence, which didn’t seem to have anything to do with the fence, but the turn we made.

Where are you based now? What have you been up to over the winter?

We’re based at Mark Phillips’ now. That happened late in the fall. That’s been able to help with the horse’s fitness because of better hacking out; Zara [Phillips] has a gallop on the property that I’m able to use. Lauren Hough is here for six months out of the year, so she’s there to help me with some show jumping if I need it. Over the winter, we were just there all alone. Glen just kept on hacking and doing the show jumping.

We needed to get somewhere where the fitness was easier. We were putting the horses on the lorry two or three times a week to ship them where we could get them on some terrain to go their gallops and that was getting to be too much travel and too expensive. Mark’s is on the other side of Tetbury [from where we were at Christian Landholt’s].

We have some young show jumper sales horses—three 4-year-olds and a 5- and a 6-year-old. It’s the direction we decided to go with our business. It’s a whole lot less teaching over here than riding and it seemed best business wise to pick up some of these young show jumping horses and produce them for now. It’s a purely business move. My heart’s still in eventing.

What about your eventers?

Unfortunately, [my two-star horse] Garrison Flash just got hurt this season so he’s gone off to Ireland to [his original rider Kylie Dermody’s husband Donnacha] and he’s going to get rehabbed there and they’ll do something with him.

[My other four-star horse] Universe got hurt just before Pau [CCI**** (France)]. It was soft tissue, so he’ll have to have the whole year of rehabbing. I’m eventing horse-poor right now unfortunately, but we knew this could maybe happen over here.”

What’s next for Glen?

We’re going to shoot for Luhmühlen [CCI**** [Germany)]. I’m going to try to get that Olympic qualification for the four-star level done early now instead of waiting until next spring.

He’ll run probably an intermediate here in a couple of weeks to get him out again and then we’re thinking about the Tattersalls CIC*** [Ireland] at the end of May.

Luhmühlen is a flat piece of ground from what I’ve heard and the course might be a little on the softer side than Badminton. This will be his third time [trying a four-star] and he needs to get it out of his head, because he can finish these. Both attempts he’s had some different things happen, unfortunately, that have kept him from finishing, so I think he needs to go to the softer of the two four-stars available to us so he has every chance of making that 12-minute distance.