What was it that I said in my last write up? Training isn’t linear? Well during our month of July I got to live that reality once again. Capture The Magic and I had an interesting end of June and start to our July training.

I left our first event of the summer, Mill Creek Pony Club Horse Trials in Kansas City, Missouri, on a high at the beginning of June. It was our first opportunity to display all the work we had done in all three phases of our eventing training, and we finished in fourth place with a Thoroughbred Incentive Program Champion ribbon. I was so excited that I decided to late enter an event in Colorado about a week and a half later for our first go at the beginner novice level since returning home from Aiken, South Carolina.

After giving “Houdini” a break for a few days after Mill Creek, we got back to work in our training. I entered a clinic with Olympic eventer Kyle Carter being held in Wichita, Kansas. I had done a demo ride with him for the Retired Racehorse Project in Kentucky during the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event back in April on my upper level horse, Slew The Zodiac. I absolutely loved his candor, and he gave very straightforward advice. I don’t like things sugar-coated when I am training. He delivered his opinions and corrections clearly, all while making the crowd cackle in laughter. I took home many drills to practice and an understanding of where we were weak in our training. I was so excited to get the same level of expert advice about my baby horse at the Kansas clinic.

I figured Houdini was going to be tired after just coming off a horse trials, so I opted to only do one ride in the clinic, a show jumping group. Houdini tried his heart out in exercises that were specifically designed to expose my weaknesses in riding on him, which happens to be losing impulsion in my turns and drifting. I did not expect Kyle to remember me all that well, as I know he teaches hundreds of people, but he quickly pointed out that I was also weak on my right side riding my upper-level horse, so it’s clear I have some homework. I suffered some significant fractures to my back in August 2021 and I still struggle with my strength on the right. Instead of allowing that as an excuse, he gave me drills to help make it stronger and give me a different mindset about keeping focus in turns on the stallion despite that. 

We must always strive to be better, and to never settle. I love a trainer who isn’t afraid to tell you so bluntly. We finished that ride with Kyle by jumping an extremely tricky and curvy novice course that I know I would not have been able to ride as well without his assistance. The icing on the cake was hearing him say that he is very excited to see Houdini’s stallion influence in the eventing pedigrees in years to come.

After a super show and a really good clinic, I was so very excited to compete in Colorado. I felt very ready, and I really thought I had set up Houdini for success. I drove down there with my student, Mercy, and all the confidence in the world. There were a couple cross-country courses we could choose to school that were open the day before the one-day horse trials, so Houdini was even going to get a little school in before. What could go wrong? 

Oh, everything.

We arrived at about 10 p.m. two nights before the competition started. I was staying with friends who also happen to be avid Thoroughbred enthusiasts. I opted to stall Houdini inside since he is a stallion, after all, and their farm has many mares in outdoor paddocks. He had not jumped out of his night turnout in quite a while, but I didn’t really want to tempt him … some of the mares there were pretty attractive! They even left a gelding inside so he’d have a friend. As soon as he went in the stall though, he was acting strangely. His behavior very much resembled the way he acts when we arrive to the clinic where he gets collected for breeding. It was late at night, though, and we had just driven eight hours to get there, so I chalked it up to a random occurrence.

Feeding in the morning, he was acting very out of character. He turned his stall to bits but had absolutely no sign of discomfort. He was repeatedly talking to the gelding next to him over the wall. Once again, I defaulted to what I knew of him up until this point, which was that it was the very easiest to settle him down by getting on and giving him something to focus on. We loaded up and headed to the cross-country course we planned to use as a little school.

Long story short, our cross-country school did not go to plan. He was not himself; even after I got on, he felt like a bomb about to explode. I decided to break off from everyone and just take him for a little gallop. This has always been what helps him settle and take a breath. Not this day; it only excited him even more. After some seriously expressive moves, I decided it would be safest to hop off, call it a day and just hold him in hand while I coached my student and her horse, Ducati. His ground manners have always been absolutely wonderful, but … 

Despite all my efforts to get his attention on me, he still managed to get away from me in hand, run about half a mile, jump a five-strand wire fence and run up to a group of horses with another trainer. It was humiliating and humbling, but that’s horses for you. I desperately wished I was at the farm where we were staying so I could safely put him in his stall, but unfortunately, we had hauled to this venue, and leaving him loaded in the trailer alone in the heat was not going to be safe physically on several levels.

After showing me that something was just not right for him for some unknown reason, I opted to withdraw him from the competition the next day. By that evening he had settled, but it just did not feel like the right environment to take him in after an explosive schooling session. Not only did I feel like it would be detrimental to his long-term training and goals, but we could have very negatively impacted other riders rides if he struggled emotionally again. It’s a long day and a big ask when you do a one-day recognized competition, and he would have had to stand tied to the trailer the majority of the day. I figured he was as emotionally drained from Friday as I was. 

It does sting to lose your entry money, but it hurts a lot more to go backwards in your training. I was determined to go home and back to the drawing board so that I could figure out what had triggered him in Colorado. Little did I know the next hurdle was going to pop up the following Monday morning.

It started out just an average Monday morning. I went to take my hemipelegic dog, Seuss, out to use the bathroom. He suffered a stroke in May and is just learning to walk again. He has made excellent progress and would get so excited that he was able to bounce a bit on his hind legs with support. As I supported him down the ramp we built for him, he playfully tried to take off bouncing after our other dogs. Unfortunately, he essentially hip checked me, and I stepped half off the side of the ramp. I heard the snap in my foot immediately. Radiographs confirmed what I had already known: I had broken my foot. Or, more specifically, I had a hairline fracture of my fourth metatarsal—one of the group of long bones in the middle of the foot—and had an avulsion fracture of my fifth. I was referred to the surgeon that had fixed a break in my foot four years prior. I felt so defeated.

Good news came upon meeting with my podiatrist. I learned that I did not need surgery this time around, and he felt a specialized insert in my riding boots could get me back in the saddle in four weeks. The downfall was learning that I need surgery to both my ankles to correct the disorder that keeps causing my ankles to essentially fail and result in broken feet. I nodded that I understood, but let him know we would cross that bridge another day.

I patiently waited almost four full weeks and promptly got back to riding. In true Brit fashion that happened back at the Kentucky Horse Park, because I previously had committed to doing an RRP demonstration at the annual USPC Festival with my upper-level horse, “Zodi.” I brought Houdini along so we could get some good schools in while I was there. The big question was, what version of Houdini was going to arrive in Kentucky? 

As I am swinging my leg over the gorgeous black stallion in the aisleway of my friend Jen Roytz’s beautiful farm, I did consider that perhaps my first ride back should not be on a 4-year-old stallion. But, with my leg mid-air, I was already committed. After all, minus that one isolated ride on him, he has always been such a relaxed dude. It was going to be a big test at this farm with breeding mares, foals and yearlings everywhere. It did not matter though; I had my best buddy back. 

We spent two days really enjoying each other’s company in the saddle again. He was relaxed, willing and happy. Day 1 we did a light arena school with three other horses that he paid no attention to, followed by a hack around the huge farm between all the turnout fields. He never so much as turned an ear to the broodmares or babies. The relief nearly brought me to tears. The following morning, we got to ride with Richard Lamb and another group of baby Thoroughbreds. Again, he was his super agreeable self. The horse I’ve known since I got him came back to me.

The lesson here was simply that the bad day for my young stallion was just one small day in time. I just moved past it and continue to ride the horse that I have each day. Sometimes that’s all you can really do when things go sideways. That little break for Houdini might have been a good breather for him after some intense spring training. I am feeling much more confident again in our ability to tackle some of the shows on our August schedule.

Brit Vegas is a professional trainer who specializes in restarting Thoroughbreds for equestrian sports, such as eventing, show jumping, fox hunting and other English disciplines. She owns and operates Royal Fox Stables in Southeast Nebraska with a winter base in Aiken, South Carolina. In addition to campaigning her own horses through the intermediate level of eventing, Vegas also retrains and sells between 50 and 70 Thoroughbreds per year and has competed in the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover each year since 2015, with multiple top-five finishes in eventing, show jumping and field hunters. In addition, she manages a sport horse veterinary practice for her husband, Dr. Adam Gengenbach.