Modern Day Centaurs
The Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event

You don’t have to know a thing about horses to appreciate the action at an international event that hits the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington April 22 through 25. Thousands of folks who do, however, will flock to the Bluegrass in droves from around the globe to watch Olympic hopefuls compete in the 2004 Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event presented by Bayer.

“It’s pure, raw athletic talent,” says Jane Atkinson, executive vice president of Equestrian Events Inc., which organizes the annual competition. “It’s speed. It’s horses jumping obstacles. And to watch them go with such speed and verve and obviously want to do it so badly…it’s infectious.”

And it’s some of the best of its kind in the world. In 2003 attendance topped 71,000, representing all 50 states and seven other countries.

An outgrowth of the 1978 World Three-Day Event Championships, held for the first time in the U.S. at the then-brand new Kentucky Horse Park, the Rolex Kentucky in 1998 became a Four-Star International Three-Day Event. It is one of only four annual events in the world with such prestigious ranking and the only one in the Western Hemisphere. Only Badminton and Burghley in England and Adelaide in Australia, plus the quadrennial World Championships and Olympic Games share this quartet of stars. The star indicates course ranking from one (least difficult) to four (most difficult).

For the uninitiated, a three-day event is a complete test of horse and rider, first held at the 1912 Olympics in Sweden to check the fitness and training level of cavalry mounts. Three consecutive days of trials measure diverse yet complimentary skills.

Day one features dressage, a sort of equine ballet testing gaits, suppleness and obedience through a series of specific movements. On day two, the exciting cross-country phase proves speed, stamina, courage and jumping ability over a course designed by Mike Etherington-Smith, considered by many to be the best in the world for his courses that simultaneously challenge and teach both man and beast.

Galloping across the countryside over massive solid obstacles, horses fly over ditches, leap up and down banks and drop into water. Included that day is a steeplechase race and two sets of warm ups and cool downs, called Roads and Tracks, the equivalent of an athlete’s stretching before and after exercise.

Perhaps the most glamorous phase of a three-day event is stadium jumping, on day three. Having run full throttle the previous day, a horse must now slow down and listen to its rider to carefully jump – without touching – a number of obstacles in a fenced ring.

No other equestrian sport tests the horse so completely as does the three-day.

“Our mission is mom, apple pie and the American flag,” says Atkinson, “because we provide a venue to test and train athletes, be they horse or rider or both, to represent this country in world championships and Olympic Games. We all like to wave that flag.”

This year’s competitors include Olympic veterans, Olympic hopefuls, world champions, Pan American Games medallists and seasoned veterans of the sport. All will compete for $190,000 in prize money and a Rolex watch.

So rabid are fans of eventing, once known as combined training, that in addition to those who come to watch, some 100-plus folks travel hundreds of miles – even from overseas – just to volunteer in capacities from crews that set up downed fences to official greeters to fence judges.

New in 2004, a Special Modified Three-Day Event Division, patterned after the format to be used in the Athens Olympic Games, is for U.S. citizens or North American residents who’ve already qualified for the Olympics and are approved by their federation to enter. Both divisions will be U.S. Equestrian Team Selection Trials for the Olympics.

Enthusiasts may shed a tear or two this year at a formal retirement ceremony for 2000 Olympic individual equine gold medal winner, 19-year-old Irish thoroughbred Custom Made, one of Olympian David O’Connor’s most accomplished mounts.

“It’s that mystical union of man and horse,” Atkinson says of three-day eventing and its broad appeal. “It’s something you can see nowhere else at this level in this country. I call them modern day centaurs.”

For a break from all the equine eventing excitement, seasoned horsemen and first-time oglers alike can take a gander at a Lexington Police K-9 Unit demonstration, watch kids compete for the U.S. Pony Club’s Prince Phillip Cup and shop at more than 125 booths at the International Trade Fair.

Spark your interest? Find out more online at www.rk3de.org.

Katherine Tandy Brown is a staff writer for The Lane Report.
editorial@lanereport.com

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