Don’t Be Jealous, But Shane Sweetnam Just Had the Best August Ever

What makes for a good summer? Most of us would say a few pool days, a barbecue, and a couple of long weekends away. But there are good summers, and then there are Shane Sweetnam summers, and if pressed, we’ll take the latter.

After besting a field of 47 on August 6th, Sweetnam and Blue Buckle Group LLC’s Cobolt joined an enviable club: winning a $50,000 Kentucky Summer Saturday Grand Prix two weeks in a row. It was another impressive finish for the 10-year-old gelding, who joined Sweetnam’s string at Sweet Oak Farm this January and also won the $130,000 Ariat Grand Prix CSI*** during Tyron’s Week 7 in June.

“This summer Cobolt has been getting better and better,” Sweetnam told Lauren Baker for Kentucky Horse Shows, LLC. “He is very competitive. He really loves his job, but he still has things to learn.”

One week later and still in Kentucky, Sweetnam and wife Allison had another reason to smile: their daughter Olivia and her pony, Love Bug, ended their run at U.S. Pony Finals with highest score over fences across all the regular pony hunter divisions and the second highest score over fences across the regular and green pony hunter divisions.

“She’s only seven, but there’s ups and downs like there is for myself,” Sweetnam said of his equally pivotal role as horse show dad. “That day was great. She was very excited, and we had a lot of fun. Hopefully, we’ll have a lot more days like that in the future.”

Turns out, they did. After packing up and heading north to the Hampton Classic in Bridgehampton, New York, Sweetnam and the eight-year-old gelding Main Road closed out the month with yet another impressive win in the $10,000 GSWEC Open Jumper 1.45m class on Tuesday. The pair threw down two clear rounds and an ultimately elusive time to beat, besting Beezie Madden aboard Coach and Katie Cox on Hocus Pocus VH Hof Ter Heide, both of whom also jumped clear.

Main Road and Sweetnam will be back in the Grand Prix ring again today for the $40,000 Sovaro Speed Stake. And, on Friday, the Irishman will attempt to secure spots for both Colbolt and standby mount, Chaqui Z, in the $75,000 Douglas Elliman CSI****, the qualifying class for Sunday’s $300,000 Hampton Classic Grand Prix.

Summer may be at its end, but Team Sweetnam’s hot streak doesn’t look like it’ll be cooling down anytime soon.