November 5, 2023 
“As a kid growing up, I remember coming to The Royal and seeing all these amazing riders here and always dreamt that one day I could be here, so it’s a bit surreal for me right now,” said an elated Sean Jobin. “It’s just a super cool feeling.”
The 31-year-old had every reason to be delighted. Jobin was crowned Canadian champion aboard Coquelicot Vh Heuvelland Z at the 101st edition of the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair on Saturday. It’s his first national title and the culmination of years’ effort and planning.
“We’ve been prepping for this for the past three months, circled the Royal on the calendar and said, ‘Hey, we really want him in peak performance for the Canadian Championships.’ So part of that is going through a lot of videos of past Canadian championships. And I’ve done a couple—in 2016, 2019—so I’m pretty familiar with [the format],” said Jobin.
The annual national championship is a cumulative score format over two days and three rounds. Jobin was second in Friday’s speed round and one of only three clears in the first round of Kelvin Bywater’s technical course on Saturday. With the the top six returning for round two, Jobin and the 11-year-old grey gelding kept their composure and the rails in place to clinch the victory.
“We had a game plan. Day one, be quick enough, be on the time, try and stay within two faults of the lead,” said Jobin.
“And we thought he’d really shine the second day. He’s always really good with the atmosphere, crowds and big scopey courses. His carefulness is just unbelievable. So we felt pretty confident coming into day two here.“
The victory is the latest in a breakout year for the Canadian rider and his Instagram find of a horse.
“Licot” was discovered by Jobin’s groom, Eszter Horvath, on the social media app during the COVID pandemic. With travel restrictions in place, Sarah Nichols and Kathy Dixon of Foxridge Farms rolled the dice and purchased Licot for Jobin based on photos and videos alone.
In the three years since, the Toronto-based rider, with the help of biomechanics expert Dr. Tim Worden, has been studying the grey gelding, in a literal sense.
“He’s an outlier for sure on the data in that his strike power is not particularly high, his stride elevation is not particularly high, so some of the markers maybe you’d see in a lot of the really high jumping horses aren’t necessarily there,” Jobin explained.
“But one of the big things you see with him over a long period of time is the consistency of how he jumps. If you look back at the clear rounds and four faults he’s had for the last two years, he’s extremely consistent and the only times he tends to have more than one rail is when I make big mistakes. Or when we’re in a new, kind of novel environment that we haven’t really figured out how to adapt to.”
Their Jumpr App stats support that assessment.
In 2022, the pair posted an impressive 73% clear round average over 10 rounds at 1.40m. At their bread and butter heights of 1.45m and 1.50m, they were clear 55% and 32%, respectively, over 42 total rounds that year—collecting four podium finishes and nearly €61,000 in prize money in the process.
This season, they’re up on every metric and by statistically significant margins.
At 1.40m, their clear round average climbed seven points to 80% in 2023. At 1.45m and 1.50m, it’s nearly doubled. Jobin and the 11-year-old grey jumped clear in 100% of the five rounds they’ve contested at 1.45m and 59% of 17 rounds at 1.50m.
Their podium finishes have doubled too, despite jumping half as many international classes in 2023. They’ve landed on eight podiums so far this season, highlighted by three victories, and taken home €192,320 in earnings. That doesn’t count the lion’s share of the $150,000 he took home on Saturday for the national title.
From the outside, that impressive consistency might look like a horse and rider combination that have “clicked.” According to Dr. Worden, it’s the product of careful assessment and data-driven decision making that factors in the horse’s preferred, if unconventional, way of going.
“Sean does a great job tracking information on all of his rounds—metrics such as if there was a rail, where it occurred, areas to address, and movements Licot excels at. He has a great team of staff who are very involved in conversations and Licot’s personality and physical readiness are major factors influencing how we design training on a weekly basis.
“As far as the data itself, Licot is unconventional for a few reasons. I think a lot of people probably wouldn’t pay much attention to him in the warm-up ring because he gives the impression he lacks the energy required for elite sport,” said Dr. Worden.
“But once he gets in the ring he can fly. He’s for sure super careful, but when you watch him in the air, it looks like he’s maybe not going to get across [the width of the fence]. You just have to trust and be patient—when we analyze high-speed video you can see he reads jumps exceptionally well and adjusts his mechanics accordingly to be efficient in the air. He is one of the best horses in the world with this skill. And when he does have a rail, it tends to be a true outlier.”
Licot’s specific training program, Dr. Worden continued, is largely influenced by how human athletes with a similar central nervous system train.
“We played around with his workload early on, but found he responded poorly to higher volumes of work. His nervous system wiring is similar to what is typically found in human sprinters—a system that is explosive and highly reactive, which are great qualities to have in speed-power athletes. But the amount of work performed needs to be lower and you really need to pay attention to their recovery to ensure they are not being overtrained.
“So it’s better to do more intense [training] with him, but less of it. And then he gets more recovery than probably most other horses do at this level.”
Unlike the vast majority of show jumpers, Licot does not wear a martingale. That too is a strategic decision as they’ve moved up into the national and international divisions. Jobin said he wants to allow the horse to jump unconstrained and stretch his neck over the fence and to be free to raise his head if Jobin is holding too much “so I’m not getting in the way.”
“[In terms of his personality,] he doesn’t want to be told what to do. A lot of riders would probably try to [change his way of going] too much,” said Dr. Worden.
“That’s where Sean has done a really good job, figuring out how Licot wants to be ridden and adapting to that style so that he can use his body efficiently and effectively. I think that’s where the partnership really took off, especially the last two years.”
