August 10, 2025 
Holy—!
I have just finished watching what was probably the craziest five-star Grand Prix I’ve seen as a show jumping owner, journalist, and fan!
We had a field of 40—and not a weak field, but before the day was over, THIRTEEN of them would end the day with a retirement!
And how many clear? And how was the jumpoff? Well, there was no jumpoff because there was only one clear, only one clear round the whole dang day! And that round belonged to 59-year-old Laura Kraut of the United States and her horse Bisquetta, the 11-year-old mare by Bisquet Balou.
And did I mention her round was the 39th?
Ok, walking the course I’m not sure I appreciated how difficult it was. Did Alan Wade, the course designer, realize how difficult it was? One thing was true: this course never let up, it challenged horse and rider throughout, as Alan Wade courses are wont to do.
We started with a small vertical, which oddly managed to trip up more than one rider, but really was the only easy jump of the course.
We then headed an appreciable distance to the “Tart with the Cart,” the Molly Malone oxer. You then rollback around to an oxer made of bells and swans with a big liverpool beneath it—and right up against the stands. That was a lot to take a horse’s mind off jumping, and it came down more than once.
After this, we headed into the Rolex triple, but I really called it a quatro, because right after the triple was a little skinny black vertical that went down more than once or twice or three times…
Head around after the quatro and hit the 1.60m green Rolex wall and then run to the water. Make it over that and you gotta bend to a big, tall, plank-topped Rolex vertical. This thing came down so much that I became known (unfortunately) for shouting “F-CKING PLANK!” over and over again in the VIP.
Then you had an oxer all decorated with bells, and after that you did a 360-degree rollback to the biggest, widest oxer you ever saw. This thing was so big and so wide and following right after it was the biggest, tallest, green-polled vertical—lofty high with an enormous liverpool beneath it! A cruel combo, those two! So many riders were focused on that tall vertical and not letting their horses overjump the oxer that the back rail rained down over and over again!
Think you’re done? Nope! Now we head into the trickiest line of the them all—the last one. First, you hit a triple jump and right after that enormous jump you go into a double composed of delicate black poles and crazy filigreed fillers. The first of the double was an amazingly wide oxer, which gave you the same problem you had earlier—jumping a super-wide oxer followed right after by the fragile little vertical.
Such a cruel trick at the end of the course! Another chance to smash down a back rail as you worry about clearing that vertical! Make it through all this and you got one simple little oxer left, but—only two made it this far!
The first was Eugenio Garza of Mexico on Contago. He made it through that whole course flawlessly only to take down the last fence. He was the 20th rider to go and we’d already racked up five retirees, so basically the whole place refused to accept that last rail and cheered for Garza and his mount mightily, as if we could undo that last, stupid fence falling!
I myself was thrown across the half-wall in front of me, the half-walls that separated the tiers in the VIP. I was screaming and moaning and pulling at my hair. All this with hardly any attachment to Mexico and barely a passing acquaintance with Garza, but still the circumstances had me heartbroken.
Not that we didn’t have quite a few decent rounds. There were 11 four-faulters, everyone from second-place Rodrigo Pessoa (middle of the triple) and third-place Shane Sweetnum (big-ass oxer next to the stands) to McLain Ward on his new mount Imperial HBF (the f-cking plank!) to that gorgeous stallion Grandorado TN and Willem Greve (big-ass oxer going into that lofty vertical).
But perhaps the most remarkable round from the point of view of this journalist, was the 11-year-old gelding Jagger HX, who really has never seen a course like this in his life! He is the horse I own with the Canadian Olympian Amy Millar and they were 34th to go in the class.
By the time Jagger and Amy were up, there were no less than 11 rounds that ended in retirement and I was convinced that we would make the 12th. How is a sweet, cute horse who took forever to produce and struggled with (now resolved) vet issues ever gonna tackle a vicious course like this?
Was I gonna go to the bathroom in my pants? Should I hide under the table? Could I even handle watching this round without collapsing from some sort of cardiac affliction?
Imagine my shock when Jagger and Amy negotiated nearly the whole course without knocking a rail! Nearly the whole thing until that stupid double right at the end when the back rail of the big wide oxer heading into the little delicate vertical came down! That was the penultimate obstacle! And hardly an error, really just the barest touch!
Then it dawned on me: I finally have a five-star Grand Prix horse again!
Oh, did I yell. Oh, did I cheer. Oh, did I make a fuss up there in the VIP, Garza and his almost-clear forgotten!
And now all I needed to do was throw bad mojo at the rest of the competitors so that we could all jump off at four faults.
Harrie Smolders had retired. Kevin Staut retired. Who else did I have to fear? Seamus Hughes Kennedy, who hasn’t put a foot wrong all summer managed 8 faults. Now all I had to worry about was the highest-ranked female rider, 18-in-the-world Laura Kraut. Laura Kraut, who leaves nothing on the field, Laura Kraut who rides every stride as if her life depends on it!
Yeah, no problem. She was sure to knock a rail or two.
Did she even rub one? Did she even worry about the effing plank? Did any of the oxers get too wide?
No! No! And no!
By the time Laura hit the field the whole lot of us were like a bunch of balloons that had been deflated. Suddenly, with her masterful clear we felt ourselves once again alive! Did we care that we missed our dozen-person four-fault jumpoff? Well, a little, but to finally see someone get out there and master the course—it was worth it.
I imagined Laura looking over to where the course designer Alan Wade sat, meeting his eye, and mouthing the words, “You didn’t get me.”
Then throwing her head back and letting out a self-congratulatory guffaw. The Queen of the Royal Dublin Horse Show.
As for Jagger HX, that amazingly attractive and scopey gelding, he placed 6th. Woot!
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