December 29, 2025 
Explosion W was never a North American horse. But his career at the top, from its unofficial launch in Wellington, Florida in 2018, to its close last week at the London International Horse Show, was ever at the forefront for me, an American writer, in the early days of my career covering show jumping.
I was in Wellington working and competing during the class that officially launched Explosion W under then-26-year-old British rider, Emily Mason. Mason was working for Ben Maher and Explosion’s former owners, Poden Farms (the gelding is now owned by Charlotte Rossetter and Pamela Wright) at the time, campaigning the somewhat-buzzed-about 9-year-old, who was jumping clear round after clear round in Florida.
Their first big test, though, arrived in the form of the CSIO4* Nations Cup under the lights at WEF. There, true to his name, Explosion W came in with a bang.
Jumping back-to-back clear rounds in front of roaring crowds, under glittering lights, and in the top-sport pressure-cooker that is WEF would be a tall order for any partnership, let alone a young, relatively new horse-and-rider combination making their Senior Nations Cup debut. But Mason and Explosion proved they were up for the challenge.
“Explosion had a few good results in Europe but the first night under the lights in Wellington, something changed,” Mason reflected to World of Showjumping. “It felt like he knew it was a big occasion, and from there on, it felt like he could do anything.”
In the months to come, it would turn out, the pert, KWPN gelding by Chacco-Blue (his mother was by Baloubet Du Rouet), could do almost anything. He was the ideal, modern show jumper, whose seemingly endless scope, elasticity, and stride length could only be matched by his keen work ethic and intelligence.
Despite being difficult to sit on as a young horse, his first rider, Marielle de Veer—who had also ridden Explosion’s mother—told World of Showjumping that the gelding’s best qualities were his intelligence and his love for the work. “When I wanted to teach him something, he learned quickly,” she said.
After his breakout winter season in Wellington that winter, Explosion W was promoted onto Ben Maher’s international string and traveled across the pond to compete on the Longines Global Champions Tour (LGCT). I was working social media for one of the GCL teams that season, and watching every round from the livestream.
It wasn’t long before the commentators made their consensus clear: In round after round, Maher and the chestnut gelding were the name on everyone’s lips that season, officially setting the 2018 Global Champions Tour on fire.
Their first stop was LGCT Shanghai in April, where, while jumping in both his first GCL competition and his first 1.60m classes, Explosion W didn’t drop a pole all weekend. Then, the following month in Madrid, everything changed.
The sprawling grass stadium at the Club de Campo Villa de Madrid undoubtedly suited Explosion’s expansive, galloping step, and the pair won both the GCL for their team, the London Knights, and hours later, the LGCT Grand Prix.
In hindsight, that ability to jump multiple clear rounds in short succession would be a harbinger of things to come for the talented gelding at the championship level, where multiple days of jumping 1.60m+ tracks, and sometimes multiple rounds on the same day, are commonplace.
“[Explosion W] has a great character, and really enjoys his job and the way he does it, it doesn’t take a lot out of him,” Maher said at the time. “He is bucking, playing in the warm up arena and really enjoying his job.
“He has character but he is a very friendly horse, and gives 110%.”
Explosion W would continue to give 110% that season on the GCT, winning back-to-back LGCT Grands Prix in Rome and Doha, and jumping clear after clear for the London Knights, ultimately helping the team claim the 2018 GCL Championship. The pair would also win the 2018 LGCT Championship; a remarkable feat, given that Explosion W was still only nine years old at the time.
That’s significant, since winning a 5* show jumping class is a statistically anomaly at any age. The odds of victory can be as low as a 10%, even for more experienced and established favorites such as Greya and Kent Farrington.
As a 9-year-old in 2018, the gelding’s three, 5* 1.60m Grands Prix wins were unprecedented in the sport, and a feat not replicated again until Foxy De La Roque did it with Victor Bettendorf (LUX) in 2024. But show after show, when Explosion W’s name appeared on the startlist, winning sometimes felt like a foregone conclusion.
True to form, the gelding’s 2019 season would cement his legacy, earning four LGCT Grand Prix wins (again in Rome, then London, New York, and Prague) and helping to give the London Knights back-to-back GCL Championships. He would also make his Senior European Championship debut, taking the individual silver medal and helping Great Britain to team bronze.
The gelding crowned his 2019 season with a win in the LGCT Super Grand Prix in Prague—a feat accomplished by only seven standout horses since the class’s inception, Foxy De La Roque among them. But he also wrote his way into the GCT record books, becoming the winningest horse in the series’ history, with 12 LGCT Grand Prix podiums and eight LGCT Grand Prix victories.
Of course, that was all just one chapter in the gelding’s superlative career.
In the seasons to come, there would be 1.60m wins in the Turkish Airlines Prize of Europe at CHIO Aachen, the Rolex Grand Prix of Windsor, and of course, his coup de grâce, the individual gold medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Could it all have been foretold by those early appearances in WEF that, according to Emily Mason, were the making of Explosion W—turning him from a talented young horse into an overnight superstar?
As is often the case with horses that show prodigious talent in their first years in the top sport, had things gone differently, we may never have had the opportunity to know. Athletes such as Foxy De La Roque, Caracole De La Roque, Zineday, and others were quickly snapped-up by deep-pocketed buyers after their debut seasons, going on to new careers under new riders—riders with whom they may or may not mesh in the same way.
Fortunately for Explosion W, his once-in-a-generation gifts were able to be nurtured during his uninterrupted tenure in Maher’s program; being first produced under his watchful eye at Poden Farms, and then eventually campaigned under the British rider’s saddle.
Even still, a sizable portion of Explosion’s ultimately short yet brilliant career was waylaid, at its height, by the Covid-19 pandemic. And, after the Tokyo Games, his international appearances were substantially limited.
In the winter of 2021, Maher and Explosion won the coveted Rolex IJRC Top 10 Final at CHI Geneva, but they competed only sparingly in 2022, with Maher choosing to forego Explosion’s consideration for the 2022 World Championships in Herning due to “peak fitness” concerns.
Their last major result together was a second-place in the CSI5* Grand Prix at the Windsor Horse Show in 2023. On month later, Explosion suffered a soft-tissue injury while competing in the Nations Cup at La Baule, an event that would eventually prove to be his final competition.
On December 21, 2025 he was retired—once again sound and considerably enthused—at the London International Horse Show in fitting style, complete with a neck-wreath laden with carrots and apples. Maher, ever-cool in front of a camera, was uncharacteristically emotional as he spoke about his “horse of a lifetime.”
“He’s in great condition. He could have been here today jumping the World Cup [qualifier], but he’s done everything for us, he has nothing more to give,” the British Olympian said. “It’s better to go out on a high like this and to give him the retirement and the life that he deserves.
“He’s not just a horse, he’s so intelligent and he really knew his job. I ride many horses every single day, and they’re all so great, but this was different.
“He’s obviously hugely talented, athletic, naturally fast, but it’s his character; his fight to win when he goes in the ring, he fought for me all of the time,” Maher continued, adding that Explosion arrived in Tokyo in 2021, seemingly knowing that “he was there for one job.”
“It’s very sentimental for me. He’s not just a horse, he’s my friend,” Maher said. “I’m just happy to see him happy.”
