Caelinn Leahy and Splendor go airborne, celebrating their Grand Prix Jumper win at HITS Balmoral in July. “He’s so laid back out hunting!” Caelinn says. / Andrew Ryback photography
Back in the day, horsemen and women used to show or event their horses in the summer and foxhunt the same horses in the fall and winter. We don’t see that any more, except maybe in Ireland where they still believe that foxhunting teaches horses about some of the fun in life, how to handle the terrain, and how to get themselves out of trouble by finding that fifth leg when needed.
Fifteen-year-old Caelinn Leahy, who has a connection to Irish ways through her dad, Tony, foxhunts an eighteen-year-old bay Hanoverian gelding. His name is Splendor, and he’s a show jumper, too. On July 22nd, Caelinn and Splendor won the $50,000 HITS Balmoral Grand Prix in Illinois.
Caelinn and Splendor win their first Grand Prix as a team at the $50,000 HITS Balmoral in Illinois. / Andrew Ryback photography
“He’s so laid back out hunting!” Caelinn said. That surprised me, considering that the pair tore around the jump-off round two seconds faster than the any of the other six horses that qualified.
Caelinn was born to a foxhunting household with her father Tony serving as Master and huntsman of two packs, Fox River Valley and Massbach Hounds in Illinois, and her mother Heidi foxhunting as well. She started jumping fences at the age of five, then began foxhunting, and finally showing hunters.
Steve Schaefer, Caelinn’s stepfather and trainer, bought Splendor as an experienced show jumper a year ago. Schaefer sent the horse to Tony’s farm for some time off. Schaefer sends other horses—even other Grand Prix horses—to Tony for rest and recreation, where they’re walked out with hounds across the fields and given a chance to unwind in the great outdoors.
Caelinn believes that hacking out with hounds and foxhunting helps the horses back in the jumper ring. “It brightens them up,” she claims. “Splendor was always a show horse. He was always ridden in a ring. Besides the fitness that hunting gives them, horses enjoy getting out of the ring—just like me—galloping across the fields instead of doing circles. It lets them be a horse.”
Caelinn and Splendor go hunting. It helps a horse’s mind, she says.
She’s convinced that foxhunting gives horses a work ethic, too, by tuning in to the rider and learning new commands and aids: “catch up with that horse; go that way; stop, be still, and listen.”
“I do think foxhunting and walking out with hounds helps a horse’s mind. It’s really important for me, anyway!” she says with enthusiasm.
Though she has yet to whip-in on her own, she has ridden along with others. “It’s so cool,” Caelinn says. “You get a totally different perspective on the hunt.”
Caelinn started training with Schaefer for the show ring at the age of six. She started in the short stirrup division, competed as a member of the Children’s Jumper Team for Zone 5, and rode as a member of the Children’s Irish Team at Wellington. She moved up to junior jumpers at age eleven, and two years ago rode with the Zone 5 Junior Jumper Team at Harrisburg. Last September, Caelinn was named Show Jumping Hall of Fame Rider of the Month, after winning the $25,000 High Junior/Amateur-Owner Evergreen International in Kenosha, Wisconsin, riding Caribe. She also entered Splendor in the Junior North American Field Hunter Championship series last season and qualified him for the finals.
Her first Grand Prix win was the $25,000 Showplace Fall Classic in Illinois last year, riding Esquilino Bay, her main jumper. Then in June this year, back home from a Grand Prix competition the previous weekend, with Esquilino Bay performing at the top of his game, they found the horse dead in his stall. A stunning shock.
Campaign plans for the summer were completely reset, and Splendor was moved up to the Grand Prix. Under Schaefer’s training, Caelinn and Splendor competed in two Grand Prix events before it all came together for the win at HITS Balmoral in July.
Equifest is running now in Illinois with three weeks of grand prix, stakes, and derbies. But hunting season will soon follow, and Caelinn’s thoughts (and perhaps Splendor’s as well) are once again looking to the hunting field.
Posted August 4, 2017