M a r y l a n d C o m b i n e d T r a i n i n g A s s o c i a t i o n

Beyond MCTA

Over the years many MCTA members have ridden at “destination events,” won major titles, and worked behind the scenes at the national and international levels of eventing. Here are some whose photos we’ve been able to track down:

/ Before Jersey Fresh the ESSEX 3-DAY EVENT, held at the USET’s Hamilton Farm Headquarters in Gladstone, NJ, was the culmination of the East Coast spring season. Here former MCTA president and volunteer since 1972 Jean Gore jumps into the Preliminary water on her Anglo-Arab Coreographer in 1989. “Corrie” was bred by MCTA founding member Ann McKay and is the dam of Jeanie’s current event horse Faith.
Phelps photo

Now relocated to Colorado and concentrating on dressage, Grant Schneidman was an active MCTA (and USET) member while he and his Grand Prix dressage rider wife Sharon were based at Linda and Peter Green’s farm in Glyndon. Here he rides two dressage tests on The Flying Dutchman. The one on the right was the pair’s first step toward winning the U.S. Open (Advanced) Championship 3-Day in one of the last years it was held atCHESTERLAND.

Cappy Jackson’s photo artistry is especially evident in this shot of Beth Cantrell (Wicas) and Barb Perrier’s Foolish Chance at FAIR HILL. After Barb got him to Prelim Beth, a former working student with McDonogh School graduate Bruce Davidson Sr., took Chance through an Advanced 3-Day while she was Director of Riding at Garrison Forest School in Owings Mills. Both Beth and Barb were active MCTA volunteers, with Barb serving as the organization’s treasurer and Beth both hosting and conducting many clinics for the organization. /
/ MCTA members have a long history of officiating, volunteering, and sponsoring events beyond their own. Here Lauren Hart [O’Brien] is jumping a fence, also at FAIR HILL, sponsored by Shockey and Iva Gillet’s Hunting Ridge Farm. As befits a former organizer and USCTA Board of Directors member, its sign reads “Thank You Fair Hill Volunteers.”
Cappy Jackson photos

Of all of MCTA’s members so far, none have competed at more “big time” venues than former president and perennial volunteer Walter Reynolds. A sought-after landscape architect by profession, Walter’s most visible role inside MCTA has probably been as course decorator. From the “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Feeder” fence at a long-ago Jenny Camp to the woodland creatures that still gambol over obstacles at Shawan Downs, Walter has definitely left his mark on MCTA! Walter and his late wife Linda’s “horse of a lifetime” was without a doubt Stonehenge, a black Thoroughbred gelding whom they took all the way from Beginner Novice to Advanced with Walter doing most of the riding and Linda the grooming and day-to-day coaching.


Walter jogs Stoney at his first 3-day, the CDCTA CCI* in Virginia in May of 2001.
Sport Horse Studio photo /
The pair in stadium at the BROMONTCCI** in June, 2002. This was a sort of “welcome home” event for Walter, who is a Canadian citizen. Bromont (in Quebec) was the site of the 3-Day event in the 1976 Olympics.
Linda Reynolds photo / In the fall of 2002 Walter and Stoney entered another CCI**, this time at the storied RADNOR site in Malvern, PA
Sport Horse Studio photo


In 2003 Walter and Stoney competed in the Advanced division of the destination MILLBROOK HORSE TRIALS in New York . . . /
. . . and topped off the season with the FAIR HILLCCI***. This was the last full 3-day with steeplechase and roads and tracks to be held at Fair Hill, and one division served as the 3-day for the Pan American Games. At the time Walter, 62, was the oldest 3-star eventer on the FEI’s Active Competitor List!
Sport Horse Studio photos
/ The CHECKMATE 3-DAY EVENT in Ontario was once Canada’s most important fall event. Jamie Maher is perhaps the only MCTA member to have ever ventured north of Toronto to compete there. She did so very successfully in 1994, placing 6th at the Preliminary (now 1–star) level on Lord Mirande, her sister-in-law’s retired open jumper who took up eventing at age 14. “Vinnie” and Jamie are pictured here on cross country (left) and on steeplechase (right) since this was in the days of exclusively long format 3-days.
CLIX photos /

Since the World Championship was held there in 1978, the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington has become the premier eventing venue in the United States and is now the site of our only 4-star competition. A number of MCTA members have competed at this pinnacle of eventing in the western hemisphere, which is now usually known simply as “ROLEX” after its long-time title sponsor.

Kim Meier on her homebred Test Run at Rolex in 2004. / Gretchen Butts on Zydeco at Rolex in 2003.
/ / Colleen Rutledge and Shiraz
werethe 4th highest placed
U.S. pair at Rolex in 2011!

The Equiery/ Katherine O. Rizzo photos

All three of these Rolex horse-rider combinations went on to complete one of the two events that might be considered tougher than Rolex: BURGHLEY in England--Kim and Gretchenin 2004 and Colleen in 2011. Kim and Gretchen rode the long format at both Rolex and Burghley while Colleen did the modern short format. /

Colleen and Shiraz (“Luke”) at a Burghley water combination, Sept. 2011.

matthewrobertsphotographer.co.uk photos

Luke at home with his cat, Ty.

One former MCTA stalwart has taken to eventing behind instead of on top of her horses! After graduating from college and the former USCTA [USEA]-affiliated Morven Park International Equestrian Institute, former MCTA president Dana Bright had a very successful go at ridden eventing while teaching and managing the barn at Oldfields School in Glencoe. Marriage (to farrier Steve Bright), a new farm, and two children followed, whereupon she and her aging event horse tried driving the three phases. With the gift of a small Welsh stallion Dana turned to the pony divisions in combined training with great success. She has also become a sought-after driving instructor and American Driving Society official, with assignments as far away as the world-renowned Spruce Meadows venue in Alberta.

/ Dana and her homebred pair galloped into the water (left) on the marathon [cross country] phase at The Laurels CDE in Unionville PA in 2010, en route to winning the Interme-diate Pony Pair division. At right they demonstrated their prowess in cones [stadium] at the Elk Creek CDE at Fair Hill in 2007.
G. Svoboda photos /