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FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE SIDELINES AUGUST 2011 55

“I didn’t want to watch any more,” she adds. “I sat in my car and tried not to think about it, but the announcing there was really good and I had to hear what was going on.”

In the long run, however, the dramatic changes in the standings didn’t matter once Sinead and Tate left the start box. The rider smiled often navigating the cross-country. Even when Tate got a bit off-line in the water, requiring some pilot adjustment, “he never lost focus and reacted well,” recalls Sinead.

Late in the day’s order of go, the 11-year-old Selle Francais gelding was en route to proving himself as a genuine four-star horse.

“I was really pleased – he’s really expressive and I can read him well, and he was going really well,” she said after they fnished the cross-country. “He thought he was really cool.”

Whatever else was going on inside Sinead’s head, cool was the operative word. On Sunday, after the fnal vet jog when Tate showed his usual exuberance and received the ground jury’s nod to continue, Sinead had to wait until next to last to show jump. Mary went a bit earlier with second-placed Urco.

When it was time for Sinead to enter the arena, Manoir de Carneville jumped faultlessly and, after clearing the fnal painted fence, the enormity of their achievement shredded her composure, and Sinead couldn’t stop the tears. Tate cruised triumphantly around the big outdoor arena at Kentucky Horse Park to cheers and applause while his rider worked to get her emotions under control. They had added only 4.4 time penalties from the testing cross-country to their dressage score for a fnal of 53.1 penalty points.

Becoming “One Of Them”

To complete Rolex is an accomplishment: To fnish in the ribbons and in the money boosts one’s spirits, bank account and marketability. By the time Sinead approached the gate, her tears were accompanied by a huge smile. Eventing is an extreme sport accompanied by extreme emotions. She was in good company: Mary King had experienced a similar meltdown with her two horses even though she is a fve-time Olympic rider aiming for London 2012.

“I don’t even remember when I frst went to Rolex, but it’s always this dream, always there in the back of your mind,” admits Sinead. “You dream about Rolex when you’re mucking a stall or working for someone else. You get up at four a.m. to go to horse trials and you pass the time dreaming about Rolex. As I got more grown-up, I got more technical in my dreams: About what my feeling would be when I fnished the three days. It was beyond all my expectations.”

In the press conference following the fnal test, there were two Brits – Mary King (frst and second), William Fox-Pitt (fourth), and Sinead Halpin. She harked back to her time in the UK with William in 2008-09, because that provided a major learning curve, which contributed to her evolution as a rider and horseman. She made all the assembled writers and photographers laugh when she admitted that, after weeks of frustration, she told William to name his price, that she would pay him anything, just please teach her.

Figuring It Out For Herself

“William had a yard of 29 horses and every single horse was there for him,” recalls Sinead. “They really do focus on their own riding and competition. The idea of a teaching barn and working students doesn’t enter into their vocabulary. I didn’t know what to do and William didn’t know what to do with me. I wasn’t an 18-year-old mucking stalls and I wasn’t a competitive peer of his either. William doesn’t have any airs about him, but it probably took me a month to get past the fact that this was William Fox-Pitt . I was from Middleburg, VA and I was so used to being under

a microscope and I felt almost uneasy. He didn’t really care. He had just won Burghley, he was going to Hong Kong for the Olympics and I was just going to have to fgure it out on my own. He was always willing to talk to me. We would go for a hack and I’d ask him anything and he would answer. I just had to come up with good questions to get the answers I needed.”

Figuring it out for yourself makes sense, because there’s no way anyone can help you when you and your horse are galloping at a solid timber construction that looks humongous on the Rolex cross-country course. Sinead did fgure it out for herself, how to improvise if plan A didn’t quite pan out, and how to get to plan C, if necessary.

“Rolex was something I really hoped with all my heart would happen and I worked really hard for it,” says Sinead. “It was a long road for me, and there were a lot of bumps along the way. It happened: You get there and go through the whole week at Rolex trying not only to be competitive and do right by your horse, take care of the sponsors and try to enjoy the moment, but also trying to control the emotions that go along with it. You have to fght those emotions when you’re jumping that last fence, realizing that you really did what you just did and that it all worked out the way you hoped and dreamed for years. It’s absolutely overwhelming.”

What’s Next After Rolex

Right now Manoir de Carneville (Tate) is enjoying time off and turnout at the farm where Sinead is based in Pittstown, NJ. She plans to bring him back into work and aim for the Millbrook Horse Trials (NY) in August.

“If that goes well, then we’ll set our sights on Burghley,” says Sinead, citing one of England’s two four-stars: Badminton runs in the spring and Burghley, in early September, will defnitely attract a stellar feld preparing for the 2012 London Olympics. “We’ll see how everything goes after I get him back into work. I’m trying not to change too much. That’s been my biggest challenge. The system that we established this spring is working and Tate is stepping up to the plate gradually by increments and I have to remember that this is a very talented but sensitive horse. He’s very sensible. He just needs to do things in his own time. ” The journey continues…

Sinead felt overwhelmed with emotion after Tate jumped double clear in show jumping and she realized her dream. Her horse earned best conditioned, to boot, and she recalls: “At the last trot-up at Rolex, he was jumping around, squealing like a bull, striking out like a stallion and being very famboyant. He can be sweet, but you have to be soft around him”

Photos by Lauren R. Giannini