70 SIDELINES SEPTEMBER 2014
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
“Oh goodness, I don’t know. I was always building random things
in the woods with old tree limbs and chairs and then tearing them
down so I wouldn’t get in trouble.”
Lauren, like every other event rider, loves the cross-country.
That’s where horse and rider face their greatest challenges, where
their evolving partnership gets put to the test.
Lauren’s middle name, Bliss, means perfect happiness or great
joy, and her path has been filled with what she loves most: horses.
She has learned to roll with the punches, deal with setbacks, nurse
horses through illness and injury, and cope with all the humbling
moments and occasional heartbreaks that accompany living 24/7
with horses. She has never questioned taking this challenging
path and it all began when she was very young.
“I was always obsessed with horses and my parents gave me
my first riding lessons when I was 6,” admitted Lauren. ”I started
at an eventing barn a few years later and was hooked after my
first cross-country school. I never really considered another sport
and threw myself into eventing from the beginning with Misty, my
mom’s horse — she started riding for pleasure not long after I got
started — and my OTTB, Cardinal.”
Getting Her Start
Unlike so many other upper level event riders, Lauren didn’t
grow up with Pony Club, because there weren’t any near the
Kieffer family’s home in Mt. Carmel, a rural county seat in southern
Illinois. She did a little 4-H, but great bits of her early horsemanship
were acquired while riding at Susannah Lansdale’s eventing barn.
“Susannah gave me a huge amount of education,” said Lauren.
“I was a barn rat for years and she let me ride anything and
everything I could get my hands on. I got so many hours in the
tack on hundreds of different horses and that kind of experience
is invaluable. She also let me get great competition experience on
her lovely mare, Cinco de Mayo.”
In 2002, Lauren’s parents, Jo and Kevin Kieffer, bought Snooze
Alarm from his breeders, Lawson and Jeanne Williams. Lauren
had pretty much done all she could at Novice level with Misty and
Cardinal. She was 14, Snooze was 4, and together they worked
their way up through the levels.
For three years running, Lauren competed with Snooze Alarm,
the horse who wasn’t easy, on the Area VIII 3-day team at the
North American Junior & Young Rider Championships (NAJYRC).
In 2005, after attending the O’Connor Eventing Camp in Virginia,
Lauren and her Area VIII teammates earned the bronze medal in
the CCI*, the Junior Championship. At the 2006 NAJYRC, they
competed in the CCI**, but didn’t medal. In 2007 they harvested
team silver in the CCI**, the Young Rider Championship.
“I was terrible at NAYRC,” Lauren admitted, laughing at the
memories. “I had stops every year I went, but I had so much fun
and some of my best friends were from my teams.”
A Banner Year
Then 2007 turned out to be a banner year. Lauren earned her
place on the USEF Developing Riders Training List. She needed
two 2-star completions in order to qualify, but she did even better
by placing 7th at Jersey Fresh CCI** and 2nd and 4th at the Maui
Jim/Wayne CIC** and had no problem getting recommendations
from two different CCI**** competitors. In 2007 she also qualified,
for the third time, for the American Eventing Championships and
she rode Walk On The Moon to first place. At Jersey Fresh, she
and Tigger Too received the Markham Trophy, which is awarded
to the highest placed rider under 21 in the USEF CCI*** Spring
Championship.
The O’Connor Eventing Camp in 2005 led to Lauren, 18, being
offered the opportunity to be a working student with Karen and
David. She didn’t think twice about saying yes. She moved East
and found herself following the eventing circuit, living in The Plains,
Virginia, for the summer and in Ocala, Florida, for the winter. Best
of all, she was learning from two Olympic event riders. It was the
ultimate dream come true.
“My parents are phenomenal and have never been anything but
supportive,” Lauren said. “I doubt in the beginning they realized
how far my interest would go! They were great when I decided
to defer college for a year to go work for OCET [O’Connor Event
Team] and didn’t hesitate when I asked to continue. To them, there
was never the question of college
or
horses. They said college
would always be there, but I should take the opportunities that
were being given to me now.”
Lauren and the Anglo-Arabian Snooze Alarm finished 29th out of
37 (53 started) in their first CCI*** Rolex Kentucky in 2010, which
doubled as a USA Three-day team selection trial for the Alltech
FEI 2010 World Equestrian Games.
Photo by Lauren R. Giannini
Lauren and Veronica, at the 2014 Rolex Kentucky, with friend,
mentor and U.S. Three-Day Eventing Chef d’Equipe
David O’Connor.
Photo by Joanie Morris/USEF
