Kentucky Three-day Event Presented by Defender

What a whirlwind weekend. I’m still trying to recover from the highs and lows of it all.

Kimmy Cecere & Vinnie

To start, I want to say, I doubt I’ll do Kentucky again next year the same way I did this year. I definitely over-extended myself. I am the sole creator for the Halite project, that won’t change anytime soon. I like it that way; no scaling to this business.

Now the not so good news… I came up against my first real pushback to my creative approach at this show. I must admit I was completely unprepared to deal with what came my way from one of my clients this week. It was tough to navigate without getting my feelings hurt. Going forward, I would like to make it abundantly clear to anyone who will hear it; I am the magic ingredient to Halite Creative. If you don’t like my creative approach book another media professional. I will not allow myself to be berated and put down by people who are hoping to wear me down and take advantage of my work for a huge discount. I’m not putting that on the table for discussion anymore. I hold the camera, I choose the shots I think will look the best. If you don’t like that, go elsewhere with your tightly held pocketbook and sour attitude.

While I’m at it, I feel it’s necessary to speak my mind here. If I chose to edit my true feelings too much, what would be the point of writing this blog anyhow? This past weekend demonstrated the importance of good PR and most importantly good horsemanship. Our sport is making big moves towards a welfare focused approach to high-performance sport horse competition. I feel this is far too late, and will likely cost us our sport, not just eventing. There are just too many bad players in a very complex industry, with a strange relationship to funding and messaging. A training approach built on feel is what has been missing in the upper-levels of our sport. We also have continually been applying pressure to bad actors and athletes who by any metric shouldn’t be riding and training. Again, I think as a sport, we are late in our adoption of this approach. There were two PR issues that I feel could have been very easily avoided this past weekend. I am not going to use this article to call these riders out. That does no good. If one of us acts poorly, it reflects on all of us who make up the sport horse industry. We desperately need unity and collaborative effort to effectively address the issues threatening our sport. I know this article will likely be taken the wrong way, but its my blog, not yours.

Now, after all that, what do I think we (the horse sport world, and eventing especially) need most? Firstly, we need good horse-people. We need good training and coaching that fosters a holistic approach to training and caring for horses. We also need dedicated business and media professionals, ones that have a wealth of experience with horses. We need to find these from within our ranks. People who understand how barns, programs, and horses live and compete are best suited to promote this great sport. We also need a stronger push to raise the standards. We need more practical rules and competition structures, supported by dedicated, knowledgable officials. Without a renewed focus and dedicated effort from all sides, our sport will not survive for much more than a decade longer. Okay, my tirade is over. I had to get that out of my system.

I also would like to make it abundantly clear that this is my opinion. I’m just the warm body behind the camera, not a 5-star rider.

Tom McEwen & Brookfield Quality

My main objective this week was to provide exclusive photo and video coverage for World Equestrian Brands and their sponsored riders in both the eventing and show jumping. Click here to view the eventing album, and here for the show jumping. Between the eventing and show jumping I had nine riders to cover, which is relatively calm in comparison to my usual show responsibility. Luckily, unless you’re an overachiever like James Alliston, you’ll likely go to Kentucky with one or two horses, and not half your stable! If you are crazy like that, I support you. What would I know about doing too much anyway?

Woah, this article is really going everywhere. I’m sorry to have taken you on so many tangents. Now, more about how Halite Creative navigated the weekend. Both days of dressage were a nice mix of wind, torrential rain, sunshine, and lightning. Everybody stayed safe and a few gave us a real show of true horsemanship. Michael Jung waltzed into the court and casually broke the longstanding dressage score record held at the Kentucky Horse Park. The German contingent truly operated at opposing ends of a spectrum this weekend, that is all I will say. Michael is one of the greatest horsemen of our time. He has found a way to maintain such a strong rotating string of horses for the past decade. From La Biosthetique Sam, to Fischer Rocana, and currently Fischer Chipmunk he has found a way stick right at the top of the sport with apparent ease. All things considered, K3DE 2025 was a net positive. I learned, laughed, and languished (mostly for the sake of this crummy wordplay).

As always, stay creative, and ride forward!

HC