Five Star Tack's Newest Five Star Rider!

Five Star Tack is pleased to announce sponsorship of Canadian three day eventing star Stephanie Rhodes-Bosch. Stephanie is a very talented and hard working young rider with a remarkable competition record.

She rides her sport horse gelding Port Authority who she purchased as a five year old back in 2005 from a show jumping barn as a prospect for the Young Riders Championships. She is a former working student of fellow Five Star rider Rebecca Howard. Rebecca coached Stephanie to the bronze medal at the Young Riders Championships in 2008. She then went to train with David O'Connor, head coach of the Canadian Eventing Team and continues to receive guidance from him today.

 Stephanie and Port Authority - Show jumping Rolex CCI****

Photo courtesy Lisa Barry

 Port Authority "Ollie", has that rare quality of being strong in all three phases in eventing. For a young rider, bringing along her own horse, they have beaten much more seasoned riders. She and Ollie competed at the Rolex Kentucky**** in 2010 and finished in fifth place! They finished on their dressage score of 52. Not only that, she was the youngest rider at Rolex and she also received the prestigious Best Conditioned Award. She was the highest placed Canadian and for being the highest placed rookie she received a HSBC training grant. Pretty amazing!

 Stephanie and Port Authority - Cross Country World Equestrian Games

Photo courtesy David Caruso

If that wasn't enough, Stephanie and Ollie were members of the Canadian Eventing squad at the 2010 World Equestrian Games. They were the highest placed Canadian rider after dressage with a 44.2 putting them in 17th place. With a clear cross country round and one rail down in show jumping the pair moved up to finish in 9th place individually and helped Canada to a team Silver medal!

This year she made the trip to England to compete at the Badminton Horse Trials and while she and Ollie did not have the results they had hoped for, it was a very educational experience for them. After some down time, Stephanie and Ollie will be competing again this summer with a goal of riding at the Fall Eventing Championships at Fair Hill International. This partnership is a top contender for the Canadian Team for next year's London Olympics!

Stephanie also has a few young horses she is bringing up the eventing ranks. Her horses will be wearing Five Star Tack's Waverly dressage bridles, Ainsley and Star bridles and Five Point Breastplates.

Show jumping at The World Equestrian Games

It's Time For Bromont and Announcing a New Five Star Rider!

Montreal, Quebec is the site of the Bromont CCI being held this week. It was the location for the equestrian events from the 1976 Montreal Olympics where US rider Tad Coffin won the individual and team eventing gold medal on Bally Cor. It was also where parts of the movie International Velvet were filmed in 1978 and if you were a horse crazy kid back then like I was you were a fan of Tad Coffin and hung on every stride of International Velvet!

With so much history it's no wonder so many eventing riders dream of competing there. Five Star rider Doug Payne is competing on his Pan Am Games hopeful, Camerlingo and they are currently in second place in the one star, a mere four points off the lead. Doug uses Five Star bridles on all of his horses and when I say he uses them, he really uses them!

Speaking of Canada and eventing, we have a new Five Star sponsored rider to announce! Five Star Tack is pleased to announce that Canadian eventing rider Rebecca Howard is now a Five Star rider. Rebecca is a very accomplished and successful competitor. Riding Riddle Master she competed as an individual at last year's World Equestrian Games and finished tenth at this year's Rolex Kentucky 4 Star. She is riding Roquefort "Rocky" in the 2 Star at Bromont and is leading after dressage! She and Rocky have had a "rocky" couple of years. The pair suffered a fall at the beginning of 2010 and Rebecca was injured and out of the tack for awhile. They are making up for that down time with a wire to wire win in last month's Jersey Fresh 2 Star. She and Rocky are on the fast track to the Pan Am Games and we wish them the best of luck on their journey!

Rebecca is the head trainer at The Fork Fam in North Carolina, site of The Fork CIC and I can't think of a nicer place to train out of! She has a number of students who have gone on to have successful eventing careers of their own including Canadian rider Stephanie Rhodes - Bosch. She also has a number of horses she is bringing along. After her two star win at Jersey she was at the Virginia Horse Trials competing her novice level horses. Rebecca's long term goal is to represent Canada at the 2012 London Olympics. Competing at Bromont was a dream of Rebecca's when she was growing up in Canada as shown by this video courtesy of Samantha Clark of Eventing Nation.



This is Rebecca's winning dressage test from yesterday.


We wish Rebecca and Doug a successful weekend at Bromont!