Preliminary competition has ended at the 2026 Thoroughbred Makeover in Lexington, Kentucky, and five members of Team Maryland are moving on to the championships tomorrow: Maryland Horses Maryland Trainers Good luck to everyone! PC: Erin Gilmore Photography
After something of a rough 2026 season so far, the Maryland Sport Thoroughbred Two Today brought it when it mattered today to win the 2026 Area II Novice Eventing Championship. Two Today, a 2019 dark bay gelding by Mineshaft out of Lady Stragmore (Tale of the Cat), was bred by Quest Realty and had only two starts at the track before retiring from racing in 2021. He was picked up by West Virginia eventer Allison Sowden who re-started him for sport. Snowden took him to his first sanctioned horse trial in 2024. He started in the starter division — appropriately so — at the May 4th Waredaca Horse Trial in Laytonsville. He finished fourth. Since then, Two Today has risen rapidly up the levels, going as far as the CCI1*-S level, and he is now bouncing around between Novice and Training to solidify his education before again moving forward. This ...
Day two of the USEA Area II Championships started off with a little repair work. In the night, the HSM start box tent took out the corner of the start box itself and came to rest in one of the dressage rings. Our garish, yet arresting, start box tent’s sad and battered remains, once discovered, received the immediate attention of the start box emergency repair technicians. We hope for a full and complete recovery in time for its next outing. Fortunately, Team Maryland pushed the tent tragedy aside and went on to put down some excellent runs: Open Training Championship Division: Training Rider Championship Division: Open Novice Championship Division: Novice Junior Championship Division: Novice Rider Championship Division: Beginner Novice Rider Championship Division: Junior Beginner Novice Rider Championship Division: Open Starter Rider Championship Division: Open Starter Championship Division:
The US Eventing Association’s Area II Championships kicked off today at Loch Moy Farm in Adamstown. Area II comprises Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. To qualify for the championships, a horse-and-rider pair from anywhere in Area II must finish 1st through 5th at at least one event in the Intermediate, Preliminary, Modified, Training, Novice, Beginner Novice, or Starter divisions. The competition will run through Sunday across 14 different divisions. As always, Maryland horses and riders are in plentiful supply, and many of the pairs that contested the American Eventing Championships at the Kentucky Horse Park in August are competing again this weekend. Todays Starters James Power of Mt. Airy started Team Maryland off in the Intermediate (3’9″) Championship division today, riding his Young Rider Championship partner, the 10-year-old Connemara/Thoroughbred gelding, Brambleridge Ponder the Truth (aka Patrick). Since the Young Rider championships in June, Power and Patrick ...
Horse Sport Maryland was pleased to sponsor the highest scoring Maryland-bred pony at the Maryland Pony Breeders Yearling Future this past Sunday at the Harford County Equestrian Center. Maryland-bred ponies are among the most successful ponies on the Welsh circuit ever year, and they excel in the Pony Hunter divisions of USHJA sanctioned events as well. The future looks bright with the current pony foal crop. Many congratulations to the breeders of these beautiful winners — Jacqueline Morris, Severn Oaks Farm, and Loafers Lodge Welsh. All pictures by Kathryn Southard.
We here at Horse Sport Maryland set about writing up Severn Oaks Farm as our Maryland Pony Breeder of the Day a few days ago, but then two things happened. The first thing was that yours truly sustained a mildly incapacitating back injury coming off a very non-pony-sized horse (a 17.2 hand OTTB), which knocked us off our surfboard for a time. The second thing was that we found that much our work had already been done exceptionally well by Peggy Ingles, who published an article about Severn Oaks in the January 2009 issue of The Equiery. Ingles’s article was written in memory of the foundation stallion Severn West Wind, who died in 2001, and says more than we ever could about the farm so we are re-printing a great deal of it here: A Family Commitment By Peggy Ingles Severn Oaks Farm was founded in 1947 near the Severn River, ...
Casey Edinger at Slackwater Farm in Dameron, St. Mary’s County, is one of the country’s up-and-coming Welsh pony breeders. Thirteen of her Section B and Section C Welsh are registered with WPCSA, and most of those are also registered with the US Equestrian Federation. Her first registered foal was born in 2018; the most recent was born last April. She was the Champion Welsh Breeder at the 2022 Maryland Pony Breeders Yearling Futurity. Edinger uses a few bloodlines in her breeding program that are not currently seen in many of our Maryland-bred ponies. Two examples are her 2023 Welsh cross Slackwater Mischief Managed, who comes down from Kristin deLuca’s German Riding Ponies in Connecticut; and her Massachusetts-bred broodmare Ashland Ginger Rose, who brings in the Glanteifi bloodlines from Wales and the Gallod pedigrees from Canada. The WPCSA registry is filling with more Slackwater ponies every year, to such an extent ...
Copper Beech Farm in Tracey’s Landing is among the most successful breeders of Welsh Mountain Ponies (also known as Section A ponies) in the country. It is owned and operated by JudithAnn Hartman, who is also the current President of the Maryland Pony Breeders and the organizer of the Maryland Pony Breeders Yearling Futurity. She specializes in Section A ponies bred specifically for the driving disciplines. Hartman has two Section A yearlings entered in this year’s show: Copper Beech Campion – a chestnut colt born on March 16, 2025, by Hartman’s champion stallion Copper Beech Summer Zephyr out of Hartman’s Copper Beech Marigold (Gypsy Rose’s Pride). Campion is undefeated in his 11 outings in the WPCSA Section A Colts division this year, and he was Reserve Grand Champion in two of those. As a result, he is currently in first place nationally for WPCSA Section A Colts. Copper Beech Porcelain ...
The Maryland Pony Breeders (MPB) are holding their annual futurity this coming weekend, Sept. 12-13, at the Harford County Equestrian Center in Bel Air. The Yearling Futurity is both a celebration and a sneak preview of the next generation of champion Maryland-bred ponies. MPB is the oldest multi-breed pony association in the United States. In the early 1950s, influential instructor and pony breeder Louise Este Hollyday (“Miss Louise”) and her business partner Pat Archer realized that unlike the Thoroughbred racing industry, which had robust organizational support, the regional pony breeders were un-organized and therefore un-seen. To rectify that, Hollyday and Archer established the MPB in June 1953 to organize and promote all pony breeds and pony disciplines. Since then, Maryland pony breeders have purpose-bred what is now the ideal American Hunter Pony. Maryland-bred ponies dominate breed shows, driving competitions, and the show ring. They are known for their tight, symmetrical ...
The Novice divisions completed their AECs for this year today, with some shuffling up the leaderboard and some shuffling down. The Beginner Novice and Starter levels completed the cross-country phase today and go on their division finals tomorrow. The big news in the Starter divisions is that one Maryland rider and one Maryland-bred horse are sitting in first place after their respective cross-country rides. Another Maryland-bred horse is sitting in second place, one rail away from first. CHAMPIONSHIP FINALS Novice Amateur Master Arlo Bello and his rider Sarah Crocker (Marshall, Virginia) came into the final phase today in ninth place, but had an unfortunate rail in stadium to end the competition in 10th place on a final score of 38.3. Novice Amateur Dayna Blumel of Davidsonville and her Thoroughbred Brave Sand Rider rode their competition this week in the points equivalent of Base 10. They started in 40th place after ...
