Equistride International

Carole Grant recalls the horse who taught her to recognize a Champion!

If there’s one thing that Carole Grant learned from her partner Percy III, it’s that there’s always a little luck involved in a great horse.

When her trainer Eike von Veltheim picked out four horses from Germany to bring to Grant’s Michigan farm for resale, Percy was the one that attracted the least attention from potential buyers. In fact, Grant wasn’t sure that she would have picked him out herself, had she made the first trip to the Kohlers, who used to run the Hanoverian auction in Verden, Germany.

"They kept saying he was a good horse, but I don’t think anybody thought he was going to go where he went," Grant said. "He was bought to be sold—it was purely a business thing. A few experts said [Percy] was nice, but that he might never piaffe. But it turned out that he really had a talent for it."

As clients continued to look over Percy, a 16.1-hand, chestnut Hanoverian, Grant began to discover the qualities that would make him an international competitor. "He was very intelligent, and when you rode him, he always had perfect manners, even though he was always bucking and playing on the longe line or in the paddock," she said.

"I started to realize he was highly intelligent, more than any horse I’d ever had. I’d start to teach him things and thought he’d already been taught them, but then I would check and he hadn’t."

Percy, who was 9 when Grant purchased him, had been competing as a jumper with Ullrich Kasselmann, who worked for the Kohlers. But Grant started him at third level and earned national awards right from the start.

"He was good in the ring, and he was always the same, and he suited my body," said Grant. "I would teach him things and think, ‘My God, how could this be so easy?’ "

Grant trained with Melle van Brug-gen, who was the U.S. Equestrian Team coach in the early ‘80s. "He gave me a good foundation for teaching piaffe and passage," she said.

Over Too Soon?

Even before Percy was confirmed at Grand Prix, Grant was confident in his abilities. "This is his first Grand Prix year, and you can teach him anything," she told the Chronicle in 1982. "He has a lot of controlled adrenaline. When he finally gets to Grand Prix, he’ll have the stamina, have the brilliance, and have a little more. He’s a very willing horse, and I don’t think in a lifetime you get many like he is."

But Percy’s career seemed to be over all too soon when he foundered in 1978. All four coffin bones went through the hooves, and he spent a year in Pennsylvania recuperating with veterinarian Larry Baudin. "He treated him for a year in casts, and many times we almost put him down," said Grant. "We never did because he wanted to keep eating and keep trying."

Grant’s daughter Mary Ann witnessed her mother’s dedicated nursing of Percy’s ailments. "They had a very close emotional relationship because he was not always healthy, and they had their ups and downs," she said. "She had to have faith in him, and they both really tried. He tried to live; a lot of horses would have given up then—and she never lost faith in him."

Grant didn’t expect Percy to return to competition, but by 1982, they were back at the top, competing in Europe in preparation for the World Champion-ships. "He was sixth in the Grand Prix at Rotterdam [the Netherlands] as soon as we got there, and that was kind of unheard of. It went downhill from there to the World Championships, but he was a good horse, and [the Europeans] accepted him well," she said.

In 1983, the pair earned double gold medals at the Pan Am Games in Caracas, Venezuela. "By that time, I knew a lot about him, like which side of the trailer he had to be on—only the left—and I went with him every moment and knew his routine," she said.

But Grant recalls her extreme nerves at those Pan Am Games. "George Theodorescu was the team coach, and he said to me. ‘You have to not be nervous; you have the best horse here.’ I’ll never forget those words, and I often had the best horse," she said.

Grant spent the rest of the year studying in Europe with Theodorescu on a $15,000 grant from the U.S. Olympic Committee. "It was a learning experience, and I learned that when you know your horse is a champion, you have to take care of every detail," she said.

But despite Grant’s careful ministrations, Percy foundered again the winter before the 1984 Olympics. Although he was able to recover in time to compete in the selection trials, he wasn’t in top form. He finished eighth overall after placing sixth in the Grand Prix. "[That] was kind of sad because horses he’d always beaten were beating him. He just couldn’t quite get back in shape," said Grant.

Grant did continue to compete after that, earning more national championships and competing in three U.S. Olympic Festivals. But she had to struggle to keep Percy with a good farrier, even when he was traveling, because whenever his angles were not perfect in his shoeing, the founder would crop up again.

A Friend And Teacher

Even though Percy wasn’t performing Grand Prix movements when Grant started with him, she always felt that he was her teacher, and not the other way around.

"He gave me my whole beginning into international work," she said. "He was more my teacher; he told me the way. He gave me the feeling of excellent piaffe, and from that horse, I can put it on another horse. He taught me that a horse can be the same every day. How-ever good I was, he never let me down."

Grant also allowed Mary Ann, who was a hunter/jumper rider at the time, to compete Percy in the Continental Young Riders Dressage Champion-ships. They earned an individual bronze medal and team silver medal in 1981. "He was a very easy horse," said Carole. "That was the beauty of him—other people could ride him."

Mary Ann attributes her current devotion to dressage, and her switch from the hunter/jumper ring, largely to Percy. "I was able to have success, and that always makes you want to do something more," she said. "He was a kind and giving horse. He never asked for much and was always trying hard."

Mary Ann also had a great respect for her mother’s relationship with the horse: "He was her partner, and most riders in their lifetime are lucky to get one good dancing partner. Some people never get one. It was lucky for both of them. He was one of those horses that you just wish there were more like him."

"He was a real champion as far as his heart," Carole added. "He never let me down in the ring, and I learned from him what a champion is—I’ve been able to pick some out since then because he showed me what it is."

As an example, Grant named Wonderful Walden, whom she saw and immediately encouraged Betsy Rebar Sell to buy. Just last year, Sell rode him to the team gold medal at the Pan Am Games and is now competing him at Grand Prix. Grant also said she first spotted the talent of Lectron, the horse Robert Dover rode in the 1992 Olympics Games and with whom Melinda McPhail was the reserve rider for the 1994 World Championships.

Enduring Quality

Grant thinks that Percy’s talent would keep him among the elite U.S. dressage horses, even today. "Even with all of our good horses now, he would still be a good horse because his piaffe and passage were very good and his type is still good," she said. "He had three good gaits and was pretty and wanted to work and had energy.

"He taught me to look for character and heart again," she added, "because those are the ones you want in the end."

Grant also appreciated Percy’s work ethic. "With a choice, he would always choose the ring over cross-country, and I haven’t had many like that," she said. "He was always a worker."

Percy’s trailering was one of the few difficulties with which he presented Grant. He had to be on the left side, and the right side had to be open so he could step wide. "He would go down if the partition went to the ground. I had to be careful," she said.

Percy’s love of playing in the field meant that he could not be turned out, and he was "a groom’s nightmare," admitted Grant. "In his stall even, he would buck and play and squeal. And he was a crazy man outside. He’d buck and play when you led him. He wasn’t mean, just fresh, and we never took that away from him. I thought he was entitled to a little life."

When Percy was 21, in 1989, he foundered for the final time. "He laid down on the ground, and my daughter Tonya called me and said, ‘I want to put your horse down now,’ and she did. Even the vet had a hard time with it," Grant said. "We buried him on the farm. But it was hard—you always had a feeling with this horse, that he wanted to go one more time.

"We got to know each other really, really well, as you do with a special horse," Grant added. "I rode him for so many years, and he was a part of my life and a part of my children’s life, and we traveled so much together. I really haven’t had a horse I’ve spent so much time and so many years with. Possibly, if I had gone to pick him out, I wouldn’t have picked him. But when you get a real champion, sometimes there’s a little luck. I know there is."

Beth Rasin,
Chronicle of the Horse