Brewster’s McLain Ward and Jessica Springsteen have joined top-ranked American Kent Farrington and three-time Olympian Laura Kraut as the members of the U.S. Equestrian Team at the Tokyo Olympics, which begin Monday, July 12.
If their names are familiar, it’s because they have appeared at Old Salem Farm in North Salem in either the Spring Horse Shows or the American Gold Cup. (Springsteen, daughter of rockers Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa, won the cup in 2014.)
In a sport in which men and women compete side by side and that values young riders and veterans, because it is in large part about the rider’s relationship with the horse, Springsteen is the newcomer. Ranked 27th in the world, she is making her Olympic debut aboard Don Juan van de Donkhoeve, a 12-year-old Belgian Warmblood stallion.
Ward is one of the team’s three veterans, having won team gold in the 2004 Athens Olympics and 2008 Beijing Olympics and a team silver at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Ranked ninth, he’ll be riding 12-year-old Deutsches Sportpferd gelding Contagious.
Farrington, ranked fifth, will be aboard 15-year-old Belgian Warmblood Gazelle in his second straight Olympics after taking team silver in Rio. Kraut rounds out the quartet, riding 11-year-old Hanoverian gelding Baloutinue. Ranked 28th, she won team gold in Beijing.
Happy riding to this fab four and here’s hoping for more gold
