Holy cow Who is THAT?!?!?!?!

Once upon a time the Who's Who of eventing were nothing but young riders dreaming about riding in the Olympics one day. They eventually got caught by the eventing bug and started working their ways up from the tiniest tadpole division to where they are now. So what did these tiny versions of the Big Stars look like? What horrible clothes did they pair together thinking that it was highly fashionable enough for the Rolex trot up? Because lets face it- fashion has had some really ugly stages!

Some of the Big Names had famous eventing parents, others had parents that rode a little but never at the top, and even more top rider's had parents that couldn't tell you the back of a horse from the front end! Over the years these riders worked their way up from wherever they started to become what they are now, and only the future can tell what else they have in store for them!

But lets stop talking futuristic- I'm a little in love with the past at times- especially if there is an embarrassing photo involved. Unfortunately I do not have a truly scandalous picture of any of the Big Names, but I do have one OMG picture taken almost 12 years ago (fall of 1999) at a little event in Tryon, at a little place called FENCE. It's one of those pictures that the 2 Famous Amos riders would look at and go "AH! I wore those shoes???" or "Look at how tiny and short I was!" etc etc etc- but to everyone else they would look just fine.

It started long ago (1997) when a graduate A pony clubber moved to Charlotte NC. She immediately looked up the local pony club and asked about teaching lessons. From this she acquired many happy little kids on fat little ponies and turned them into hard core happy eventers on sleek and fit horses. One of the happy little pony clubbers was a young girl who had plans to one day ride in the Olympics. This young girl went on to represent Carolina Region at Pony Club Nationals and Area III at the NAJYRC.

So with that note here is the long awaited picture- though i'm sure you've already seen it since it's not like I can post it on the next "page" and make you flip over to see it, it's just sitting a few enter keys down already glaring at you for cheating by not reading all this type first ;)

I wish the photo would show up bigger, but it was taken before such things as digital cameras existed so it had to be scanned onto the computer and the translation to here made it that size. Anyways the two famous riders are none other than: Rolex rider Susan Beebee, hugging the extremely sexy and handsome chestnut (I'm not biased or anything since that's my horse!), and Jersey Fresh CCI*** winner Andrea Leatherman, wearing the Micky Mouse t-shirt on the right.

So I ask you, the reader, do you have any pictures of famous horses or riders BEFORE they became famous??? I do know (thanks to the powers of Facebook stalking) that the really tall girl in the photo, Annie, had none other than the famous eventing pony, Teddy O'Connor, living in her pasture sometime before he headed off to live with the O'Connors. It really is a small world!!!