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McLain Ward

The Pathfinder Becomes

the Anchor Rider

The son of professional equestrians Barney and Kris Ward, McLain rode before he could walk. Born and trained to be a top show jumper, McLain began fulfilling his destiny early. At age 14, he was the youngest person ever to win the USET Medal Finals East (now the USEF Talent Search Finals East) while taking the team’s Talent Derby in the same year.

At the time he said, “I’ve had so many experiences most 14-year-olds haven’t had. If it continues, I’ll be ahead of the game.” He was right. Those early victories foreshadowed enormous show jumping success. At the age of 24, he became the youngest rider to earn $1 million in his discipline. Eventually, he would rank as number one in the world—an Olympic, World Equestrian Games, and Pan American Games multi-medalist. McLain’s persistence is as legendary as his ability—he took the 2017 FEI World Cup Finals on his seventeenth try at the title.

His horses have included more than a few superstars, including Sapphire—after whom the Grand Prix of Devon is named; Rothchild; his winning World Cup mount, HH Azur; and his 2018 WEG team gold medal anchor ride, Clinta. McLain, his wife, Lauren, and their daughter, Lilly Kristine, live where he grew up, at Castle Hill Farm in Brewster, New York.

When I first began competing on the team at championships, Beezie Madden was the anchor rider. That was appropriate, since she is older than I am and had a little more experience at the time. Our international championship careers basically coincided for 15 years. I generally was the lead-off rider and everybody was very comfortable with me as the pathfinder. We were very successful for a long time with Beezie and myself in those roles. I had ridden anchor on a few teams, though not very often.

In 2016, however, there was a transition and I became the anchor and kind of remained in that spot. The qualities you need to go first and those you need to be the anchor rider are sometimes a little bit different, but the order in which you ride for the team is heavily determined by the horse you’re riding. Some horses fill one of those spots better than the other, but you have to be very cool and have a great amount of experience, so that you’ve been in most situations you encounter as part of the team—wherever you ride in the order.

You’re always going to be more successful in the long run if you’ve been in a situation before and can figure out how to handle it. Either way, you understand your job is to jump two clear rounds. That’s all that you are responsible for. You can’t get distracted by other things, and need to be as prepared and ready to go as possible to do that job.

Most people would say there’s more pressure for an anchor rider than a lead-off rider because you understand the consequences of any penalties you accumulate pretty clearly and know what has to be done. You’ve been put in that position because they’re expecting a certain performance from you. The pressure is greater for the anchor rider, but someone who has more experience and been in more positions can bring that to the table. You’re using all that knowledge to be mentally and physically in the right place.

The Rio Olympics was a huge moment. We went into the 2016 Games thinking that with four faults or better in the Nations Cup overall, we would win the gold medal. It seemed logical. And then France had what I considered an out-of-body experience that day. Roger Yves Bost went right before me and jumped a clear round to clinch the gold medal.

So there I was, the U.S. anchor rider, walking down the ramp with a focus 100 percent on jumping that clean round and winning that gold medal. Then all of a sudden, that wasn’t possible. It was a blow, but I had only 45 seconds to digest that information and realize that if I had one fence down, there’d be no medal at all. That would have been a very disappointing Olympics for us.

After I went into the ring, I pulled up HH Azur and took a moment to tell myself, “Okay, it’s a little bit disappointing. But now there’s a job to be done, and I have to focus on the things I can control and let the bigger outcome sort itself out.”

The mission had become bringing home the silver, compared to the possibility of no medal and a fifth-place finish. For me, what happened there is a moment I’m very proud of. We delivered and made it happen, and it ended up being a phenomenally successful Olympic Games.

At the 2018 WEG, the pressure was really on. We thought the formula for determining the team medals would preclude a jump-off, so everyone was surprised when after the second round, Sweden and the United States had the same score, 20.59 penalties. That triggered the first team gold medal jump-off in the history of the WEG. How close was it? After four members of the Swedish team had gone, and three members of ours, it was all down to me and my mare Clinta. The Swedes had three clear rounds; we had two to that point, so I needed not only to be clear, but also fast.

I’d dropped a rail during the afternoon, which set up the need for the tiebreaker. In a situation like that, I’ll get tunnel vision. I’ll get into a little bit of a zone before a jump-off where that focus is pretty hard to cut through. As I’ve matured, before getting on a horse in a tough situation, I’m a little more loose than I used to be. I talk with people I’m comfortable with. There are people over the years you’ve learned to rely on and you trust what they have to say. They’re not the sort of people who say the wrong thing in the wrong moment. I’m more relaxed before getting on because I understand the job better than I used to. When I’m in game mode, I don’t notice a lot of what’s going on around me.

A joyous and relieved McLain Ward raised his arms in triumph after a ride on Clinta under pressure to clinch team gold at the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games.

McLain Ward went for his second straight Olympic team gold medal in 2008 on the remarkable mare Sapphire, in front of a crowd of 18,000 at Sha Tin Stadium in Hong Kong.

At the WEG, I had two chances. I had messed up the first one earlier in the day and I figured it was on my throat for the second one. I knew what the time was I needed to beat and I knew I had a super-careful horse. She did it, and she was brilliant. We got the gold. All the horses were brilliant all week. Our team, our staff behind us, all of the owners—this is an army that produces this gold medal on our home turf. It was a very emotional moment for all of us.

How do I withstand pressure like that? I’ve had a lot of practice coming back from some really difficult times, whether they are personal or family situations, good and bad, my own regrets and missteps.

What am I proudest of in my career? It’s not an individual win or individual moment, though I’m proud of those. They do, however, become a blur.

Instead, I’d say, when those difficult times are public, I’m proudest of being able to deal with and face them, to be able to find the right course—that doesn’t mean whether I was at fault or not at fault—to always move toward being a better rider, a better horseman, a better person.

I do it all against the backdrop of the many changes in show jumping that have taken place during my career. It’s evolved as all sports have, and all businesses, for that matter. We certainly have gotten more and more away from the nature of the sport—it’s become more of an arena sport. That’s to do with public relations and selling our sport and making it interesting for people to follow. At the highest levels, the sport is being done better than it’s ever been done. You realize it when you sit in Barcelona for the Longines FEI Nations Cup Final and see rider after rider from a pretty wide number of regions of the world come in with almost perfect form.

For sure, there are things lost in the evolution of the sport, which is being done at a higher and more intense level than ever. We’ve gotten further away from nature and riding just for the sake of riding. We’ve lost the beauty of simply interacting with the horse on a daily basis to some degree. But when you weigh one against the other, it’s really phenomenal at the highest level.

I was very blessed to have people who helped me and saw the way forward. My father believed in taking the U.S. Equestrian Team concept and making it accessible to the masses. That’s what has changed in our country. Everybody has a chance for this now. That’s a beautiful evolution.

I remember Billy Steinkraus, the Olympic individual show jumping gold medalist and chairman emeritus of the USET, used to say that in his time, the old guys told him the sport wasn’t as good as it was at the turn of the twentieth century. Billy said, “I can’t do anything about that. I live in my moment.”

So you take the sport you have and try to be the best at it you can be. That puts you in a position where you can try to leave the sport better than you found it. That gives you influence. When I look at my time in the sport, we’ve lost some good things, but we’ve gained so much more. We’re in a much better place for the horse and entertainment factor, for the level of the sport, for the opportunity for people. Even though it’s so much more expensive, there is more opportunity in some ways. Forty or fifty years ago, a lot of people couldn’t even imagine riding for the team. Now there’s a route to get there.

At the 2016 Hampton Classic, McLain Ward turned his focus to lifting his delighted toddler daughter, Lilly Kristine, into the air after the awards ceremony.

In order for that to happen, the riders that were from the wrong side of the tracks had to get to the level where they were beating the people from the right side of the tracks. My father saw it was the way forward, and maybe it wasn’t accessible to him, but it would be accessible to me. I was the crossover where subjectivity has given me the benefit of the doubt at every turn. You see it from both sides.

The best compliment I ever received from trainer George Morris was this: “You’re a perfect blend of your father and Billy.” That happened for two reasons—because my father was a great rider with a super feeling for a horse, a great athlete but a little rough around the edges. And Billy was open-minded enough to accept someone from my background when he saw a difference in what I was.

Team silver medalist McLain Ward at the 2016 Rio Olympics on HH Azur, who also was his mount for victory in the 2017 FEI World Cup Finals.

What I want to define my career and my life is my ability to rise, no matter what happened; to learn from it, be better for it, and become what I am today and what I hope to be tomorrow. For me, that’s the greatest accomplishment. You’re trying every day to be the best you can be. You become more educated and get better experience.

Someone who isn’t flawed and has not had to face challenges hasn’t accomplished very much because he or she isn’t putting it on the line. Since I was 14, I’ve been putting it on the line in every way. There have been some bad moments for a variety of reasons. But to be able to face those challenges, to be able to be where we are, that’s the accomplishment.