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Laura Kraut

It All Started with Simba Run

Areal horsewoman who was never afraid to get her hands dirty, Laura came up through the ranks after grooming and taking care of her own horses before becoming a professional.

She has represented the United States at three Olympic Games, winning a gold medal in Hong Kong in 2008. She was a member of the silver medal WEG team at Aachen, Germany, in 2006, and the 2018 gold medal WEG squad in Tryon, North Carolina. Her resume includes numerous World Cup Finals and stints on many Nations Cup teams. She also is a highly sought-after coach whose students have included Grand Prix rider Jessica Springsteen.

While Simba Run is her best-known mount and the one that kicked off her international career, she has had many other top horses including Anthem, Liberty, Cedric, and Zeremonie.

Laura, whose son, Bobby, is an aspiring show jumper, divides her time between Wellington, Florida, and the farm in England that belongs to her partner, Olympic double-gold-medalist Nick Skelton.

On a summer day in 1990, we were at a show in Germantown, Tennessee, where it was 105 blistering degrees. Geoff Sutton, who was the owner/rider of an interesting Thoroughbred show jumper, Simba Run, said to me, “I can’t deal with this heat. Would you ride my horse? I’ve been thinking about stopping doing this.”

I took Simba in the Grand Prix and that was the beginning of a beautiful relationship with the former racehorse who took me to the Olympics and earned more than $300,000 in prize money during his show ring career.

When I met Simba, all I’d ever ridden were Thoroughbreds, so for me, he wasn’t unusual. He was hot, he liked to root the reins out of your hands, he was very brave—nothing ever spooked him. He would jump anything you pointed him toward. In the 10 years I competed him, I don’t think he ever stopped at a fence. The more you did, the more he revved up. So a lot of riding him was learning how to do very little. He had the most unbelievable amount of scope. He made my career and taught me all about how to do this.

Laura and Zeremonie were on the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games team in Tryon, North Carolina, where they had to compete in a jump-off to secure the team gold. It was the first time the United States had won a show jumping World Championships gold since 1986.

My sister, Mary Elizabeth, and I started riding because my mother, Carol, was obsessed with horses. When I was five, I got a $250 cart pony. He couldn’t canter because all he had done was pull a cart and trot. I spent the better part of a year falling off trying to get him to canter. Then I had another pony who was a stopper. The last pony we had, Plain ‘n’ Fancy, came from an Indian reservation. She was white with one brown ear and the pony of my dreams, because she didn’t stop or run away. She won a lot, even though the only thing that was fancy about her was her name.

She and I made an impression on trainers Kathy Paxson and Ann Kenan, who ran Hunter Hill Farm in Atlanta. When I was 12, they called my mother and asked if I would ride their very fancy ponies. That turned into basically a job that lasted until the end of my junior career.

I rode their ponies and horses, but I also worked hard out of the saddle. Back then, you did everything—riding was only 10 percent of what we did with the horses. We groomed them, iced their legs, cleaned stalls, rode them bareback in the field with no halter or bridle. We’d take them swimming. As I got older, I drove the truck and trailer. We learned every aspect of management, which made you appreciate the horses, not just the competition. And that’s important. In our world, you’re lucky if you have a one-percent win ratio.

I spent one semester at college before I told my father I thought it was crazy that we were going into debt for me to continue, since my future was horses. He told me, “That’s fine, but you’re on your own.”

It didn’t occur to me I wouldn’t make it. I went to work for Judy and Roger Young because my family had moved to Camden, South Carolina, and I lived at home. Then Mary Elizabeth and I moved into our own place. She was a really talented rider, but the competition end of it made her nervous. Now she manages our whole operation, horses and staff; she also teaches and rides on the flat.

Simba Run, an off-the-track Thoroughbred, jump-started Laura Kraut’s career in the big time. They finished in the top 10 in the 1992 FEI World Cup Finals and were the reserve combination for the Barcelona Olympics a few months later. That gave Laura an opportunity to observe a Games close-up without the pressure of competing, as she would go on to do in 2000 and 2008.

Actually, she was the rider for the Youngs when I was just grooming and braiding at their barn. During that time, I had a jumper I rode at Motor City and Charlotte. After nine months, I left to start a business and began working with Rodney Bross, a big dealer and a really good horseman. In the mid-1980s, I would catch ride anything for anyone. I started to ride for Judy Helder, who had a horse named Night Magic, related to Good Twist, Gem Twist’s sire. I won the Pennsylvania Big Jump at Harrisburg with that horse, which was my first big victory. George Morris even came over and wanted to know about the horse.

Going for the gold, Laura and valiant little Cedric were fault-free in the tie-breaker to help secure the top prize for the United States at the 2008 Olympics in Hong Kong.

I was riding 40 or 50 horses. Then I met Bob Kraut, married him after eight months, and moved to his family’s farm in Wisconsin. From 50 horses, I went down to two. I took Night Magic to Germantown. That’s where it started with Simba.

I didn’t know Simba had potential to be an international horse, because I had no idea what an international horse was. In 1992, the Olympic year, we had finished in the top 10 of the World Cup finals in California. Then we headed for the Olympic trials, which were purely objective. I think we jumped 10 rounds with no drop score. It was survival of the fittest. But we did well in the trials and we made the team for the Barcelona Olympics, where I was the alternate. I didn’t even have a passport because I had never left the country. I had to go to Chicago and sit and wait all day for my passport on an emergency basis.

When I walked the course at the Olympics, I was thinking, “Thank goodness I’m the alternate.” Our trials had been numerous, but they were in familiar locations. Barcelona had one of the biggest Olympic courses, and the jumps were all different than what we were used to.

It had been hammered into me that the objective system—where selections were made by the numbers—was wrong and I shouldn’t have been there, that Greg Best and Gem Twist should have been there. Gem had won team and individual silver medals with Greg at the 1988 Olympics, but a refusal at Devon during the 1992 trials put him out of the running for Barcelona. A lawsuit over team selection for the 1990 World Equestrian Games had resulted in a purely objective selection system for years thereafter, and in 1992, no drop score was allowed.

I didn’t understand what was really happening because I’d never been part of the sport in this way. I learned it wasn’t just about getting there—you wanted to get there and win. Through the trials, though, it was just about making the team. No one thought about going and winning. I was beginning to understand I was possibly a fine choice for the squad’s fifth person, but Greg obviously would have been better and should have been on the team.

Although I didn’t ride in the Games with the team of Anne Kursinski, Michael Matz, Lisa Jacquin, and Norman Dello Joio (who wound up with the individual bronze), just being there told me the Olympics—my first international show—was my future.

“I’ve got to do this,” I thought. “This is the ultimate.”

I went to the opening ceremonies and it was great. I became determined to figure out how to get my business going so I could head in that direction again.

My next international show was the 1994 World Cup finals in Holland, but Simba tied up there, so it didn’t work out. I didn’t go to another show in Europe until the year 2000. I was busy buying horses, getting clients, teaching, making money.

I had talked to Anne Kursinski a bit about forming syndicates. It took me a while to figure out how to do it. I had a client from Minnesota who was Dutch, and he saw an ad for a horse at Stal Hendrix. When I flew over to Holland in 1998, I met the owners, brothers Emile and Paul Hendrix, who have since been instrumental in my success. I told them that if they ever saw a horse they thought would have potential for me, to let me know. That’s how I got Liberty.

She was only seven, but I told people she was an Olympic horse. To make that happen in 2000 was a miracle. I lost a year by having my son, Bobby, but I made up for the gap when Katie Monahan Prudent came to me and said she thought Liberty could go to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, if we had some international mileage.

She put together a team to go to Europe for a tour of three shows. It was Francie Steinwedell, Elise Haas, Katie, and me. She sold me by saying if I came back to America after that and did the trials, Liberty and I would have the experience and mileage to go to the Olympics.

It was quite a trip, which ended after I became leading rider at the Rome show. Then we had to go to U.S. Equestrian Team headquarters in Gladstone, New Jersey, for the Olympic trials.

Katie gave me a plan, and I executed it and won the first trial at Gladstone. Having spent so many years on my own, she took the pressure off by telling me what to do. After the Eastern trials, the top 10 went to California for the rest of the series.

It wasn’t the way to build a team, with a lot of drama in the selection process. If someone promised me I would be on the next Olympic team, but the trials process would be like they were then, I wouldn’t go. However, I learned a lot, and it was a valuable experience, and I got to compete, along with Lauren Hough, Margie Engle, and Nona Garson. Libby (Liberty) tried her heart out. We didn’t medal, but having Katie there was fun.

I knew an Olympic team could have cohesiveness, and that’s why 2008, with a different trial process that allowed for subjectivity, was better. In 2005, I bought Cedric, my mount for the 2008 Olympics, just because I thought he was cute and he jumped high. He was 15.3 hands at the most, really narrow, and short from nose to tail. There was nothing big about him, apart from his heart.

Cedric didn’t like walls, but he knew when he had to perform, and he didn’t put a foot wrong the whole Games. It was great. We were in Hong Kong while the other sports were in Beijing because China was unable to establish equine disease-free zones on the mainland.

George Morris was Chef d’Equipe, and my teammates McLain Ward, Beezie Madden, and Will Simpson all got along great. Having McLain’s special mare, Sapphire, and Beezie’s terrific ride, Authentic, on our side was like a security blanket. I had confidence Cedric could jump anything. But would he jump everything?

The thing about the Olympics is you’re there to do a job. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you’re fifth. This time we took gold. I try to be a good team player. You have to be. That’s the whole point of it—being supportive of the others, pulling your weight, not being a bad sport.

I’ve been fortunate that pretty much all my teammates have been great. Everyone brings his or her own element. It’s fun to get to know them and see how they do things. I would never name a bad team member, but I don’t think I’ve run across anyone like that. Once you reach that level, there’s a certain amount of professionalism and sportsmanship that is a part of you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t make it that far.

Since 2000, I’ve gotten to do what I wanted to do. My greatest influences were the Hendrix brothers, George, Katie, and Nick Skelton, the Olympic double-gold medalist who is my partner. Being around a horseman and a rider like Nick has been key. His influence on my riding has been one of the things that helped me get to the next level, along with his attention to detail. He’s meticulous about everything: tack, cleanliness, preparation, presentation. If you go to his stable in England, you can eat off the floor.

I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy tremendous support from so many people—friends, owners, staff, associates, students, and family. That is what has enabled me to achieve what I have done. I had the determination, but without them—and Simba Run—I wouldn’t have made it.