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Peter Wylde

Letting the Team Decide

Peter Wylde’s ability to make a name for himself in the most important equestrian competitions manifested itself early while riding with trainers Fran and Joe Dotoli. The native of Massachusetts won the National Horse Show’s 1982 ASPCA Maclay hunt seat horsemanship championship in Madison Square Garden. He then went on to take the Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association’s prestigious Cacchione Cup while a student at Tufts University. After becoming a show jumping professional, Peter rose to even greater heights, earning the individual bronze at the 2002 FEI World Equestrian Games on Fein Cera and being part of the U.S. gold medal team on the same mare at the 2004 Olympics. He also is known as a mentor to up-and-coming young riders, having served for years as the lead clinician at the U.S. Hunter Jumper Association’s Emerging Athletes Program national finals. Peter’s training and sales operation is based in Millbrook, New York.

I am fortunate to have won many awards during my riding career, but one that has a very special meaning came my way during a ceremony at the 2003 FEI World Cup final in Las Vegas.

As U.S. Equestrian Team President Frank Lloyd presented me with the Whitney Stone Cup, he said I was receiving it not only for my performance at the 2002 FEI World Equestrian Games, where I won the individual bronze medal on Fein Cera, but also because of the way I handled a difficult moment before the WEG began.

Here’s what happened. When Fein Cera arrived for the WEG, she had fallen down on the plane during the landing in Jerez, Spain, and bruised her tailbone. It was so swollen, causing pressure on her hind end, that it made her sore when she moved. For 24 hours, it was touch and go as to whether I should ride. Her veterinarians and my groom did everything they could to bring the swelling down and make her comfortable.

But while the question of whether she would be ready to compete hung in the balance, I sat down alone and burst into tears. At this stage of my life, I had given up everything—my house and my business—to base myself in Europe to train and try to make the WEG. Then I flew Fein Cera to America to do the WEG selection trials, financing it myself and giving up all the horses I had in Europe. I’d finally made a championship team with a horse that really was great. So when I thought I might not be able to achieve the goal for which I worked so hard, out poured all my anxiety.

Fein Cera had come to me in 2000 as a sales horse from Allison Firestone. I showed the mare in some 1.45- and 1.50-meter classes as I focused on making the 2001 World Cup finals with Macanudo de Niro, who won two qualifiers.

Even relaxing at his Florida home with his dog, Amy, Peter is always reminded of his international show jumping triumphs by the portrait of Fein Cera, his mount for the 2002 WEG individual bronze and the 2004 Olympic team gold.

Then foot-and-mouth disease swept around Europe, closing the borders and cancelling all the shows. By the time we went to the World Cup finals in Gothenburg, Sweden, Macanudo de Niro hadn’t been able to go to a show for six weeks. That was a disaster for a super-spooky horse. On the second day of the Cup, in the jump-off class, he spooked going into a double and landed on the back pole of an oxer coming out. He sustained a cut, and it looked as if I wouldn’t finish the finals.

I did have Fein Cera there to do smaller classes and Sally Ike, the U.S. managing director of show jumping, suggested that the mare could do the final day of the Cup. One problem was that I’d only jumped her in one 1.50-meter class. On top of that, she hadn’t competed in a qualifying class as required. But there had been a notice that if a horse was entered at the s’Hertogenbosch, Holland, show, which was cancelled because of foot-and-mouth, he or she would be eligible to compete in the finals. Fein Cera had been entered and Sally petitioned the ground jury to accept us. We were in.

Fein Cera was my kind of horse, with so much power and scope. She beautifully handled the challenge of the massive courses on the Cup’s final day, with one rail down in the first round and a clean trip in the second. That moved me from eleventh place to a tie for sixth. Any horse that jumps 4 and 0 in the final in Gothenburg is a championship horse. I said, “I have to get the money to buy this horse.”

I got on the phone and called everybody I knew. I raised half of the funding I needed but still fell short. A friend I’d called who couldn’t help me did find someone who was interested. I got in touch with a Swiss enthusiast, Pierette Schlettwein, who had seen me ride but never met me, and she came through so I could keep competing on Fein Cera.

There was a lot riding on the WEG, not just for me, but also for my investors who had faith in me and the mare. Luckily, the tailbone problem subsided and she came around. When I was able to ride in the warm-up, I jumped six fences and she felt great. I thought, “Here we go, it’s going to happen.”

The 2002 FEI World Equestrian Games was a big moment for Peter Wylde, who won the individual bronze in Jerez, Spain. The difficult format was the Final Four (discontinued after the 2014 WEG) in which the top four riders rode each other’s horses over the same course. He is pictured here on his mount, Fein Cera.

But first, there was a question as to whether I should be replaced on the team by the alternate, Laura Kraut, on Anthem. Chef d’Equipe Frank Chapot was visibly torn about having to make that decision. After all, he’d been put in that difficult position at previous championships.

I had basically won the trials. So do you allow a horse that has a crisis issue to go, or do you go with the alternate?

I took the reins into my own hands on this one and called a meeting of the team on behalf of Frank Chapot. He, Laura, and my other teammates, Beezie Madden (Judgement), Nicole Shahinian Simpson (El Campeon Cirka Z), and Leslie Howard (Priobert de Kalverie) were the only ones there. I wanted to make sure if I was the one chosen to ride on the team, that my teammates were 100 percent with that decision.

The 2004 U.S. gold medal team of (left to right) Chris Kappler, Peter Wylde, Beezie Madden, and McLain Ward wore traditional laurel wreaths on the podium in Athens.

My instinct told me this horse was going to be great and that being in the competition wasn’t going to hurt her. The question was, would she be able to perform the way she had been performing? I was pretty sure that she was going to, based on the way she did the warm-up.

I said to my teammates and Frank, “I want to ride, but I want everyone on this team to say right now they are behind this.” And they were. Even Laura, who would have taken my place if I dropped out, wanted me to ride. You could see the relief on Frank’s face. It took the pressure off him. It wasn’t his decision; it was our decision.

It all worked out. Although the team did not medal, winding up sixth of 21 nations, I had a double-clear in the Nations Cup before winning the individual bronze medal. Fein Cera was named best individual horse of the finals, where the top four riders switched horses and rode the same course.

The Whitney Stone Cup, named after the man who stepped up as founder of the USET for international competition after the cavalry was disbanded, is given to “the active competitor who displays consistent excellence in international competition and high standards of sportsmanlike conduct, while serving as an ambassador for the United States and equestrian sport and exemplifying the team’s highest ideals and traditions.” I felt incredibly honored to receive this trophy, and not just for the obvious reasons. Whitney Stone and his wife, Anne, were close friends of my grandmother, Mary Ryan, and actually introduced her to my grandfather, Joe Ryan. For years, every Thanksgiving we would go to Morven, the Stones’ estate in Charlottesville, Virginia, where we got a tour of the stable from Anne Stone and saw Shuvee, their famous racing mare who was by Nashua. My grandmother would have been so proud if she knew her grandson won the Whitney Stone trophy.

My point in writing about this is to illustrate how competition and being in a sport puts us in situations where we do things we might not otherwise want to do. I was very proud about that moment when I got my teammates together. The Whitney Stone Cup reminded me of the whole experience at the WEG and what it was about: teamwork and horsemanship, and that horse being there, and my knowing she was at the peak moment of her career.

My speed round with her was such a perfect round: every distance, every stride, I almost never had to touch the reins. I was fifth—top six is a good result. After she jumped double-clear in the Nations Cup, I was in first place. I thought, “Wow, that’s really cool.” That was a moment in which I was consumed with pride.

The thing that struck me the most about the Final Four was how proud I was that Fein Cera was named Best Horse. That’s such a special thing. I had worked with this mare for the 18 months prior, and she was beautifully schooled and looked so good. And what an experience to ride all those other horses. They each were incredible…and so different. It was fun. But do I believe that format legitimately picked the World Champion? Definitely not, and the FEI has agreed. Starting with the 2018 WEG, the Final Four concept was dropped. I feel strongly about the bond and experience between a horse and rider. It’s not the rider that wins the medal; it’s the horse-and-rider combination. I totally think changing horses doesn’t belong. Five rounds are enough to decide the World Champion.