Young star faces tall task in The Event's open class

Taylor McFall, a rider in the Novice open division at The Event at Rebecca Farm, gets understandably awestruck watching the top-level riders conquer the challenging CCI3* cross-country course.

“I think they’re crazy,” she said. “I’m not going to lie, it looks ridiculous. I’m like ‘oh my God, what are they doing?’

“Most of the jumps are taller than me.”

McFall, a budding star in the eventing world, looks up to the CCI3* jumps — and most of her competition — because she’s just 13 years old and one of hundreds of riders who were competing on Friday when the novice and training divisions tackled their cross-country courses.

McFall and her horse Kilbarry Prince are in 16th place in the Novice three-day B division after incurring penalties on their cross-country ride. Her mother, Jennifer, and her horse Be Real remained atop the division standings by running cleanly through the course.

Jennifer McFall also leads the Novice three-day A division, riding Stoneman DF.

The Novice open divisions are full of riders and horses of any skill level and experience. The three-day classification simply means they are competing in all three phases (dressage, cross country and show jumping) over three days and receiving cumulative scores. Jennifer is a professional rider who is working the Novice class at Rebecca Farm with a pair of young horses.

Taylor McFall, who has been riding horses for 11 of her 13 years, first competed in the open three-day a year ago when she was only 12. No rider younger than 12 has ever competed in a three-day class at The Event.

The McFalls share a coach in former Olympian Hawley Bennett-Awad, and she believes it won’t be long before Taylor’s dream of becoming a professional eventer is a reality.

“In seven years she’ll be here in the three-star, I bet,” Bennett-Awad said. “I’ll predict it.”

Bennett-Awad, herself a competitor in the CCI3* this year, rode for the Canadian Olympic team in 2004 and 2012. The McFalls, who make their home in California, and Bennett-Awad, from British Columbia, have remained connected through eventing.

“(Taylor)’s mum and I are really good friends and so I started coaching her mum and I’ve been teaching Taylor since she was six, which is crazy,” Bennett-Awad said. “She’s turned into a little superstar.”

Taylor McFall competes in around 10 events each year and has been around the country, including as far away as New Jersey. Both of McFall’s parents are involved in horse training and, while they made an effort to get their only child into a variety of activities, the only one that’s stuck was eventing.

“My parents tried to get me into other sports and you can see that they didn’t succeed,” Taylor McFall said.

“She’s got the work ethic to do it,” Bennett-Awad said of the younger McFall’s desire to make a career out of evening. “Being a horse trainer is hard. You don’t make a ton of money doing it but you’ve got to do it because you love it and I think she loves it.”

Taylor does love the sport, despite the fact that she’s almost always the youngest competitor in her class. What she does have at every competition, though, are the horses.

“I grew up around (horses),” she said. “I wouldn’t feel right if I went somewhere where there weren’t horses for too long. I remember going on vacation … and the last week I was so homesick and just so uptight and nervous because there weren’t any horses. I was just like, I need to go back.”

The shimmering white horse Taylor rides now, Kilbarry Prince, is special for another reason, too. She bought the Irish gelding with her own money, raising more than $7,000 through a variety of fundraisers, including a truck wash during The Event three years ago.

“It’s pretty awesome,” Bennett-Awad said. “You don’t see a lot of kids out there working for it. Her parents don’t just give everything to her. She’s working for what she gets. That’s why she appreciates it so much and that’s why she’s going to be good.

“She’s never been spoiled. She’s just a good kid.”

The Novice three-day competition concludes today with show jumping. The McFalls, in the B division — the split between the A and B classes is a random draw solely to divide a large field, not a measure of the competition — are scheduled to show jump from 5:05-5:50 p.m.

The international competitors in CC1*, CC2*, CIC3* and CCI3* will complete the cross country phase today, beginning with the CC12* at 8 a.m. The Event’s signature phase, cross country is a creatively-designed equestrian obstacle course complete with narrow corners, jumps, long straightaways and water segments.

A full schedule of events and updated standings in all classes are available at www.eventingscores.com.