In a world where fortunes are made and lost by the brush of a hoof and a hundredth of a second, a pair of unlikely up-and-comers bursts onto Traverse City’s horse show scene—a scene that has caught the eye of the international equestrian sports community.
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If there is a heartbeat to showjumping, it’s based in a three-part thythm that ends in a gasp: Onetwothree. Onetwothree. Onetwothree–pause: the sound of horses as they approach a jump, collect and vault themselves skyward. The air is hushed; horse breath comes out in snorts timed to the beat. Foam gathers at the edge of their lips and in thin lines of sweat on their necks. On this cool September day, the warmup ring at Flintfields Horse Park is busy, the rhythm syncopated, as riders take turns peeling horses off the rail into the center where they launch over practice jumps, waiting to compete in the Grand Prix show ring just steps away.
The horses—a flurry of grays, chestnuts, bays—are European warmbloods of staggering size and athleticism, bred for bravery and speed. The riders, no less beautiful, look like they have stepped out of a luxury watch ad. Wiry, tanned, confident, they fly over 1.6 meter–tall jumps and settle hot-blooded mounts who rear and fuss back to their onetwothree beat.
If you happened to bring your Olympian bingo card, you’d be in luck: There’s Ireland’s Shane Sweetnam and Daniel Coyle; USA’s Kent Farrington, McLain Ward; Israel’s Ashlee Bond. Oh, and the most famous and successful woman in the history of U.S. showjumping, five-time Olympian Beezie Madden, is casually watching at the fence after presenting an award earlier today.
What brings them here, to a hidden equestrian Shangri-La in Williamsburg this particular afternoon, is the 2023 American Gold Cup, one of the highest-rated shows and biggest purses in American showjumping. In the space of 30 or so hair-raising seconds, the cleanest and fastest rounds today will earn a payout of $488,860, with the winner pocketing $158,683.
They whirl steadily around the warmup arena, a carousel of invisibly gilded seven-figure ponies, some even nudging toward the price of a limited-edition Lamborghini. Among them, a young rider walks quietly, her big bay gelding’s head lowered, reins long and loose, past some of the world’s most phenomenal equine athletes all in various states of wind up, freakout, or let’s goooooo. In this field of rockstars and their nostril-flared mounts, the stillness of this pair of up-and-comers is a quiet exception. Cathleen Driscoll reaches down absentmindedly to stroke her horse’s neck. Arome is a leggy, steady French-bred horse, just reaching into his prime; her “Big Horse,” she calls him—and this season, her big chance.
It was only two years prior that the 30-year-old Driscoll started competing at the FEI level, in international equestrian events governed by the Fédération Equestre Internationale, the International Olympic Committee–recognized governing body of equestrian sports. It’s her first year at the five-star level (the more stars, the bigger the jumps, the bigger the money). Her current overall ranking is 81st in the world and, though she’s not yet a capital N Name like some of those in the warmup ring, her 2023 season has been a phenomenal one, especially here at the Traverse City Horse Shows where she’s spent the entire summer. Just this morning she won the show’s leading rider bonus, an award for the most points scored all season.
A mere four years ago, the Traverse City Horse Show by the Bay was a six-week regional horse-show destination on the national summer show circuit. Under new ownership, it now runs twice as long, culminating in late September with the American Gold Cup, a 53-year-old event that the TCHS recently spirited away from its longtime home in Westchester County, New York. With the addition of new permanent FEI barns, the capacity to host large international events has cemented Traverse City’s place in the world of equestrian competition.
As Driscoll and Arome make their way to the start gate, you can’t help but catch the buzz of it—this new-to-the- big-time rider in this new-to-the-big-time horse show destination, a world-class drama playing out in a middle-of-nowhere field in Williamsburg, Michigan. Driscoll canters into the ring, Arome looking even-keeled and alert as the buzzer sounds; she now has 45 seconds to take him across the start line, triggering the timer to begin their round. Onetwothree. Hoofbeats on sand. The flap of flags in the air. The pair crosses the start line, rides the rhythm to the first fence and leaps.
Imagine how incongruous it all is—a 1,200-pound horse, a prey animal, carrying a human being on its back and leaping six feet straight into the air. But it began with a purpose: Showjumping as we know it traces back to Ireland in 1864, a basic contest using height and breadth of jumps as a measure of a horse’s athleticism and ability to serve as a solid hunting mount. The sport made its first appearance at the second Olympics, in 1900.
The showjumping crowd is a well-heeled one, the sport a favorite of royalty and heiresses and the children of rockstars or tech billionaires. Like anything to do with horses in general, competing at a high level carries an eye-popping expense. The average FEI Grand Prix rider has spent decades riding and moving up the ranks, traveling and showing with a string of million-dollar-plus purpose-bred, high-end horses. To compete internationally usually requires wealthy horse owners and benefactors, high-dollar sponsorships or, quite frankly, generational wealth.
To this, of course, there are always exceptions—the flush-cheeked young rider and that big, happy-go-lucky gelding, for example. Driscoll is neither trustfunder nor royalty, equestrian world or otherwise; not yet, at least. She’s the rarest of birds, a talent with the combination of drive, innate ability and right place/right time opportunity.
Driscoll started out as a horse-crazy 5-year-old, tagging along with her big sisters to the barn and doing what horse-crazy girls do: figure out any way to be on and around horses. As a teenager, Driscoll had no private trainers or big-money mounts—she taught herself to ride by watching endless videos of world-class competitors and hanging around the schooling rings at shows, listening to trainers and absorbing tactics and advice like a sponge. Instead of racking up experience on a five-figure imported European warmblood, Driscoll trained her own horse, a retired racing Thoroughbred. “I found her in a field and thought she looked attractive,” Driscoll says. “In hindsight, we made a lot of mistakes.” But Driscoll rose through the ranks, eventually jumping the mare at the 1.3-meter level.
In 2018, Driscoll won the United States Hunter Jumper Association Emerging Athletes Program, a talent incubator designed to pull up promising athletes no matter their background or resources. She caught the eye of one of the clinicians teaching there who in turn connected her with Katie and Henri Prudent of Plain Bay Farm of Wellington, Florida and Rosieres-Aux-Salines, France. They hired Driscoll, who now splits her time between the U.S., France and her international competitions, riding professionally for the farm and training anywhere from 10 to 20 horses at a time.
Around the same time a teenaged Driscoll was DIYing things with her racetrack mare, a bright bay colt with a wide, white blaze down his nose was born in northeastern France. Arome was destined to be a stud, fathering future generations of Selles Français sport horses—the breed is known for its athleticism, excelling in the show ring with a temperament that is quiet but energetic, intelligent, quick to learn. Arome is all these things, with an additional je ne sais quoi.
Driscoll started with Arome only three years ago, after the Prudents acquired him from their veterinarian, himself a breeder. “Henri told the owner, ‘If you ever geld him, he’d be a nice junior horse.’ The aim was to develop Arome’s talents and sell him,” Driscoll explains. “We joke in the barn: If you were to line up ten horses, you’d never pick him out as the ‘Big Horse.’ Such a casual guy, calm, laidback… but he has stepped up beautifully.”
“Arome and I are doing this together; he also doesn’t have a lot of experience at that top level,” Driscoll says. “We’ve been building a foundation. He’s a very dependable horse I can always call on. He helps me with my mistakes; I try to help him with his.”
So far, the two have had good results at the three-star Grand Prix level as Arome moves up the ranks, which is the plan for this season and next. Driscoll has two other horses in her top string—spicy mares named Flotylla and Magnolia—but for the big classes, she turns to the quiet bay.
For the past two seasons, Driscoll has made Traverse City her summer home. Riders work from daybreak through dinner, six days a week, exercising, practicing and competing, and their world is limited to Flintfields, the nearby Meijer store and maybe a drink at the casino bar down the road. When asked where she hangs out, Driscoll thinks for a minute. “We don’t get out much,” she admits. “Sometimes SideTraxx on Sundays. For dancing.” (Riders have Mondays off.) Has she been to the beach? “Yes, somewhere nearby…” Sleeping Bear Dunes? “I’m not sure, I don’t think so.”
Ask anyone outside of the horse park what goes on inside it, and you’d get an equally vague answer, maybe based on what it used to be 10 years ago—true to its name, a horse show by the bay, a sweet couple of weeks of summer events. But that all changed five years ago, when a legendary horse show management company got their first whiff of the lifestyle Up North and envisioned something bigger. Much bigger.
The footing in the Grand Prix arena is the consistency of the beach after a good rain: damp, firm, fast. An underground reservoir provides constant self-watering. The entire thing cost more than a million dollars to install, and it’s in large part what has taken the Traverse City Horse Shows from a four-week event to an internationally renowned showing destination, culminating in September with the American Gold Cup. With a top-of-the-line arena came the ability to host higher-level competitions and attract more serious riders. And with the addition of the new FEI barns—permanent structures allowing for the quarantine of international competitors and the implementation of heightened security—the capacity to host large international events has cemented Traverse City’s place in the world of equestrian competition.
This evolution traces back to Horse Show by the Bay founder Karen Flint bringing the Morrissey family and their MGM company on board to manage the show. “We started visiting, saw the potential, and took on a five-year lease with option to buy—and we took that option right away,” says MGM’s Managing Partner Matt Morrissey. “When we purchased, that’s when the improvements started happening.”
He knows something about building a community around the world of showjumping. Morrissey is a third-generation horse show organizer; his great uncle was the founder of Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida, just west of Palm Beach—also known as the winter horse capital of the world. The Winter Festival is the world’s largest and longest-running equestrian event.
Morrisey believes that Traverse City has all the components needed to create a horse-forward community: Large tracts of available land, a nearby city with amenities, solid airport access. “It’s unique to find a place like this,” Morrissey says. “With the component for the rest of the families—the sports, water, recreation—that’s the potential we saw [that convinced us to] make the commitment.”
Already that shift has begun. An equine-specific veterinarian opened a new clinic this year in Williamsburg, catering to the growing horse community. And regular participants have begun investing in homes and farms in the area. “When people invest in a community around a show, they’re going to spend more time in that community,” Morrissey says. To that end, MGM is investing in housing for the seasonal staff of 150 people who make the shows possible.
MGM has also started developing real estate across the street from the show grounds to induce long-term horse show participants to put down roots. “Our vision isn’t for an Airbnb culture,” he says—something the local community has lamented while gleefully hoping that wealthy show participants will pay top dollar for their rentals. The 100-acre property will be sold in 5- and 10-acre lots as part of an equestrian community where horse owners with summer-long showing commitments can keep their horses on their own property instead of in the pricey 10-by-10-foot tent stalls rented by the week (at any given time, there are up to 1,500 horses on site at Flintfields). The property, with lots starting at $225,000 an acre, will include bridle paths, utilities, roads and infrastructure, including an equestrian crossing that allows competitors to walk to the show grounds from their farms.
The Morrisseys have sought to connect the show to the local community and vice versa—a task that has been a challenge, he admits, as they work to communicate with both audiences what the show has to offer the region and the region has to offer the show. For the show crowd, a new concierge desk helps visitors find their way out and about in Northern Michigan, connecting them with recreation and dining options. For the local community, MGM is rolling out the red carpet.
“Having spectators is super important,” Morrissey says. “The horses and riders enjoy it. When there’s a cheering crowd, the horses really get it.” Most days, admission to the shows is free; bigger weekend events have modest ticket prices, the proceeds of which are gifted back to local nonprofits. There is a VIP area with food, drinks and elevated viewing ops where small brass plaques i.d. private sponsored tables. Interestingly, the real action tends to hover between the warmup ring, where a small rider tent draws riders who’ve completed their rounds, and the hospitality tent—a huge, bustling hangout with high-top tables, a bar serving up local brews and, weirdly, a series of demo massage chairs where exhausted athletes peace out for a few, often with a tiny pet dog on their lap. Instead of cramped bleachers, a sloping lawn holds a fleet of Adirondack chairs for general admission spectators—frankly, some of the best seats in the house. “We wanted to keep a Northern Michigan feeling, and we wanted it to feel warm,” says Morrissey.
After Grand Prix events for the tournament of champions in September, riders linger to sign autographs and chat with fans. Among them, always, horse-crazy little girls. Who knows which ones will go on to ride, to excel, to compete. To fly.
Years of training, months of conditioning, hours of show-day prep—flatwork, grooming, massage, magnetic blanketing, braiding—all boil down to 30-some make-or-break seconds for Arome and Driscoll. As the pair crosses the start line, there is the hush of suspended breath. In the VIP pavilion you can hear the buffet ice sculpture pit, pat, pit, gently melting into the lobster-and-caviar wontons beneath it.
Within a few jumps, the rhythm falters, onetwothree CLONK. There’s a sympathetic “ahhhh” from the crowd as Arome knocks down a rail, then another. The duo, true to form, don’t rattle; but the round turns on a moment, and the hope for advancing evaporates. As they finish, Driscoll reaches down to pat his neck; Euro synth music plays through the loudspeaker like the end credits of an ’80s movie.
The few riders with clean rounds proceed to the jump-off, and Karl Cook (USA) on the mare Caracole de la Roque obliterates the field with a blazing fast showing he’d later describe as “mildly terrifying.” An honest appraisal of a sport that is both beautiful and brutally tough.
Although she didn’t come close to the jump-off, Driscoll’s day has been a win in every way. Her season has been peppered with victories and capped with the leading series rider nod and a five-star go at the most famous Grand Prix in the country with some of the best riders on the planet. Not bad for a summer in Traverse City. And Arome did well—did his best. “He’s learning,” she says. “And so am I.”
Editor’s note: As of publication, Driscoll, now 31, is ranked 46th in the world. This year, she claimed her first 5* victory on mare Flotylla at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida. She continues to ride Arome, and in 2024, the pair have won the Mary Rena Murphy CSI3* Grand Prix Classic at Lexington in May, as well as the FEI 4* Upperville Welcome Stakes in June. Driscoll won the Ingram Family CS13* Welcome Stake at the Traverse City Horse Shows in July on a new horse partner, Idalgo.
2023 American Gold Cup Winner Karl Cook, along with Caracole de la Roque, was shortlisted for the 2024 U.S. Olympic team. The 2024 American Gold Cup will take place Sunday, September 22, at Flintfields Horse Park. Olympians McLain Ward, Kent Farrington and Karl Cook are confirmed riders in this year’s event.