When there was a big event, he always seemed to rise to the occasion. He immediately became an international success for me. We had our growing pains together a bit through the 2002 World Equestrian Games trials. We missed out on the WEG, but we had finishing to do and got that accomplished the rest of the year.
In 2003, I won the American Invitational, the AGA Championship, and Devon. I think Royal is the only horse who has done that in a single year. At the beginning of that season, Coach Frank came to me and asked about my plans for 2003, suggesting I should consider the Pan American Games in Santo Domingo. They were really important that year, because we needed to qualify for the 2004 Olympics based on our performance there. I realized I couldn’t be a chooser and had to be part of the process if the United States was to go to the Olympics.
But Frank was able to secure for me the privilege of being the first rider since 1990 selected on subjective results. That enabled me to go to Europe to get some more finishing done on the horse instead of being involved in the selection trials. We were double-clear in the Nations Cup at Aachen and fourth in the Grand Prix. That took us through to the Pan Am Games, where the team won gold and I took individual silver as we qualified for the Athens Olympics.
Chris Kappler stepped forward to lead the North American Riders Group as its founding president in an effort to improve show jumping in North America. Beezie Madden and McLain Ward looked on during the inaugural meeting of the program. The organization succeeded by critiquing and rating shows, which prompted them to improve.
In 2004, I came in fifth in the Invitational and Frank said I was good to go, that I had shown the necessary form and I was set to be on the Olympic team without going in the trials. That enabled me to focus on my plan to get the horse to peak performance in the right place at the right time. It also reassured the selectors about the ability to make a subjective pick for the team again.
Although the Olympics had been in the back of my mind since 1984, I was so focused on myself and my horse and our training that I tried not to think about it. Instead of realizing an entire life’s work was coming up to this one moment, I was obsessed with the riding, the training, and care of the horse, trying to keep focused on my process.
I knew there wasn’t anything they could show me at the Olympics that we hadn’t done already. I felt as prepared as we could possibly be. I loved Royal. He gave you everything every time you rode him. Whether you were just on the flat or doing a little school, he always gave you 100 percent. I owed it to him to give him my 100 percent in turn. He was just a special horse and a really close friend.
It was a moment in which tragedy and joy mingled, as Chris Kappler (right) earned the individual show jumping bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, where Rodrigo Pessoa of Brazil took silver and Cian O’Connor of Ireland got the gold. Chris pulled up in the jump-off for silver against Rodrigo after his mount, Royal Kaliber, injured himself. Weeks later, the stallion had to be put down. Chris eventually moved up to the silver after Cian lost the gold because of a positive test for a prohibited substance on his horse, Waterford Crystal.
It was a great U.S. team in Athens, home of the first modern Olympics in 1896. I grew up in the Midwest with Beezie, McLain and I were close, and Peter Wylde was a top professional. It was strong and comforting all around, with four riders who knew their horses and had a good team behind them.
It was pretty hot in Athens that year, and because they could almost guarantee no rain, the competition was on grass instead of all-weather footing. The grass was not really 100 percent; a lot of people felt it wasn’t what it should be for an event like that, and an investigation undertaken post-Olympics for the FEI confirmed this after several horses sustained injuries on that ground.
The Nations Cup had both rounds on the same day at the 2004 Games. The team competition started at nine in the morning, and it was an extremely long day. We got there early to ride, feed, and walk the course. After the first round was finished, with the United States in second place, we had a long stretch until the second round began after dark.
The day got even longer when we were tied with Sweden for the silver medal after Germany won. The jump-off was judged on faults and time. We got a break when McLain figured out a shortcut to the last fence by jumping a rock. There was a certain risk to it—the horses might balk at something that wasn’t the kind of jump they were used to—but it was a risk we were willing to take because it was a tight jump-off.
McLain told me, “It’s just like the equitation, six strides to the rock and six strides to the oxer.” All my equitation days paid off right there. Beezie had put in a phenomenal effort in the second round, and she got paid back for her three previous clean rounds because she didn’t have to go in the jump-off since McLain, Peter, and I were clear and fast to earn silver, and the format involved the best three out of four scores.
After the awards ceremony and drug testing I didn’t get back to where I was staying until two in the morning. I had been up for nearly 24 hours! But there was an even longer wait before we got the team gold. In 2006, our team reassembled for a small ceremony in Florida as we were presented with the gold medal. A positive drug test for a banned substance from a German team member’s horse had demoted that nation to fourth and put us first, 18 months after the Athens Games ended.
The day of the individual medal competition in Athens was really big jumping. I had a rail in both rounds, while Rodrigo Pessoa of Brazil had two rails in the first round with Baloubet du Rouet and was clean in the second. We were tied for silver with 8 penalties after Cian O’Connor of Ireland clinched gold on Waterford Crystal.
In the jump-off, Rodrigo had the last fence down; he was fast, but not so fast. I knew exactly what I had to do. But turning to the double vertical combination, Royal took a funny step. I thought maybe he just slipped. But then he stumbled between the two elements of the double vertical. I don’t know how he left it up. I knew immediately on landing he was not right. I pulled up and jumped off.
Royal’s well-being was number one for me. I could tell he was injured and in a lot of pain. They got the horse ambulance in there and took him away. Meanwhile, I had to get through the medal ceremony and drug testing. By the time I got back to visit Royal, Tim Ober, the team vet, had him settled as well as he possibly could. It was terribly distressing to see him like that…my horse.
I can’t remember how soon the U.S. horses left for home, but we felt it wasn’t in Royal’s best interests to ship him right away. We wanted to get some stability so he could fly and get out of there. But there was a problem. He was so fit and used to moving that being idle put him into shutdown. He started to have enteritis; his colon became inflamed. We finally were able to get his situation stable enough to fly him to a clinic in Holland.
We flew over a team of vets put together by Dr. Ober, but his condition just kept deteriorating. We tried a surgery and that didn’t help. We lost him.
It was an incredibly sad day for me because that horse was a great friend. For a stallion, he was so kind and so enjoyable to be around and ride. In a lot of ways, he ruined it for the horses who came after him—he was impossible to live up to.
Ironically, a drug violation also changed the results of the individual medals, nearly a year after the Games ended. A tribunal stripped Cian of his gold medal in the wake of his mount testing positive for two banned substances. So Rodrigo moved up to gold, and I got the silver. But the decision, announced after Royal’s passing, was a hollow promotion for me. The framed medals and the dried laurel wreath I wore during the ceremonies in Athens pale in comparison to my time with Royal. I will always have this great memory of my horse, great photos, and a great painting of him. He was the horse who gave me what I wanted so much, and I thank him for it.
Lucy Davis
The Dream Comes True
Remarkably, Lucy was only 21 when