Lainie DeBoer Goes Two For Two in Hunter Hack With Regal Tequila and Naturally Broke

By: Brittany Bevis

Lainie DeBoer went two for two this evening in the Senior and Junior Hunter Hack with Naturally Broke and Regal Tequila. Her first World Championship title came with her senior mount, Naturally Broke, a gelding by Natural Iron and out of Go For Broke. DeBoer was in the irons for owner Abbie Skelton.

“I bought him from Bill Ellis and David Connors,” DeBoer says. “Clay Farrell had him originally in Florida. David kept hounding me and hounding me saying I had to buy this horse. So, I tried him and it was right when a client was thinking about buying a hunter.”

Thus far at the show, “Spencer” has achieved a Reserve World Championship finish in Senior Working Hunter with DeBoer in the saddle. She won that class aboard Larks Big Leaguer for Kelsea Hull. Spencer will compete in the Amateur Hunter Hack finals this evening with Abbie Skelton as well as the Amateur Working Hunter preliminaries tomorrow.

DeBoer’s second World Championship title of the evening came in the Junior Hunter Hack with Regal Tequila, a five-year-old gelding by Regal Lark and out of Tejano Gal. She was in the saddle for Rick Bucholz of Waterloo, Nebraska. DeBoer describes her junior mount named “Uno” as an “old soul.”

“I was kind of putting the bug in Rick’s ear about buying him, when he was four years old,” she says. “I had him in the barn with another client. Rick just happened to come to Minnesota on his way to go fishing. I threw him on a longe line, because it was my day off. He said he loved him and that was it.”

“That was a no-brainer,” Bucholz adds. “Even I could pick that out.”

Earlier in the show, “Uno” was named the Reserve World Champion in Junior Working Hunter. But despite his recent success here at the World Show, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Uno. Last year, just prior to the World Show, he sustained an injury that took him out of the competition.

“We’ve just gone really, really slow with him,” she says. “It’s nice when you have an owner like this, who will put the time and patience and money in. We have been really holding his hand all year. If we got to this point and he was ready to go, we would go. He’s kind of blossomed in the last couple of months.”

“He grew a lot and filled out, and he’s super strong. We’ve really worked on getitng him super fit. I think that was the key with this horse. He had a heck of a growth spurt. He’s probably only shown, in his life, in the hunter hack five times.”

Because DeBoer had multiple horses entered in both age divisions of the Hunter Hack this evening, she was faced with the challenge of preparing two horses at the same time. In order to accomplish this feat, she relied on some help from her ground crew and friends.

“I try to get them organized during the day, and I try to get them where I want them [ahead of time],” she says. “Today, it was hard because I had to have somebody riding the junior horse. A friend of mine trotted him around for a while, so that was really easy. It was a natural transition to just get on the other one.”

“I know them really well. I work with them every day. I think that helps. I ride them every day at home, and that makes the difference because I know them inside and out. I think that’s the key, really. If you’re used to riding them five days out of the week, it’s easy to switch and click into them.”

Although DeBoer would like to have a nice glass of wine to celebrate her double win, she’ll have to wait a little bit longer because she has a whopping six amateur competitors to prepare for the Amateur Hunter Hack finals this evening. Then, it’s off to begin practice for the Amateur Working Hunter preliminaries tomorrow.

Junior Hunter Hack–

1-Regal Tequila/Lainie DeBoer

2-Blue Sky Serenade/Chuck Briggs

3-A Well Dressed Man/Jessica Johnson

4-Only Skys Escape/Virginia Beaton

5-She Dreams In Color/Lauren Tousley (Intermediate Winner)

6-I’m Naturally Grey/Lauren Eichstadt

7- A Bucket of Fun/Cindy Hale

8- Gator Boots/Nadine Turner

9-I Big Money/Jerry Erickson

10-Lasting Exposure/Tyson Furlong

Senior Hunter Hack–

1-Naturally Broke/Lainie DeBoer

2-Cool Man Jazz/Jerry Erickson

3-Skys Blue Babe/Kelley Watts

4-Whenitallgoessouth/Jessica Johnson

5-Un Forgettable/Bill Ellis

6-Better Buy The Minit/Linda Crothers

7-Just Call Me Detail/Tyson Furlong

8-Dirty Lies/Carrie Parsons

9-Dirty Sexy Money/Kindel Huffman-Walters

10-Spacious Skies/Jodi Pearsall (Intermediate winner)