Rolex 2011 Preview - Part 4: Jessica Phoenix and Rebecca Howard

A happy pair, Jubal and Hélène Vattier

Remember Jubal? That French horse that used to teach beginners? (read article here) Well... here he is at Badminton. I received the photo in an email with only these few words: "and the rider was in heaven coming out of the ring..." I guess that says it all, really. Well done and best of luck tomorrow!

In other news... we leave for Kentucky tomorrow! Yippee! We're very excited. Hopefully, no tornados, (please).

And I still have a couple of big announcements to share before Rolex but I must find some time tomorrow to start spilling some beans, as I cannot count on people keeping secrets for very long.

These will be my last Rolex profiles... the other ECOGOLD riders left are The Fab 4 - Phillip, Karen, Boyd and Buck, and I'm pretty sure everybody knows them...so let's do these two lovely Canucks and tomorrow, we'll start announcing some cool stuff.

Jessica Phoenix

This is our Rolex poster, as voted by our Facebook likers. They even helped me choose the tag line. It's "marketing by the people" at its best! Like Survivor, except no one gets voted off the island. Well... only bad marketing ideas.

So Jessie and Exponential (aka Tucker) are going to be ECOGOLD's poster girl/boy and I can almost hear Jessie say: "Love it!" when she sees it.

I've known Jessica since I met her at breakfast, when she was staying at my hotel for the 2009 Burghley Horse Trials. I have to say she is an excellent driver on the left side of the road and we didn't even get lost. I don't recall if we had a GPS but I don't believe so...I remember Jess Hampf pointing with a finger in the general direction we had to go...

Since then, she had a baby, went to WEG, almost drowned in the Head of the Lake (was grateful for the ECOGOLD XC Boots she had on Tucker), became a media sensation.... I don't think anybody else has had so much going on in such a short time.

This is going to be Jessica's first time at Rolex. The World Equestrian Games were her first 4*...(start at the top, that's what I say). She is bringing her WEG horse Exponential, and also Exploring (aka Digby), who placed 12th at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio. So she will be a double threat!

Here are a couple of videos of Jessica - let's start with my favorite one...

And enjoy this other one from Bromont last summer

Rebecca Howard

I don't know Rebecca that well, having met her probably only twice (maybe three times), but I can tell you that she has the most humongous saddle ever, which I hope is really comfy... because we have to make her pads specially, using a custom pattern.

Rebecca's Jumping Saddle fits our Dressage pad

I'm sure that's not the kind of information that people are really interested in... but I can't help thinking about those super loooong flaps when I think about Rebecca.

She will be competing at Rolex with Riddle Master (aka Rupert), her WEG mount, with whom she placed 23rd.

Guess what I found..... Helmet Cam Alert!!! Rebecca and Riddle Master at 2011 The Fork CIC***

This one was from Bromont last summer, finishing 2nd in the CCI***

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