Trip to Hong Kong started with a few barnyard hurdles

By RACHEL BLOUNT, Star Tribune

Last update: August 5, 2008 - 3:49 PM

During the cross-country portion of the three-day event, horses and their riders jump a wide variety of obstacles. No wonder Becky Holder was smitten.

"I was jumping wheelbarrows at the barn as a kid,'' said the Mendota Heights resident, who was named to her first Olympic team last month. "Someone gave me a pamphlet about the U.S. [Combined Training Association]. I was hooked.''

Holder, 39, and her horse, Courageous Comet, are among five U.S. pairs who will compete in eventing at the Beijing Games. They won't actually be in Beijing; the equestrian events are being held in Hong Kong because of quarantine issues. She and Comet, a 12-year-old thoroughbred, begin the three-day event -- which consists of dressage, cross-country and show jumping -- on Saturday.

Holder is a native of Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and began riding at a young age. By her teens, she was teaching other riders, competing and riding with the Fort Leavenworth Hunt.

An Olympic alternate in 2000, she has trained with Olympians including Karen O'Connor, who joins her on the 2008 team, David O'Connor and Capt. Mark Phillips. Holder continues to teach at Carriage House Farm in Hugo during the summer and in North Carolina during the winter. She and her husband, Tom -- who also is a rider -- own Courageous Comet, a former racehorse whom Holder retrained for a new career off the track.

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