Coming off a banner year in 2010 aboard Total Touch, her 11-year-old Dutch Warmblood mare, the 24-year-old added some impressive stats to her resumé, including wins in the $50,000 Thunderbird Legacy Grand Prix and the $20,000 West Coast Classic Grand Prix (for the third year running). She finished second in the $75,000 Keg Steakhouse World Cup Qualifier at Thunderbird, and capped off the year by being chosen to represent Canada on the all female Nations Cup team at the CSIO4*-W Buenos Aires in November, where they placed second.
Riding on a team with Angela Covert-Lawrence, Lauren Hunkin and Lisa Carlsen was “the best experience of my life – so far,” said Samantha, a native of Langley, BC. “We had a huge, very successful fundraiser which made it possible for me to go to Argentina and compete with the team. I was with the best of the best Canadian competitors. I had known Lisa Carlsen since I was younger, and she was kind of the mentor of the team, because she’d “been there and done that.” The two other girls were also a little older than me, so I was kind of the young buck of the crew. They were really supportive and great people to be on a team with.”
Growing up at Fairway Farms, a boarding, training and breeding facility “right across the street” from Thunderbird Show Park and with Judy Wise, a top jumper rider and coach for a mother, it was in the cards for Samantha to become a successful competitor.
“I started riding when I was three years old, and rode miniature ponies. My mom and Ray, my stepdad, bought a palomino and a pinto and I rode them around in a western saddle with cowboy boots and a cowboy hat.”
Ponies evolved into horses, including her first “really competitive horse,” Simon Diamond. “He was a hunt horse brought over from Ireland as a six-year-old. I started showing him and he was going to be my Young Rider horse.” But Samantha was only 14 when she was chosen for the team, and the horse was not yet ready, so they made the tough decision not to compete. “I don’t think he would have jumped the big jumps.”
Then Total Touch came into her life. “I tried her in Holland in 2007 as a seven year-old. I was actually looking for a horse for another person and I saw her and fell in love with her.” She purchased the dark bay mare in 2008. The partnership clicked right from the start; they won their first grand prix together that summer.
“She is a beautiful mare, strong-willed and with the biggest heart of any horse I’ve ever had,” Samantha said fondly. “I love her like she’s my child.”
Samantha’s development as a rider can be attributed to some of the best in the West. “For the most part, it’s been my mom,” she said of her coaches and supporters. “I’ve also had a lot of help from different people, including Brent Balisky, George Tidball, Jonathon Asselin and Nancy Southern. Brent helped me out when I did the equitation stuff, and we’ve always been good friends with the family. George has always been a huge supporter, and growing up with the new Thunderbird has been really cool.” And there have been others guiding her path.
“Eddie Macken has helped me since I was young, and has been a really huge influence; he’s been one of my mentors. I also spent a little bit of time in Florida as a working student with Norman Dello Joio and I learned a lot from him.”
Samantha did a stint last year at the University of Fraser Valley, and explained, “I was dipping my feet in everything I could. I would like to go back for business and I probably will again in the future, but right now I’m just focusing on my horses and my life in the sport.”
In California recently at The Oaks Blenheim Spring Classic I, Samantha and Total Touch placed eighth in the $40,000 grand prix – “my first one since November; a good first grand prix back.” Her stable of horses may be increased by one shortly; a new horse she has riding while in California is Syd the Kid, a promising young Belgian Warmblood. “I’ve been trying him out for the last little while and I think that we’re going to take the plunge! He’s really cool, he’s eight years old and I think he could be my next grand prix horse.”
Also in the wings is Coppola Mercedes Benz, a talented 10-year-old Holsteiner stallion. “He’s my second-string, up-and-coming metre-forty-and-over horse.”
So how does Samantha plan to keep the momentum of last year going through 2011? “This year, I am short-listed for the Pan Ams, so I would really like to make that team – it would be in my goal-set. There’s Spruce Meadows, and there’s also a team that does a tour in Spain, and I’d love to make that. So my goals this year are to stay consistent in the grand prixs, maybe do the Section Twos (with Total Touch) at Spruce Meadows – which are the metre-sixties – to keep her up there and competitive.”
