Mckayla Langmeier preludes WEF with a nighttime victory
With the start of the Winter Equestrian Festival [WEF] just over two weeks away there was an opportunity to bag a pre-season win under the lights in the International Ring at Wellington International for Mckayla Langmeier and Jiselle NS.
“I’ve had her since she was six years old so I know her really well,” Mckayla said of the 10-year old Dutch Warmblood mare. “I’ve developed her up to five-star height so this is kind of our first show back so it really couldn’t have gone better.”
Forty two contestants entered the $30,000 Grand Prix to take on the course designed by Wellington’s Andy Christiansen and 12 made it through to the jump off. “I knew I had a lot of fast riders behind me so I knew I had to really go for it,” Mckayla said of her second-to-go position against the clock. “On the rollbacks I knew I could trust her scope and her step and kind of use those to my advantage.”
The pair finished 39.825 seconds, a time that proved uncatchable despite a strong challenge from Ireland’s Kevin Gallagher and Ballerina-Hoem whose time of 40.879 put them as runners up.
This weekend was Mckayla’s chance to start Jiselle’s build up to more competitive times ahead with the opening week of WEF. “Her year has actually been quite light, she had a bit of a break before coming here because I was doing ‘indoors’ with other horses,” said Mckayla. “So I gave her a bit of time off and now she just started back up this week. I’m hoping to show her the first week of WEF in the three-star. This is a good way to start. ”
Mckayla joined Kelianda Farm – owned and operated by Linda and Kenny Langmeier – in 2021 where she shares the complex planning for WEF, with her mother Linda. “We have all our clients that come down here, a lot of sales horses and then my FEI horses and the young horses. So on a daily basis – a lot of riding, a lot of showing but I love it,” Mckayla said. “I do my own schedule for the horses that I compete on and then I’m also part of my mom’s scheduling. We then do a show schedule for our clients and our outside clients as well.”
Planning starts soon for the long-term goals, but flexibility is the name of the game. “We probably start planning now or a little bit before,” said Mckayla. “Or week by week if someone gets a new horse or something. “It’s a lot of changing. It’s a lot of moving parts so you have to have a lot of people around you.”
Since WEF lasts for 13 weeks of back-to-back competition, a break is needed midway through the Festival, for the whole team to recover. “We do try to take one week completely off,” said Mckayla. “And you have to do other stuff on Mondays, which is everyone’s day off.” And after that, what does it take? “Coffee. Lots of coffee,” she said.
This could be interesting: