Team #556 Janet Mitchell and Applebee

Team #556: Janet Mitchell and Applebee
From: Eugene, Oregon
Ages: 72 & 28
Combined Age: 100
Test: Training Level Test 3
Date: April 30, 2022

It was a summer’s day in 1998. I was working from home in Massachusetts when I got a call from a trainer in New Jersey who had heard I was looking for a new eventing horse. The horse he had for sale was a four-year-old. I said, “No, way too young for me, I’m an amateur!” The trainer persisted and told me his registered name was Applebee. I figured this must be a sign, as my grandmother’s maiden name was Applebee. I headed down to New Jersey to try him, and the rest is history! His sire was a Hanoverian named Abundance and his dam was a Thoroughbred. He did not have a barn name so I named him Jamie, after my grandmother’s father, James Applebee.

We started eventing together one year later, and he won two of his first three outings. In the many years that followed, we competed up to Preliminary, and in almost every state on the East coast. Jamie and I went to the American Eventing Championships twice. Our last event was in 2015 where he finished third in a very competitive field in New York at the age of 21. We moved to Oregon in 2016 where Jamie has excelled as a schoolmaster for novice dressage riders.

Our Century Club ride on April 30, 2022, was truly the capstone of Jamie’s career and of our long partnership. We rode Training Level Test 3 with a score of 67.59%. Jamie loves to compete, and this dressage show was no exception. He knew that this was a special day and loved posing for the many, many photos. Alongside us in the photo is my husband, Jerry, who groomed for us at many, many events, and our daughter Genny who was still in high school when we drove to New Jersey to pick Jamie up.