HIS& HERS
EQUINE Lifestyle
RIDING FORWARD
with Dianna & Kevin Babington
with L.A. Sokolowski
“Inside leg to outside rein.” We learn as riders to see both
aids as equally vital to creating and maintaining balance
in our horse. That equestrian synergy could be attributed
to Dianna and Kevin Babington, who celebrated their 24th
wedding anniversary in April while maintaining forward
motion at the uppermost echelons of their sport and growing
closer with every stride to their students and each other.
Earlier in the spring,
when Horse Sport Ireland appointed Kevin to its High Performance
Jumping Committee as a technical advisor to the
Senior Jumping Programme (joining Irish Nations Cup rider,
Cameron Hanley, and HSI director, Taylor Vard), he said, “I
look forward to working alongside these great horsemen
and to still be a part of this high level of jumping.”
“This is a beginning, not an end. His serving as an advisor,
going in to an Olympic year, means a lot to him,” says
Dianna, who has been at Kevin’s side since a jumping accident
last August at the Hampton Classic Horse Show left
the 51 year-old horseman dubbed, The Fighting Irishman,
paralyzed below the shoulders.
For now, Dianna has become Kevin’s legs for course walks
with their riders but, make no mistake, the headset he
wears to communicate with students girds his greatest,
undamaged asset: his mind.
“The accident,” she says, “broke his body, not his horsemanship.
Not his experience as a rider and trainer.” It has
also built a formidable partnership in the show jumping
tradition of such powerhouse couples as Katie and Henri
(Prudent), or Mary and Frank (Chapot).
Kevin says he has always had complete confidence in his
longstanding assistant trainer and has watched her transition
“with ease” into walking courses solo with clients: “She
jumped at a pretty high level herself but was always a bit
caught in my shadow, and focused on riding our sale and
young horses at home. She did it all.”
“I’ve never been to the Olympics,” Dianna says, “but you
don’t have to have ridden in them to be a great trainer. It’s
a different role.”
“Now,” he says, “she is out in front and I couldn’t have a
better partner. She has trained with the best and has been
with me for 30 years. She can handle anything.”
“Our students,” Dianna reports, “are saying they actually
get more of his attention now because he is so focused!
Growing up in an Irish community, his approach has always
been about the horse, how to put it where it should be
under the rider.”
“I look at the rider and what they need to be doing to get
their horse in balance,” she says. “For instance, there was
a lesson where he was talking about where the horse’s
shoulder needed to go, while I saw a rider who needed to
rotate her pelvis and reframe her position!”
As Dianna and Kevin have grown closer as a couple and
as teachers, it has becoming increasingly important to the
recovering horseman that others see what he sees in the
rider by his side: How good Dianna is (and has been) as a
professional equestrian and “fantastic” teacher.
“He has a lot of confidence in what I do,” she says of the
man she met and started training with three decades ago.
“As life moves forward, we’ll figure it out.”
They are shining as skilled coaches across the equitation,
hunter, and jumper divisions. Each and every rider that
comes to them seems to go on to success in their own
right, from USHJA finals to first-places at Wellington, HITS and
World Equestrian Center.
Florida’s 2020 Winter Circuit concluded with Gwyneth
earning the Potcreek Meadow Farm Junior Sportsmanship
Trophy for “consistently demonstrating outstanding conduct,
horsemanship, attitude, and courtesy appropriate
for a competitor at the highest levels of the sport.” Prior
recipients include Robert Matz, Victoria Colvin, and Lucy
Deslauriers.
28 www.EliteEquestrianMagazine.com
Two Talents, One Team
/www.EliteEquestrianMagazine.com