By Sarah Eakin
The next time the Wellington International showgrounds opens its gates, it will be for the start of the 2025 Winter Equestrian Festival, kicking off the New Year on Wednesday, Jan. 1.
In the pre-season build up, two Saturday night classes saw victories for early birds taking the opportunity to tune up under the lights at the end of this year before the competition in the International Ring goes to the next level.
USA’s McKayla Langmeier and Jiselle NS took a win in the $30,000 Grand Prix, the climax of the ESP Holiday II show, leading a field of 42 horse-and-rider combinations taking on the floodlit course designed by Wellington’s Andy Christiansen.
“I’ve had her since she was six years old, so I know her really well,” Langmeier 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. It really couldn’t have gone better.”
On the final weekend of 2024, USA’s Charlie Jayne and One And Only saw the crowd in suspense for the highlight of the ESP Holiday Finale show. Last to go in the jump off for the $50,000 Saturday Night Lights Grand Prix, the pair clocked up a winning time of 36.714 seconds, under a second of a difference from Germany’s Tony Stormanns and Donjon D’Asschaut. Lebanon’s Jad Dana, who is based year-round in Wellington, and Itchcock Des Dames took third.
WEF is the largest and longest-running equestrian competition series in the world. It is held at Wellington International, which hosts 42 weeks of competition annually across the equestrian disciplines of show jumping, hunters, dressage and para-dressage, and welcoming more than 350,000 spectators, 15,000 horses and 7,500 competitors. In 2024, WEF contributed more than $400 million in economic impact to Palm Beach County.
Langmeier and Jiselle NS will be among those competing at WEF this season, which includes 7,000 horses from 42 countries and all 50 U.S. states for the hunter/jumper classes.
“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,” Langmeier said. “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.”
Langmeier 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. Like many equestrians coming to Wellington for the season, they are gearing up for an intense winter of competition.
“We have all our clients who come down here, a lot of sales horses, and then my FEI horses and the young horses. So, on a daily basis, it’s a lot of riding, a lot of showing, but I love it,” Langmeier said. “I do my own schedule for the horses that I compete on, and then I’m also part of my mom’s scheduling for Kelianda Farm. 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,” Langmeier said. “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 includes 13 weeks of back-to-back competition, a break is needed. “We do try to take one week completely off,” Langmeier said. “And you have to do stuff on Mondays, which is everyone’s day off.”
And after that, what else does it take? “Coffee. Lots of coffee,” she said.
Learn more about WEF at www.wellingtoninternational.com.
Read more by equestrian writer Sarah Eakin at www.paperhorsemedia.com.
