The Late, Great and Relatively Unknown Ben O'Meara

At dinner last night with a group of my horse show friends (we all know each other through horse shows) we talked about a lot of different topics. One that came up was Jacks or Better.  One of the gang is a horse show judge and she had recently seen a jumper named Jacks or Better but the owner had not known that there was once a famous jumper by that same name.

Then Ben O'Meara came up.  Bet you never heard of him either?

Born in 1938, Ben O'Meara started in the horse world as a groom and blacksmith in Brooklyn. A self-taught rider, he first attracted attention in the show ring with a top performance at the 1961 National Horse Show aboard his horse, P.D. a police department failure. Aboard Jacks Or Better, O'Meara captured the PHA Championship in 1962 (at the time one of the top honors in the horse world) and that same year tied for the National Horse Show Jumper Championship with Kathy Kusner and Unusual.

A progressive figure who invented a number of riding techniques still used today, O'Meara helped forge strong links between professional rider/trainers and the USET at a time when many pros regarded the USET with uncertainty. A strong Team supporter, several of his horses competed for the Team after they had been sold. Jacks Or Better, for example, won the Grandprix of Aachen with Neal Shapiro, and Untouchable went to the Tokyo and Mexico City Olympics with Kathy Kusner.

O'Meara produced many winners; he developed the horse, Silver Lining, and sold Good Twist to Frank Chapot as a 3-year-old. He also had a number of show ring victories aboard The Hood, including the Jumper Championship at the National Horse Show, and Grey Lady. O'Meara began the 1966 season with wins in Florida aboard Gone Flying. Tragically his career ended when he was killed in a plane crash on April 16, 1966 at the age of 27. Later that year Gone Flying won the National Horse Show Jumper Championship with Barney Ward in the irons.

In the few photos that seem to be out there, Benny rarely wears a helmet, how politically incorrect is that?  That was a different age.....

“Most of the horses O’Meara dealt with were hot Thoroughbreds off the race track; many had never jumped a fence before he acquired them.

“If a horse survived his training (and it was a hard test), he was quite a good horse. He taught his horses to learn to "fend for himself, to be quick in front and good behind, to get very round, and above all to concentrate on his fences."  (George Morris is a big fan of Benny and the above quotes come from him).   It was amazing that Ben O’Meara could produce jumper after jumper for the show ring in a matter of weeks. Even though they were still very green, they were bold, brave and extremely careful, and they’d win. A long string of O’Meara’s horses eventually jumped for the U. S. Equestrian team, including the great Untouchable, Jacks or Better, and others.” George feels that had O’Meara lived ‘his ideas would have leveled out and become less extreme.’

It's sad that O'Meara died at such a young age. Just think of what else he might have achieved.