Taylor Peckham and Good Timing Tommy win reserve world champion in “hunter over fences.”
BLANDFORD – Taylor Wyman, the 14-year-old star equestrian who has emerged as a major figure in the world, is coming off another monumental season in which she defended championships and won a few new ones.
However, after overcoming major injuries in 2012 to win the Pinto World Show championship in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Wyman once again had to triumph over major adversity to repeat her performance at this year’s event.
According to Wyman’s mother, Becky Peckham, a bearing broke in the feed mill of the family’s horse farm, causing shredded metal to sneak into the animal’s grains.
As a result, four of the family’s prized horses fell ill and two eventually succumbed to the condition, called perratonitis, which, according to Peckham, creates abcesses in the animal’s intestines, inevitably killing them.
“We’ve taken them to Tufts Medical in North Grafton,” Peckham said. “We were in a hole to to save the horses.”
One horse, a pony named Peterbuilt Tough, a.k.a Scout, managed to survive his bout with the usually fatal condition though and went on to help Wyman claim multiple championships in Tulsa, which stunned Tufts’ veterinarians.
“The vets have said they’ve never seen a (perratonitis) survivor, but Scout survived.” Peckham said.
“He’s lucky to be alive,” said Wyman, who added that it wasn’t a month after he got sick that Scout was in the Sooner State helping Wyman win and defend her titles.
In those June World Championships in Tulsa, she would compete with Scout and her favorite horse, Rocky, whom she considers her “best friend”, in 20 events, winning 11 and finishing second in nine, including Jumping, Barrel Racing, Keyhole, Polebending, Flag Race, Hunter Over Fence, and Equitation Over Fences.
“We brought six horses with us,” Wyman said. “And we competed in 50-60 events over two weeks.”
She would add that the events, or classes, featured as few as four and as many as 100 competitors from around the world.
“It was a lot more exhausting this year,” she said. “We had more horses there (this year).”
Wyman suffered a broken arm, fractured hip and separated pelvis in April 2012 several months before her dominating star turn at last year’s Pinto World Championships. But when asked which was more difficult, coming back from injury or competing after losing some of her family’s prized horses and, in a way, her family, she paused before answering.
Dakota Peckham rides Good Timing Tommy en route to finishing fifth in her youth division.
“Last year was tough because I wasn’t as comfortable riding,” she said. “But this year was tough too. One of the horses we lost was going to come with us. And my Dad lost his horse, Shimmer.”
This summer saw Wyman and her sister Dakota Peckham, who also placed fifth in Keyhole at Worlds, competed in events in Connecticut and Vermont, and are set to compete in those same events again next year, hoping to continue to chase their dreams of someday representing the United States in the Summer Olympic games.
“To compete against the best of the best, from all over the world,” said Becky Peckham, when asked of her daughter’s equine ambitions. “Watch out Oklahoma in 2014. We will be there and we will be ready!”
