Millions of Dreams Come Real: Will Coleman Nabs First CCI5* Win at Kentucky with Diabolo

Buckle in everyone — we’ve got a lot to say today!

Last October as the action wound down from the inaugural Final of the US Equestrian Open of Eventing at Morven Park, I gathered my things and stepped outside the media office. Boyd Martin had just been crowned the winner of the Final CCI4*-L with Miks Master C, taking advantage of a rare and unlucky rail from cross country leaders Will Coleman and Off the Record to come from behind for victory. As I started heading to my car, I glanced to my left and spotted Will sitting on his own on the grass. It didn’t feel right to go up and talk to him in that moment, so I just tossed him a nod and a “all good?” He nodded. “I just needed a minute.”

“Snakebit” is the word Will used on a few different occasions to describe his, generally speaking, 2024 and 2025 seasons. Little things and big things here and there. Withdrawing Chin Tonic HS from the Kentucky CCI4*-S due to an injury in 2024. Traveling to the Team USA training camp ahead of the Paris Olympics as a named member of the squad with both a team horse and a direct reserve — then returning home with two sound horses and no Olympic berth. An injury to Diabolo late in 2024 that would sideline him for a year.

Of course it’s not been all bad: Will came into this weekend at Kentucky as a recent two-time winner of the CCI4*-S (2024 with Diabolo and 2025 with Off the Record) and he’s collected plenty of wins at the 4* level through that time period.

Highs and lows — the definition of any sport, but especially eventing.

But one thing I’ve noticed about our newly-crowned Defender Kentucky CCI5* winner — his first ever at the level — over the years of chasing him around horse shows is that he’s not generally the guy who gets too high or too low on things. I’m confident, of course, that I only see certain sides of Will, but I don’t think it’s a far stretch to call him pragmatic. I recall a win he took at Stable View a few years back; when I asked if he was excited about the win, he made a comment about taking the highs with the lows. Acceptance, he said, was a good word for a life with horses.

“I think it’s that’s the sport for sure,” Will said today. “That’s life, too. I think I always try to remind myself that I chose to do this. I love to do this. And results are not guaranteed. Nothing in life is guaranteed. You have to enjoy the journey, and there’s going to be rough bits.”

The thing that defines a human is how they deal with adversity, and what they choose to do with the lemons life throws their way. Will uses it as fuel to get better — not just with his riding and his training, but within himself, too.

“Every time I’ve been in a rough patch, I’ve always found a way to become a better person and better horsemen, and so those kind of down spells have really been what’s helped me become a better version of myself,” he continued. “So I always look back on those with a tremendous amount of gratitude, and that cycle will continue. You know, it will be an up and down game for everybody, and I think you have to embrace that. And I think we’ve done that. I’m proud of how we have as a program, how we’ve done, how we’ve sort of responded to those things, and I think we’ve all gotten better from it.”

It’s true. As Will said on Saturday, you don’t get much time to celebrate in this sport. One day you’re the rooster, the next you’re the feather duster, as Monica Spencer puts it (and might feel, even just a little, tonight after that coveted 5* win slipped from her grasp with three rails lowered and time penalties added today with cross country leader Artist). On Monday, he’ll be back home in Virginia, business as usual, horses to work, people to train, plans to make.

For his part, Diabolo — 14 this year and owned by the Diabolo Group comprised of many longtime supporters of the Colemans — has been a fascinating puzzle to put together. This is really where Will’s wife, Katie, comes in. It’s really not a huge stretch to say that the reason this horse arrived in Will’s barn is largely Katie.

Initially, it was equine sourcer extraordinaire Sharon Ridgway who put the horse on the Coleman radar. Sharon has sourced scores of horses for riders like William Fox-Pitt and Mary King, and though she herself is based in Australia these days, her sharp eye for equine talent extends to all corners of the globe. Sharon sent a video of a bay horse on cross country, and while she sends videos often to the Colemans, this one in particular caught Katie’s eye. He was 12 at the time and had competed through the CCI4*-L level with Australian rider Gemma Tinney.

“Just the expression on his face is really what honestly I liked,” Katie explained. “I said to Will, I think you need to look at this one. Should we got to Australia? We talk about horses a lot, and I didn’t push him to go, but he liked him too when he sat down to watch the video, and I just had a little bit of a feeling about him. I still do, really.”

“I’m not saying I wouldn’t have looked at him, but I mean, I just have so much respect for [Katie’s] eye, and that got my attention more,” Will concurred. Over the course of two whirlwind (think two or three days and a whole lot of jet lag) trips to Australia, Will found his next horse. “I liked him immediately. I knew there was going to be a bit of time that we’d have to put in, but I really liked him.”

It didn’t all go to plan, and that’s been well-documented here on EN. The transition from the southern hemisphere to the northern was a tough one. Will and Katie had been warned by others who had imported horses from Australia that this could happen — it’s a big change, the seasons are flipped, the trip is arduous. That, combined with Dab’s injury in 2024 meant that we really haven’t seen the best of this horse yet. He won the CCI4*-S in 2024 here at Kentucky, and he would go on to be named Will’s direct reserve behind Off the Record for Paris, but due to one thing or another, this CCI5* debut was a longer time coming than perhaps anticipated.

“It took us some time to kind of figure out his what he needed, management wise, for his body and his brain and the riding,” Katie said. “But he’s a learner, like he just loves learning new things, and he feels so good when he’s learned a thing and he knows what you want. It just feeds into his confidence. And the more he’s confident, the less that eagerness to do the right thing shows up as anxiety. It actually shows up as confidence.”

All of this meant that Will and Katie came into this Kentucky week feeling, at the minimum, well-prepared. It’s no mean feat for a horse to win a 5* on its first attempt. Recent history yields just a few examples of such debut success: La Biosthetique Sam (Luhmühlen – 2009), Ballaghmor Class (Burghley – 2017), Hooney d’Arville (Luhmühlen – 2024), Sandhills Briar (Adelaide – 2026) are some examples.

Per Will’s aforementioned pragmatism, he kept his confidence quiet. He knew the horse was prepared and trusted his system, he told us.

“I knew,” Katie grinned. “I had a good feeling. We didn’t talk about it out loud, but I had a really good feeling. The horse is just in a really good place. I think Will was in a good headspace. We are in a good space as a program. Everything just kind of felt good. I mean, you never really know, right? It was his first five-star. Not many horses win their first five-star, but we have always known that the horse was ready for big moments — due big moments.”

Today, Diabolo got that big moment. He and Will added two seconds of time on Guillerhme Jorge’s track (a new designer this year, and also the same designer as the Major League Show Jumping CSI5*, so you know it was a serious track) to very nearly finish on their dressage score. Their eventual final mark to seal the win was 28.1.

“It is a surreal feeling,” Will said in today’s press conference. “It’s something that I think we all kind of dream about. Winning a five-star, in my opinion, is, I think one of the hardest things to do, if not the hardest in equestrian sports. I think I sort of feel like we all deserve the win. It’s such a hard game. It takes so long to really get good enough at it to possibly contend for one of these things, and I have so much respect for the sport, the horses and the riders, that I really feel like it’s almost unfair that I’m the only one that gets to take home the win, but mostly I’m overjoyed for my horse and all the people that are a part of his journey, my incredible owners, my family, my coaches and our incredible group of staff that help us look after a large group of horses. Back at home, I wake up most days feeling like the luckiest guy in the world, and today I feel extremely lucky.”

That moment at Morven Park stuck in my head through the offseason. It feels silly, really. It had exactly zero to do with me, but in that moment, I felt for Will. We spend a lot of time with these riders, not just at the big 5* events but at the normal, everyday competitions as well. We see the time they put in, the support they surround themselves with. We see them in the midst of the struggle and the grind, and we see them when success flits upon them, even temporarily. And I’ve spent the better part of two decades chasing them around, telling the stories of both their highs and their lows.

So it’s nice to be able to write these 1700 words to celebrate a win that doesn’t come around often, and one that is the manifestation of decades of hard work, heartbreak and an overarching respect for the horse. It feels fitting and deserved that Will, Katie, and the entire Coleman team made up of owners and supporters who’ve been a part of the family for years finally have this big moment.

But There’s More!

If you’re still with me, I commend you. The truth is, the amount of storylines out of this weekend feels impossible to properly communicate, and I do still need to recap Tamie Smith’s Cosequin Lexington CCI4*-S victory, so let’s dive into some other great stories from this weekend in Kentucky. For the sake of brevity (lol) I’m going to separate the rest of this report into smaller sections so you can read the bits and bobs you want.

HSH Blake Shows His Consistency Once More

Yet another huge storyline from today is that this CCI5* podium marks the very first U.S. 1-2 since 2008, when Phillip Dutton (Connaught) and Becky Holder (Courageous Comet) took the top two spots (and also a shout to Missy Ransenhausen here for her third place with Critical Decision — some real throwback favorites on this roster). It’s also the first U.S. 5* win since 2023, when Tamie Smith won with Mai Baum.

Caroline Pamukcu‘s star continue to rise with HSH Blake (Tolan R – Doughiska Lass), her Paris Olympics partner in 2024. There’s not a whole lot we haven’t already said in spades about this special little horse, other than his consistency continues to shine as he finishes in second in his second 5* (he was fourth at Maryland in 2025 for his debut) and improves his finishing score by nearly 11 penalty points.

“I’ve got incredible horses,” Caroline said. “I’m still, like Coleman said, I try every day to be the best person I can. It’s a hard sport, you know, I have so much more to learn, and every day I wake up in the morning, I try to be the best I can and try to do the best for my horses. And Blake today really helped me out a lot. All the kudos goes to him. He’s such a special horse, and he really made up for everything that I lacked.”

Blake was another horse really intended to be a sales horse for Caroline, but she was excited about him and wanted to show him to some of her supporters. At that show — one of his earliest shows with Caroline — she fell off in the show jumping. She tells the story ruefully, and it’s a great addition of context to the success we now see she’s had with him. He’s come all the way through the U.S. pipeline, beginning with the USEA Young Event Horse program, the FEI Eventing World Young Horse Breeding Championships at Lion d’Angers, the Pan American Games and then the Olympics. Will a World Championships berth be next? This weekend, I think we identified at least three strong pairs who could go and contribute to a medal if the Championships were tomorrow, and Caroline and Blake would be one of them.

“We just kind of grew up together,” Caroline said, looking back on the accomplishments to date. “He’s been there for a lot of my milestones in life — competition wise, had my baby last year, named her after him. He’s just…he’s special, like he’s our best friend. In the morning I wake up, I turn on the lights. My gym is upstairs above the barn, and I turn the lights on to say hi to the horses. [Blake’s] in at night because he jumps out of the field, so I say good morning to him, literally every morning. He’s just awesome. He’s a great person. He’s very spoiled, just like my child, like they’re the same person. He’s a very, very special horse to me. Once with a lifetime, I have to say.”

Conquering Adversity is the Theme of the Day

David Doel (GBR) and Tim Price (NZL) are all too familiar with the amount of tinkering, testing, questioning, validating that goes into putting three quality phases together on the same weekend. They’ve both experienced their share of highs and lows with the horses they respectively brought to Kentucky this weekend.

Last year, David Doel had an odd season with his own and Mary Fox and Gillian Jonas’ Galileo Nieuwmoed (Carambole – Sjaloma). The 15-year-old KWPN gelding is a cross country freak, earning six clears inside the time at the 5* level out of nine starts prior to 2025. To be completely fair, two blips are hardly a cause for huge concern for a horse of this stature, but the fact that they came in succession — one at Badminton in May and another at Burghley in September — was unusual for this pair. David noted that his work to improve Galileo’s dressage wound up making him “a bit more polite” and subsequently a touch more off the bridle than was his norm before. “I’ve had to put a little bit more fight into him,” he elaborated. “And I think, you know, those were just sort of the mistakes that we made last year, and we rectified them at Pau [they finished ninth there last October] and it was great to do it again this time.”

“I suppose we’re always still learning,” David mused in the press conference. “And, you know, horses are great levelers. It’s obviously a bit gutting to end up sort of on the floor of Badminton and Burghley. But we as a team, we sort of came together, learned from those mistakes, figured out what we’ve done wrong…I just have to put that little bit of fire into his tank a little bit more now. But look, he gave me a super ride on all three days. It’s very rare, as these two guys will know, to get all three phases right, all on one day. For him to have pretty much nailed it this weekend. So I was really chuffed.”

David ends the weekend on the podium — his third such finish and his best Kentucky finish in two starts — and as the sole rider to finish on his dressage score (30.8). This third-best CCI5* score and the subsequent clear jumping phases are demonstrative of the righting of the ship that David and his team worked so hard on last year and into this season. This pair, like their counterparts Emily Hamel and Corvett, have completed every northern hemisphere CCI5*, some multiple times, and continue to be a partnership of a lifetime.

Tim Price (NZL) finishes the weekend in fourth place with Vitali (Contender – Noble Lady I) with a final score of 33.0. They added just time in the jumping phases and in particular, Vitali’s show jumping today was a testament to the ongoing work Tim puts into the 16-year-old Holsteiner owned by Joe & Alex Giannamore.

That clear jumping round today was a first for Vitali. To date, he had not jumped a clear at the level; his best round was a four-faulter at Burghley in 2024. “I can’t believe it,” Tim said. “The secret sauce is that trainers for years have been telling me to lighten my contact, and I haven’t listened well enough so fatefully, break a shoulder and then I can’t actually use my contact. So maybe there’s something to come out of this! It’s interesting, isn’t it?”

To be clear, Tim says he didn’t actually break his shoulder, but it is heavily bruised at least and he’s not been comfortable all week long as it’s a very recent injury. And he’s been whittling away at Vitali’s show jumping, declaring he’d never give up on it, for the past few years. At CHIO Aachen in 2025, Tim won thanks in part to a clear round jumped before cross country.

“We can’t make them do anything,” he said at Aachen. “We just adapt our training and progress. I would say I’m probably not the best show jump rider that there is, or trainer of a show jump horse, and it’s taken me some time to find the right elements for this horse, to get the best out of him.” Here, he noted that cross country after show jumping was a totally different animal, but he still felt he’d hit on a good starting reformulation that summer. “I’ve taken a lot of positives away from the build up to this competition that hopefully I’ll be able to carry through those five-stars as well.” Spoiler alert: he did.

A USA Double Double

It’s a true winner, winner, chicken dinner situation at Kentucky this weekend as the U.S. enjoyed a banner weekend with two top spots on the podium in the CCI5* as well the Cosequin Lexington CCI4*-S, which went to Tamie Smith and Molly Duda’s Lillet 3 (S.I.E.C Livello – Princess L) with a score of 31.3.

“She was super,” Tamie said in the afternoon press conference. “I couldn’t have asked her to be better. She came up just enough to rise to the occasion and didn’t get too tense or tight and just jumped amazing. She just keeps going from strength to strength and she couldn’t have been better. She was so rideable and just tried her heart out. I don’t even think she touched a rail, she jumped so well.”

Perhaps the most poignant moment of the day came at the 4* prizegiving, when Liz Halliday (who’s been on site all week to cheer on her friends and her Paris horse, Cooley Nutcracker, who finished 11th with Boyd Martin) gave Tamie the Leading U.S. Lady Award. Liz, who continues a heroic recovery from a TBI sustained in a cross country accident in 2024, is a longtime teammate of Tamie’s, and this year’s 4* winner admits the weekend’s been somewhat bittersweet.

“It’s actually been…that accident was really hard was me,” Tamie said. “Liz and I are friends, and we did a lot of team stuff, Nations Cups together and traveled a lot. I would always come and give her a hard time because she had this really intense, competitive approach and I’d always go, ‘come on, loosen up girl!’ and we’d be at the competitor parties and I’d try to get her to dance. We always had this thing that we were going to win medals together on teams. So it’s hard to see her, but it’s also really awesome to see how far she’s come. It’s virtually a miracle that she’s as good as she is and she understands what you’re saying and you can talk to her. I ran into her and then Boyd came up and she said ‘could be a little better!’ after he did his test on Nutcracker. It’s bittersweet, right? It’s horrible and it’s also a miracle at the same time and I know she’s going to continue to be better, and if anybody’s going to be doing amazing things again, it’s her. I think what the most emotional part for me was how my mare just stood there. She knew. It was so crazy because she’s hot — she doesn’t stand, she paws and it was just really cool that she soaked in the moment, and it’s good to see Liz out here again.”

Will Coleman also hit the podium with Jerome Broussard, Beth Lendrum and Gloria Callan’s Very Dignified (Dignified van’t Zorgvliet – Kateys Gem), another Sharon Ridgway-sourced horse from Ireland that’s shown much promise for the future. She’ll be less experienced than Will’s other top horses at the moment, but the mare is one to keep an eye on as she continues to develop a partnership with Will.

Mia Farley completes the 4* podium, harnessing her mind to put some show jumping demons to rest and jump a strong clear with Karen O’Connor’s Invictus (Diarado – Sunset Paradise), ending the weekend on a score of 38.3. Mia recently started working with show jumping Olympian Peter Wylde, who’s been instrumental in evolving Boyd Martin’s riding, and she’ll next aim “Sammy” for a 4*-L in the near future.

And so, another weekend in the beautiful bluegrass comes to a close and I have to say, it’s one of my favorites on record in 13 years covering this event. I truthfully haven’t even scratched the surface of the stories out of this weekend, and I hope to recap more of them for you in a reporter’s notebook soon.

Until then, I’m going to take myself to bed for more than a few hours of sleep, and I’ll be back with you soon. I hope you enjoyed the weekend and its showcase of our sport as much as we did. It won’t be one we forget anytime soon.

Go Eventing.

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