Tamie Smith: Navigating Highs and Lows and Mai Baum’s Swan Song

At the end of April last year, Tamie Smith was on top of the world. She’d just won her first CCI5* — and became the first U.S. rider to win Defender Kentucky since 2008 (Phillip Dutton) — with the Ahearn family’s striking black gelding, Mai Baum. She had a string of other horses ready to step up to or competing at the 4* and 5* levels of the sport. The Paris Olympics loomed large, and fresh off claiming a team silver at World Championships in 2022, the horizon was bright for the hottest pair in the U.S. and, arguably, the world.

In the months since then, a series of unfortunate events transpired, leaving Tamie in their wake to navigate the infamous ups and downs that is equestrian sports.

In June of 2023, Tamie Smith competed the Guariglia family’s Solaguayre California at Longines Luhmühlen CCI5* in Germany. After injuring her knee while jumping through the first water complex on cross country, California was transported to a local equine hospital, where upon commencement of surgery to the injury it was discovered that the damage was far more extensive than originally thought. The difficult decision was made to euthanize the Argentinian mare.

Ruth Bley’s Danito was another horse Tamie had grand plans for at the top levels, slotted to be one of three strong contenders for an Olympic spot in 2024. But Danito had dealt with some niggling injuries along the way, and his return to the top levels in 2023 was abbreviated.

Tamie Smith and Solaguayre California. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

At the outset of 2024, Mai Baum was pegged by many as a virtual shoo-in for the U.S. Olympic team, having been meticulously prepped and bubble-wrapped as his final selection trial, the Lexington Kentucky CCI4*-S in April, approached. Just before he was to hop on a plane to join Tamie in Kentucky, Mai Baum slipped on the ground (without a rider) and tweaked himself just enough to warrant not pushing him to fly across the country and compete. Though the Olympics weren’t fully off the table yet, it was certainly not ideal timing with so much at stake.

Then, at Tryon in May of this year, Tamie took a hard fall with Kynan on cross country and opted to withdraw her other rides that weekend. When she returned from Tryon, her goal was to focus her efforts on Mai Baum and getting him to Stable View for the upcoming Mandatory Outing for Paris. He had been cleared by vets from his tweak injury, but Tamie felt some conflict within herself.

“We had sent him for some advanced imagery and the team was basically like, “We’re ok, you need to get home and ride your horse. So Kaylawna started legging him up a couple weeks before we got home, which also happened to be the week he was getting vetted for the team. I got home and he looked like he’d been sitting on the couch watching Netflix for a year. He was huge! And the team was fantastic about giving us a shot, and his team vetting went well. We planned to bring him to the Mandatory Outing.”

“Then I woke up the next morning and they hadn’t announced the team yet; I think that was coming at the end of the week,” Tamie continued. “And I was just like, ‘I can’t do this.’ I would never do this to any horse. I would never have a horse have five weeks off, be back for two weeks and then fly to a Mandatory Outing and go around an Advanced. There was just something in me that said, ‘you would never do that.’”

With that, Tamie’s Olympic bid ended. On top of that, she was down two horses at the level, one having been lost in such a devastating manner.

Tamie Smith and Mai Baum. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

“I will say, after Tryon, I did some reflecting,” Tamie said. “I think all of us in eventing tend to accept that the sport is tough and you’re going to get knocked down. It’s not a matter of ‘if’, it’s a matter of ‘when’. When you’re at the top of anything, there are always these ebb and flow periods, but after Tryon I finally was just like, ‘do I need to reevaluate? Why is this happening?’”

Tamie decided she needed to take a step back, focus on reconnecting with her horses. While she was navigating this mental hurdle, Tamie also began to see the cumulative effects not just of her hard work, but of the support team she has built around herself over time.

Thanks to the support of the Guariglia and Duda families, as well as the ongoing support of the Ahearn family and countless others, Tamie acquired a slew of up and coming horses, one of which took her breath away in a way she didn’t expect.

“We were looking for a mare and we just hadn’t been able to find the right one,” Tamie recalled. “[Julianne Guariglia and I] had just purchased one and were in a place where we thought worst case, she could be a resale project. Then Sara Mittleider called me and said, ‘I know this is odd timing, but I just saw this horse and she looks exactly like [Solaguayre Calfornia] and I think you should try her.’”

The mare was in Germany, and when Tamie walked into the barn to try her, she topped in her tracks. She was California’s complete doppelgänger. The mare, Kareena K, went on to join Tamie’s string and joins a handful of others that she describes as “exuding talent and rideability”.

“[The support] was something I couldn’t have ever even imagined,” Tamie said. “But it was really awesome. It was just all of these events that kind of came forward and the families have been so unbelievably supportive.”

Tamie Smith and Kareena K. Photo by Tina Fitch Photography.

As for Mai Baum, it’s all systems go for one last CCI5* hurrah at the MARS Maryland 5 Star in October. At 18 this year, Paris was always intended to be his swan song, but after those plans went off script, the Maryland 5 Star became the “plan B”, and an appropriate one at that, with it being Ian Stark’s final course ahead of his retirement. “Over the last year and a half, Ian’s kind of been my guy,” Tamie explained. “And I think it’s just kind of really fitting that it’s pretty much Ian’s very last course. I love Ian as a designer and I think Maryland’s track is absolutely beautiful, and it suits [Mai Baum]; it’s a very open, galloping, bold track. So we thought, ‘let’s try to put Paris behind us and try to go America’s other five-star.’”

“I knew he had another big competition in him, and he deserves to have a big send-off,” Tamie said. “We were really trying to get him to the Olympics, and really this year he had felt better than ever. For me, with horses you look at how easy or difficult it is for them. I don’t want Lexus to compete and for there to be an obvious decline in his performance and for everyone to go, ‘well, he’s old now’. I don’t think any of us in this country thought that horse was a five-star horse initially, let alone to do five or six of them. He owes us absolutely nothing, and if there’s a day that he comes out of his stall and says I don’t want to do this, I’ll pull the plug immediately.”

“There is something to be said for retiring a horse while they are at the top of the sport,” she continued. “He won’t fully retire, but the Ahearns and I have talked about it and maybe Alex [Ahearn, Mai Baum’s original rider who gave the reins over to Tamie after competing him through the now-3* level] will ride him a little, or I’ve always wanted to do some hunter derbies!”

Alex Ahearn and Mai Baum at AECs in 2014. Photo by Sally Spickard.

Truly, this is a horse that has opened many doors for his owners and for Tamie herself, and despite the fact he may have been an Olympic medalist if given the chance, both Tamie and the Ahearn family have made it their priority to always put him first — and to see the bigger picture.

And with Liz Halliday, who would eventually step up to an Olympic team spot after the withdrawal of Will Coleman’s horses, currently fighting her way back from a traumatic brain injury sustained at the AECs in August, Tamie says her friend and fellow competitor has been constantly on her mind.

“I really do feel things are meant to be,” Tamie said. “And ultimately I was just reflecting about this the other day and I went ‘gosh, if Lexus had been fine, Liz may not have gone to [Paris],’ and I would trade her a million chances. God forbid, if she didn’t get another chance, then that had some meaning, I hope. Then by all means, it was worth it.”