1956 Olympic Equestrian Trials
During the first week of June 1956, millions of Saturday Evening Post readers saw a dramatic full-color photo-spread depicting rider Frank Chapot jumping a brick wall at US-team trials in Tryon, North Carolina. Held March 3rd through the 17th at Cotton Patch Farm, the trials determined America’s entries for the world’s most prestigious amateur equestrian events, the Olympics, to take place in June at Stockholm, Sweden.
Chapot at 24 was youngest and least-experienced of three American men selected to compete in show-jumping at the summer Olympics. A native of New Jersey whose father was enamored of horses, Chapot was on active duty with the US Air Force, “detached” for the trials, when he earned a place on the team at Tryon. His mother bought the horse Belair, a gelding with sight in just one eye.
“A good horse with a bad rider is a razor in a monkey’s hand. Only the proper rider on the proper horse can succeed.”
General Cole, team manager
Until the 1952 Olympics at Helsinki, entries by rule could include only men who were active military officers. Equestrian events had long been intended for cavalry. US Equestrian Team manager at Tryon in March ‘56 was a retired Brigadier General, John Tupper Cole, born at West Point and son of another cavalry officer. He fought horseback during World War I in Europe and then served on the Army’s horse show team. In 1932 Cole was a reserve rider for the Olympics. But times were changing and the world’s armed forces were phasing out cavalries; even while Cole served during World War II his leadership wasn’t limited to cavalry operations. In ’44 his brigade of tanks, armored infantry and artillery landed on a Normandy beach. Retiring to New York after the war with a Purple Heart and plenty more medals, General Cole became director of the National Horse Show, founded in 1883 for affluent civilian sports enthusiasts, which sponsored competition in hunting, show-jumping and equitation.
Teammates Chapot and Steinkraus with trainer De Némethy at Tryon, March 1956
Eight equestrians were picked at Tryon to represent the United States. Three like Chapot had military background. The new trainer was Bertalan de Némethy, recently arrived from Hungary and not yet an American citizen, who began show jumping in his teens a generation before. Due to his uncle's employment as cavalry officer, De Némethy attended Budapest’s military academy, six horses each day at the school beginning with dressage horses, a lesson on the longe without stirrups, and then riding young horses cross-country. In 1937 he became an instructor. De Némethy's skill as a rider was exceptional, but he lost his opportunity for competition at an Olympics due to cancellation of the 1940 Games. Instead, De Némethy was sent to train at the German cavalry school in Hannover taught by the likes of Otto Lörke, Fritz Stecken, and Bubi Günther— where he learned the German system of training horses. World War forced De Némethy to return to Hungary, but as the Russian Army approached Budapest, he and fellow cadets fled to Denmark. He remained in Copenhagen for six years, employed as a riding instructor. By the time De Némethy arrived at Tryon, his old adversaries’ protégés were preparing their riders to compete as well. Germans competed in ’56 as a united team, from the Soviet-occupied East and the West Germans too.
Horses (some of them generously bought for the US team by Tryon Riding & Hunt Club members, according to Gerald Pack) were stabled and trained at Harmon Field (opened in 1928 for equine events and community recreation) then brought to the Cotton Patch Farm owned by Willis & Jacqueline Kuhn, amateur horse-lovers from Indiana. They built an Olympic course near Pacolet River in Hunting Country with everything to expect for Olympic jumping – an Irish bank, hedges, steps and stone walls of different heights. USA dubbed three men its jumping team for Stockholm: Chapot, Hugh Wiley, and William Steinkraus who had competed in the 1952 Olympics.
Jump course at Stockholm for 1956 Olympics
Source: William Steinkraus, competitor.
Venue for 1956 trials in Hunting Country. Jack Sorokin
For dressage, Elaine Shirley Watt was entered from the US Equestrian Team – but she did not participate in Tryon trials. In ’56 the Germans fielded an entire dressage team of three women, a first in Olympics history — which won the silver medal but didn’t closely challenge the pre-eminence of Swedish men entered at Stockholm. Two women medaled as individual competitors in dressage for the first time, a Dane and a German. Elaine Watt’s points earned her 30th riding Connecticut Yankee. (That chestnut stallion was facilitated for her by Victor Hugo-Vidal, American horse and riding trainer, whom she married the autumn after her Olympics participation but later divorced.)
Indeed it proved difficult to send qualified American dressage competitors for ’56, men or women. A misconception exists that Watt was the first American woman ever entered, but in fact Marjorie Haines rode for 17th place in the ’52 Games at Helsinki – the first time females were admitted to equestrian competition – along with German-born Hungarian immigrant Hartmann Pauly and ex-US Cavalry instructor Major Robert Borg.
Borg was the only world-class dressage rider present at Tryon. Many historians believe he should have won the gold medal at the 1948 Olympics, had it not been for one clearly-prejudiced judge. During the North Carolina trials, he presented alone three exhibition events, plus he coached those hopefuls experienced in cross-country and show-jumping who would be compelled at Stockholm to perform dressage in Olympic Eventing as well. Dressage tests were conducted at Tryon’s “colored diamond” ordinarily reserved for Black baseball.
Robert Borg repairs equipment in stable at Tryon, March 1956
photo by Bob Collins, sports writer for Asheville Citizen-Times.
Major Borg was married to an Asheville native, so a sports columnist from that city’s newspaper came to Tryon to create a special feature about dressage, an unfamiliar term for most readers. “A stocky, personable man, Borg is acclaimed one of the best dressage riders and trainers in the world . . . he took a few minutes at the US Equestrian Training Center to answer questions and explain Grand Dressage, a French word meaning training . . . there are many prescribed movements such as pirouette, passage and piaffer [in French, to stamp or paw the ground], counter changes of hands, changes of leg at a gallop to include change of the leg at every stride . . . to execute these movements at prescribed place in rapid succession is quite difficult.”
Soon after, at Stockholm, Borg at age 45 performed expertly, 17th in the field on Bill Biddle, his horse at Helsinki in ‘52. Judging controversies affected the 1956 dressage competition as Swedish and German judges truculently ranked their own riders 1-2-3. Those judges, both generals, were suspended and the International Olympic Committee threatened to take dressage out of future Olympics. After long negotiations it was agreed there would be no team competition in Rome in 1960, only two individual riders per country would be allowed, and three dressage judges had to come from non-participating countries.
Bill and Jackie Kuhn's T-barn survives from 1956.
National Register of Historic Places nomination.
General Cole’s passion was the difficult Olympics three-day competition called, simply, Eventing where entrants execute dressage the first day, next perform cross-country endurance racing, and end with jumping. Two years after the Tryon trials, the US team’s manager authored a remarkable essay about this very difficult sport, describing it as the complete test of hunter or military horse. “Actually, as the military dominated Equestrian Sports of nearly all nations up to World War II, the contest became known as The Military. Having been in the Cavalry for more years than I care to divulge, it has been my good fortune to have seen many of the world’s great hunters and their military counterparts. The only difference I have seen between tops of both is that military horses showed evidence of more painstaking and demanding training. By eliminating the horse from the military picture, our government places continuance of this best of all equestrian contests squarely in the laps of our hunting people. . . The Three Day Event surely brings out best qualities of man and horse.” Cole goes on to describe the ideal horse for Eventing “last, but far from least, a level head is essential. One cannot afford a blow-up.” As to the rider – he must be a worker, and not weigh much. “He must have natural talent and must augment his gift by constant study and application. His heart must match that of his horse. He must have vast knowledge to get his horse fit without burning him out.”
Walter Staley, gold medalist at Mexico City in 1955. Staley failed to finish in both 1956 and '60 Olympic Eventing when his mounts sustained injuries.
During trials at Tryon, Walter Staley was selected to compete in three-day Eventing, following his first Olympics appearance in 1952 where he placed 18th in individual competition and won bronze medal in the three-man US team’s Event. This was especially remarkable considering he was 19 and the youngest equestrian athlete at the ’52 Games. In ’55 Staley took gold at the Pan American Games. For ’56 he rode a fine mare called Mud Dauber in her Olympics debut. They came in third in the terrific June cross-country race, which must have made General Cole mighty proud. Incidents at the 22nd obstacle of Stockholm’s endurance course marred that second competition day. The fence was a trakehner ditch, 2.5 metres wide and a metre high with rails in the center and sloping sides. It caused 28 refusals, 12 falls, and one horse fatality, put down after injury from a fall at obstacle 22. Mud Dauber gave out, unfortunately, during Staley’s jumping the final day.
Stockholm 1956 cross-country course
Jack Burton came out of a military mold. At Michigan State he was in ROTC. After graduation he went to Fort Riley, Kansas to join the US Army Cavalry School. During World War II he fought in the Pacific under General MacArthur. He returned to Fort Riley to teach advanced horsemanship. Burton became a career officer, eventually reaching the rank of Major General, and served in Vietnam; his decorations included the Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal (V Device & 54 OLC), and Purple Heart. He became very involved with civilian equestrian affairs, especially in teaching and judging dressage. For his 1956 competition in Sweden he rode Huntingfield, a rather young chestnut gelding. Jack was 36 at the time. No doubt a deep disappointment for General Cole, his horse and rider finished 47th in dressage, 35th in cross-country, and had to withdraw from jumping competition on the third day.
Jonathan Rowell Burton, manager 1976 US Equestrian team, chef d’equipe 1988 Olympics dressage team.
A student at University of Michigan at the time, Frank Hopkins Duffy took on a difficult challenge indeed at Tryon when he was sent to Stockholm, to ride a 7-year-old gelding called Drop Dead. Things didn’t go well for General Cole’s youngest pick. Duffy scored 50th in dressage, didn’t finish the endurance race, and had to withdraw Drop Dead from jumping. Still, the young man recovered somewhat, leaving top-level equestrian competition to enter Harvard Medical School. Dr. Duffy has successfully practiced pediatric neurology in Boston for more than 61 years at the time this history is written, and is accepting appointments at age 87. A patient review says “Dr. Duffy took so much time with my family to explain my granddaughter's neurological problems. I was not only impressed by his knowledge but by the person he is. He cares about his patients very deeply. In fact he is the only Neurologist in this country that I completely trust. He is not only caring, he is brilliant!”
Frank Duffy was 19 when he was picked for US team in Eventing.
Wiley aboard Trail Guide at Stockholm
Of trainer De Némethy’s three jumpers in ’56, Wiley turned in the US Team’s best appearance at Stockholm. His beloved chestnut gelding was inducted into the Show Jumping Hall of Fame in 1995; at 22 Trail Guide's life ended, shockingly, in 1960 in the show ring of the National Horse Show. (He crashed into a five-foot fence and broke two vertebrae in his neck. A curtain was pulled around him and he was euthanized in the arena, surrounded by the jumps that he loved and the people who loved him.) On this horse Wiley placed eleventh in 1956 competition, scoring 24 faults. Gold medal winner was Hans Günter Winkler, Germany’s best-ever rider in Jumping. His victory became legendary: in the first round, Winkler tore a groin muscle and had to be tied onto his mare Halla for the second round. Nevertheless, Halla made a faultless round, while Winkler screamed in pain at every obstacle.
Hugh Wiley, best American show jumper in '56
Wiley became one of De Némethy’s “band of gypsies” which had no fixed base for several years after the Tryon trials. Fellow rider George Morris (who teamed with Chapot and Steinkraus for the silver medal in 1960 Olympics at Rome), recalled their merry band spent their first three months of 1958 back in Tryon at Harmon Field for winter, followed by April at the Untermeyer estate in Connecticut, and at Aachen, Germany for May and June. “All of these bases housed excellent stabling, riding areas, and good practice fences to jump.
Not only was our staff made up of very seasoned, experienced grooms, but they were also our closest friends and allies. Horses shone. They were fed properly, clipped properly, trimmed properly, and groomed properly every day of their lives. Manes were pulled to the correct length, just long enough to be properly braided for every big class. Even tails were braided. But, then in those days everyone, including riders, could braid a horse’s mane and tail. We’d “harden up” a horse’s legs to any kind of footing from rather firm to often very deep going. I believe the horses as well as the people in those long ago days were actually hardier. Of course, the show schedule was a more leisurely pace, and we’d have two- or three-week breaks between horse shows. Now that I look back on Bert’s regimens of legging a horse up, conditioning, progressive flatwork, cavaletti, gymnastics, and then a few dress rehearsals over courses before major circuits, I see how perfectly correct this program was. We didn’t have lameness problems very often or veterinarians around the clock. We only called in a veterinarian when absolutely needed. Horses were not drilled or over-jumped. They were properly worked six days a week, hand-walked and grazed . . .” [excerpt from July 5, 2007 Chronicle of the Horse]
De Némethy
at Harmon Field below Warrior Mountain
Steinkraus in 1955 schooling Night Owl
“. . . steadying the horse in the air. A shade strong in approaching this fence my hand, while in no way rigid, affords active support instead of merely following passively.”
William Steinkraus, another of De Némethy’s band that coelesced at Tryon in ‘56, scored well that year at the Olympics, but not so well as in ’52 when he earned bronze. He was captain of the US team when he arrived at Tryon in March of ’56, the oldest of the trio picked for show-jumping at Stockholm. The North Carolina locale and its people weren’t unfamiliar; in fact Bill early in his life was a star student of Gordon Wright who settled near Tryon in the early Fifties to operate Wright Way Farm.
In 1958 Steinkraus authored a chapter “Analyzing Jumping Courses” for Wright’s landmark book Horsemanship published in Tryon, writing “It is an extremely stimulating experience to ride a course conceived of as an examination of horse’s and rider’s skills and capacities –in other words, a course trying to expose your combined weaknesses, just as you are trying to disguise them. In my opinion, the course at the 1956 Olympic Games in Stockholm was a brilliant example . . .” There Steinkraus tied for 15th on Night Owl. His career achievements too numerous to list, in 1968 he became the first American to win a gold medal in Olympic equestrian competition. Ever the amateur as a horseman, he worked professionally as a book editor and was an accomplished violinist. After a first year at Yale, he joined the cavalry branch of the Army and was one of its final classes to receive training on horseback. Steinkraus served in Burma during World War II as part of the 124th Cavalry Regiment, returning after the war to finish his college degree. From 1976 to ’88 he was a TV commentator. At the ’92 Olympics he served as a judge.
Frank Chapot told what happened after he was picked at Tryon to join the team going to Europe. It was the first time American horses were flown abroad for the Olympics. He led one-eyed Belair up an open ramp into a cargo propeller airplane. After a long journey, upon landing at Stockholm there were no facilities to receive their mounts, so they accompanied the horses some distance to their stabling. (At least they didn’t have to fly to Melbourne, where other Olympic events were held some months later in 1956. The Australians had held fast to their months-long quarantine requirements, thus equine events that year took place in Sweden instead.) A graduate of the Wharton School in Philadelphia the previous year, he’d recently joined the Air Force.
Chapot in 1957
At Stockholm, young Chapot scored 52.25 faults in competition, tied for 27th. For the first time women were allowed to compete in Olympic show jumping. Two did so, Pat Smythe of Great Britain and Brigitte Schockaert of Belgium, with Smythe finishing 10th and Schockaert tied for 34th. The course had 14 obstacles, although the fifth obstacle was a double one, and the 12th was a three-part obstacle, thus with 17 jumps spread over 775 meters, with the time allowance given for a speed of 400 meters per minute. Frank struggled with the difficulty of the course, and many competitors failed to finish, but he managed to hang on and to complete his rides on Belair. Thus the Americans managed to finish team competition, actually coming in fifth among nations in competition.
Chapot matured in later years to become among America’s best show jumpers, competed six times in Olympics, and in 1994 was inducted into Show Jumping’s Hall of Fame. He bred and raised horses in New Jersey with great success, including champion show jumper Gem Twist who won two Olympic silver medals and was named World's Best Horse at the 1990 World Equestrian Games — held in, of all places, Stockholm where good ol’ Belair and Frank had arrived on a slow prop plane, many years before.
Michael McCue July 2024
I wish to honor my mother Mildred Haag McCue, equestrian, who paid for my riding and jumping instruction during college. And my father Ethan McCue who worked summer on horseback in the West as a cowboy to fund his college education.
