The eye-catching stitches were, he explained, in honor of his late maternal grandmother, Margaret Sarmento. “She was one of the most amazing women I’ve ever met and had such an influence on my life,” he said. “My family sees blue jays as a significant sign, and they’re a reminder of her, because my grandmother started the blue jay thing. My mother had a twin who died when they were 14, and my grandmother always said whenever there was a blue jay, that that was my mom’s sister coming to visit her. When my grandmother passed away, there were blue jays everywhere I went. I’d be at a horse show walking a course, and I’d look off into the distance, and there would be a blue jay sitting on the next jump. I always thought of that as my grandmother being with me all the time.” The entire LRK3DE experience was exciting, Talley says, but the highlight was cross-country. “I went later in the day, so I got to watch a little bit in the morning,” he recalled. “That was maybe a mistake, because the first three riders out of the box fell off, which was not very encouraging! When I was going to the start box, Allie Sacksen and Sparrow’s Nio had just finished and jumped clean, and she said how great it was. He’s a small horse that I’ve always admired, so I thought, ‘He just jumped around here, and there’s no reason Unmarked Bills and I can’t do that.’ “My parents were at the start box, and Hannah always puts me in the box. We have a little ritual, and I say a prayer to my
grandmother. I always ask her to watch over me. As I left the box to go to the first fence, I had this overwhelming amount of emotion. I’d watched so many people leave that start box since I was seven or eight. So many people had done so much to help us get there, and my family and team were all there—it was just overwhelming.” There were some hairy moments on course, Talley acknowledges, but they ultimately revealed the strength of his partnership with Unmarked Bills. “He actually slid coming into the second part of the Head of the Lake and got his hind legs caught on the brush, which threw me forward,” Talley said. “I put my leg on and was like, ‘I don’t really know the option here, so the only way out is the direct route.’ I relied on him to help me out. I was out of the tack and he was a little bit flustered, but he just kind of went, ‘Oh, forget it—let’s keep on going!’ He jumped out incredibly well, and I told him, ‘I freaking love you!’ He’s just such an honest, clever cross-country horse, and he tries so hard for me. “The whole way around, we both were green, but we both continued to get more confidence with every fence that we jumped. “To complete is truly an honor, and to walk out of the stadium and get handed the completion plaque was so special,” he concluded. “I’d dreamed of having that stall plate that says ‘Land Rover Kentucky CCI5*’ on it since I was eight years old. And now we’d done it: He was a five-star horse, and I was a five-star rider.” USEQUESTRIAN.ORG 43