88 • THE PLAID HORSE
And Then It Rained Maybe one out of ten 8th grade creative writing papers starts with, “It was a dark and stormy night,” and that over-used opening perfectly describes May 26, 1992 at the Devon Horse Show and Country Fair. A steady rain had turned the Dixon Oval from a ring into a lake. As night pushed day aside and raindrops glistened under the stadium lights, from beneath the Where Champions Meet sign strode the champ of all champs – Gem Twist. Regal and confident, white as snow, with a face that only Munnings could believe, Gem was, as always, ridden by tall and handsome Greg Best, resplendent in the perfectly contrasting scarlet coat of the USET. At that moment, they held the hearts of all Americans – iconic as the best that U.S. Show Jumping had to offer. Devon was holding the first of its two Olympic Show jumping trials, part of a six class series that would be used as the sole criteria for choosing the U.S. Olympic Team for the games in Barcelona. The class was a nice mix of Olympic veterans like Michael Matz, Lisa Jacquin, Anne Kursinski, and Leslie Howard with a smattering of young guns like future star Laura Kraut. But the clear favorite, the star of the show, and the brightest light in the U.S. team barn was Gem Twist and his long time pilot Greg Best. Gem Twist was bred, raised, and trained by the legendary Frank Chapot, a veteran of six Olympic Games as a rider and two more as Chef d’Equipe of the team.
Gem was considered one of the very best jumpers on the planet and seemed at that moment to be a horse at the top of his game. Gem and Greg had been together for most of the last ten years. “We lived down the road from the Chapots and my mom (Maxine) was determined that Frank was going to be my coach,” remembers Best. By the spring of 1982, Greg was one of the best junior riders in the country. Not from a wealthy family, his early career consisted of catch riding whatever came his way and making the best of each ride. “Mom was really persistent and finally wore Frank down, and I started riding afternoons after school and weekends at Chado Farm. Gem was 2 ½ or 3 at the time and Frank and I both rode him, and later started him over small jumps,” Best recalls. At the time nothing about Gem screamed superstar and the following year while Greg was at University of Pennsylvania, trainer Arlene Orr brought two horses back from Chado Farm for her novice adult rider Michael Golden to try out. Golden chose Gem, then named Icy Twist, and a deal was made. For $12,000, Icy Twist had a new home and eventually a new name. Fast forward one year, a year of ups and downs and parting company more than a few times, and Golden decided that Gem was a bit too much horse for a career in the Adult Jumper ring. “Arlene and I knew that not only did we have something with talent, but that I better get off of him,” Golden recounts with humor. “We decided to send him back to Frank so he could get the best possible