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Sports|Rodney Jenkins, Star of the Show-Jumping Circuit, Dies at 80
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/sports/rodney-jenkins-dead.html
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He had a feel for how horses behaved and thought, and he won more than 70 Grand Prix events before retiring to train racehorses.
Dec. 13, 2024, 5:54 p.m. ET
Rodney Jenkins, an equestrian who dominated shows in the 1970s and ’80s by deftly guiding horses in competition with a rare feel for their abilities and thoughts, died on Dec. 5 at his home in Maryland. He was 80.
His daughter, Blythe DeMeola, confirmed the death but did not cite a cause or say where in Maryland he died.
“Horses are creatures of habit,” Jenkins said in an archival interview that was used in an online video tribute to him after he died. “Horses are all different, like we are. You have to find the formula by being around them. Once you ride them, you feel what they want.”
The most important attribute riders can have, he added, was “to think what their horses think before he thinks it.”
In a professional career that began in the 1960s, Jenkins won more than 70 Grand Prix events, which was a record when he retired in 1989. His victories included three at the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden and five American Gold Cup titles. He rode with 10 victorious U.S. teams in the Nations Cup, an international competition. He was also a member of the National Show Hunter and Show Jumping Halls of Fame.
“What made Rodney truly exceptional was his humility and his unwavering belief in the horses he rode,” Britt McCormick, president of the United States Hunter Jumper Association, said in a statement. “He often credited his success to their brilliance, saying, ‘The horse makes the rider — I don’t care how good you are.’”
