Karen Polle might not be a household name yet – the appellation may not spontaneously spring to mind when thinking of the cream of the crop in the show jumping world – but give her time. Not everyone can claim to have jumped clear in their senior team debut, after all. In six years, she and her 14-year-old gelding With Wings have grown up together, progressing from low junior jumpers to winning five-star grand prix.
Born in Tokyo and raised in the United States, the 24-year-old holds dual citizenship and three years ago began competing for her mother’s homeland of Japan. Her breakout year came in 2015 with victory in the $250,000 Hampton Classic Grand Prix, defeating a host of jumping’s elite, including 2017 World Cup winner McLain Ward. Last July, the Yale graduate became the first Japanese rider to score an international win at Spruce Meadows. After successfully clinching week nine’s grand prix qualifier/grand prix doubleheader at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Florida, Karen headed to Europe for spring training with her coach, Rodrigo Pessoa. She returns to Calgary in June for the Spruce Meadows summer series, where she hopes to repeat and improve on her historic results of 2016 and keep that Japanese flag waving.
How did you get started with horses?
There was a really small barn near my family’s country house in New Jersey that we would pass by every weekend. One day, when I was seven, I said to my dad that I wanted to try riding and he organized a lesson for me the following weekend. I had absolutely no idea that show jumping even existed! I remember that for my first lesson, I didn’t have any boots with heels, so I wore shiny patent leather rainboots. I started taking lessons once a week, then twice a week, and it went from there to competing in equitation, junior hunters, and jumpers.