With his wife, Jennifer, and two young children, he runs Five Ring Stable out of Ocala, Florida. A fixture on the Canadian eventing scene, it was two unplanned departures from the competitive stage that forced him to re-evaluate his future in the sport and saw him return with renewed ambition in 2014.
While competing at Red Hills in the spring of 2011, Carter sustained a serious injury to his wrist that required surgery and two months out of the saddle. While he begrudgingly took a hiatus, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. “I am responsible for guiding the careers of my students, but realized that I was not giving the same attention or providing the same intel for myself,” he explains. “I had to focus on trying to get the right horses in my barn and working towards the next step.”
Then, in the fall of 2011 at the Blenheim CIC***, Carter suffered another setback when his top horse, Madison Park, injured himself running cross-country. The ligaments that hold the superficial and deep digital flexor tendons in place tore, and the tendons in turn slipped off the hock. It should have been career-ending; it was the very same injury that retired Karen O’Connor’s Biko and Lucinda Green’s Olympic partner Be Fair. After careful consultation with top veterinarians (one of whom is also his father), Carter decided against retiring the Thoroughbred gelding. “We approached it differently, because we recognized Parker couldn’t re-injure it and that it wasn’t going to cause him pain.”