Linda Blackford is an enterprise reporter who has been working on advance coverage of the 2010 World Equestrian Games. 
Alicia Wincze is a general assignment sportswriter, covering everything from the Kentucky Derby to girls' soccer. She started riding at age 8 and was a four-year member of the Pace University equestrian team.
Janet Patton writes about the horse industry and has covered the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Events since the first four-star version in 1998. She missed last year and is excited to be back.
Leaving the game with class
Posted by Janet Patton on April 29, 2007
Today’s ride was the last for Scotland’s Ian Stark and for his horse, Full Circle II, as well. Stark finished in 11th place with a score of 74.1, having cleared all the jumps and incurring 1 time penalty.
Stark, 53, got hugs all around, including from third-place finisher Karen O’Connor. They made a funny sight, Stark sitting on Full Circle and O’Connor on Theodore — he was more than a foot above her.
Full Circle had won a three-star last year in Germany and Stark said he knew Full Circle had more and so Stark came out of his first retirement in 2000.
“I felt he was a four-star horse,” Stark said. He’s retiring the horse even though he’s fairly young — only 13 — because he’s been injury-plagued.
Stark is a four-time Olympic silver medalist, multiple European champion and won the Badminton Horse Trials in 1986, 1988, and 1999. He is also the only person ever to have finished first and second at Badminton in the same year — in 1988 he was first on Jaybee and second on Glenburnie.
Stark had ridden several times at Rolex, taking both Saucy Brown and Arakai around the four-star course. He said he was happy to be going out here, saying the American fans had been great.
“What a send-off I’ve had, thank you,” Stark said.
