Taylor Bradish and Mister Chip Win Competitive 3* Single Horse Division
January 25, 2026, Myakka City, Florida. A fast and nearly flawless trip around the cones course today secured the win for Taylor Bradish of Aiken, SC and Mister Chip in the 3* Single Horse division at the second annual TerraNova Combined Driving Event (CDE). Held January 22-25, 2025 at TerraNova Equestrian Center in Myakka City, Florida, the competition was the first FEI selection event of the year and drew top drivers aiming to compete at this year’s respective driving world championships in both Aachen and Munich, Germany.
The 3* Single Horse division was extremely competitive, with nine entries starting the competition. Leslie Berndl and Impressive took the early lead with 49.00 penalties after dressage, but was eliminated from the marathon phase due to an uncorrected course error at obstacle four.
Marianna Padgett driving M.V.A. Famtijn held the lead going into the Sunday morning cones phase, but a knockdown of one of the course markers cost two penalties and a ten second time penalty, which dropped them to fourth place overall. Suzy Stafford and Eel Tsje Fan Cal Kafka Farms were clean and fast to move up from third to second place, followed by last year’s 3* winner Andrew Marcoux, who drove his longtime partner Loretta to a final third place standing.
This morning, a fast round with one knockdown placed Taylor Bradish and Mister Chip, who she is driving for owners and clients Gayle and Tim Novak, firmly at the top of the standings. This was the first three-star competition for the pair and Bradish was pleased with his performance.
Bradish explained, “Chippie was driven by my client and owner Tim all the way to the 2* level. I’ve just recently started driving him and the goal is the World Championships for Single Horses in Munich this September. When they bought him, Gayle always thought he was a world-class horse, and I agree. I was driving Katydid Duchess at the time, but the plan was always to turn him over to me.”
Bradish and Katydid Duchess won the 2021 and 2022 USEF Advanced Single Horse Combined Driving National Championships. The pair were named to the U.S. team for the 2022 and 2024 FEI Combined Driving World Championship. Bradish sold the mare to her coach, World Champion driver Boyd Exell of the Netherlands to drive as part of his team, and last year Bradish leased a pair of horses to compete at the World Championships for Pair Horses in the Netherlands.
Of Mister Chip, she said, “I think he’s a really strong three-phase horse. He’s a cones machine! I did one small warm-up show with him, but other than that I hadn’t competed him before this. He’s an experienced horse, not with me and not with this level, but he feels good at this level. There’s a lot of tweaking and things to iron out, but so far so good.”
Bradish plans to take him to the Live Oak CDE in March and then to Tryon, NC for the Katydid CDE, which will also be the National Championships for 3* Single Horses.
“We need the three selection events and then I’d like to take him to Europe and get him more experience,” she explained.
Bradish was full of enthusiasm for the venue at TerraNova. “We competed here last year and I spent last summer in Europe going to the top shows, and I’ve been to the top events in this country, and nothing compares,” she said. “The stabling is beautiful, the footing is wonderful, they roll it for us so it doesn’t pull heavy, and they’ve made the course more challenging and technical, I think it’s the top venue in the country. It kind of spoils you for anything else.”
Weber Gives High Praise to Venue
While only one team of horses competed in the 3* Horse Team division, it was a top caliber group of horses driven by 22-time National Champion and 2018 World Equestrian Games gold medalist Chester Weber, whose Live Oak Farm in Ocala is one of the top driving destinations in the United States. Weber had visited TerraNova previously, but this was his first time competing at the venue.
“It’s fantastic, it’s certainly world-class and not only is the venue really great, the team and staff do a fantastic job keeping the place neat and clean and well looked after,” said Weber. “You can tell there’s a huge sense of pride in what everybody does.”
Of the competition he remarked, “The marathon course was super appropriate, the course designer did a good job. It’s challenging building a course for small ponies and big horses but he did a good job. It was a nice way to develop confidence in the horses. It’s southwestern Florida, so it’s pretty flat, but that’s nice for this time of year.”
Weber said that this was his first time I’ve driving this team, and he had two horses at TerraNova that he had limited experience with. “Despardo is a new German horse I used for the first time on the right wheel in dressage; I bought him to improve our cross country,” he said. “I put Memorabel in the right wheel in both marathon and cones phase; I’m developing him and I was pleased with his performance yesterday and today. The other three horses, Kadora, Julius and Nico, are all from my top group.”
Weber is aiming for the World Championships for Four In Hand Horses in Aachen, Germany this year. “We got an individual medal at the last Worlds and I’ll have a similar team, but it’s our job as competitors to bring on new talent and this is a great venue to do that,” he said. “I must give kudos to the whole team here: the organizer, Jennifer Matheson, the family that built this beautiful facility, and kudos to everybody for having the vision to build this and have driving included. We’ll be back next year. It seems that everyone is really interested in what’s best for the horses and their welfare and that’s really encouraging to see.”
Looking Ahead to 2027
Jennifer Matheson, from Windsor, SC, organized the CDE at TerraNova for the second time. “My impression was that the show ran really well,” she said. “The footing was top, the obstacles on marathon day were excellent, the cones footing was perfect. The livestream was great and the show ran really well. We’re all just sitting here doing our wrap-up and while we’re already planning how to make improvements for next year, we can all agree that it was a good one. Chester’s always had the competition everybody has always aspired to, at Live Oak, but we’re also going to build TerraNova into something that all drivers aspire to.”
She noted that turnout was a little lower this year because there were back-to-back weekends of driving competition, but she said, “I think we’ll be able to resolve our scheduling conflict for 2027, and we can look forward to a bigger turnout next year. This is the first selection event of the year and the 3* was a very competitive class. That’s a nice thing to see.”
She commented that the professionalism of everyone at TerraNova, from media to hospitality and operations, makes it easy for her to do her job, and she can focus on the competition.
“The resources we have here are really strong. It’s still relatively new, last year was our first year having driving, but this year because we had one year under our belt, it just made it that much easier.”
Matheson explained that they had two course designers working cooperatively this year: 3-star rated course designer Marc Johnson, who designed the courses last year, designed this year’s 2* marathon course, while 2-star rated designer Henning Lemke, of Germany, designed the 3* under the guidance of Johnson. Pete Yutzy, who is in the USEF Learner program and is an American Driving Society designer, was part of the team as well.
“Both officials had knowledge of the facility and we knew where we needed to make changes in the track to better accommodate spectators,” said Matheson. “They really worked as a team and they were a very strong team this year.” She noted that Marc Johnson also designed the Combined Test cones and Henning designed the cones course for the CDE.
The Combined Test, which took place Thursday and included only dressage and cones, was a standalone competition and gave competitors the chance to expose their horses to the arenas before the CDE.
All things considered, Matheson said that she was pleased with the event overall. “We had a really big three-star single horse class; there are a lot of people trying to get those coveted spots,” she said. “The weather cooperated and I was just so happy to be a part of it.”
Words by Amber Heintzberger for TerraNova Equestrian Center
Final Results
