Page 100 - The Hunt - Spring/Summer 2023

OUTRIDERS ESCORT COMPETING HORSES FROM THE PADDOCK TO THE RACECOURSE. IF A HORSE THROWS HIS JOCKEY, THEIR JOB IS TO CATCH IT BEFORE IT INJURES FANS, OTHER HORSES OR ITSELF.
Paxson also views outriders as ambassadors for the sport. Dressed in bright scarlet coats, they represent both the tradition of steeplechase racing and a passion for horses. “Between the races, we go between the rails at various spots so the little kids can pet the horses,” Paxson says. “All our horses know what to do, and they love being petted.”
The logistics of outriding are large-scale and complex. In addition to trailering in the horses and their tack, Paxson hauls
his own water. He’s a stickler about that. “Horses seem to like their home water,” he says. “Sometimes they won’t drink water that comes out of a hose.”
Paxson began riding as a lad of 10 and started competing at 12. In the 1960s and ’70s, he won scores of championships, trophies and ribbons, besting some of the finest horses and riders of Europe and South America. He won the National Grand Championship in 1968 aboard Ilion, a once-in-a-generation jumper. Two years before, he guided Ilion over a wall of more than seven feet to win the puissance at the Youngstown Charity Horse Show in Ohio. “That wall started out at four foot, nine inches and was raised in three-inch increments until it got to over seven feet,” Paxson recalls. “The horses who jump those walls successfully kind of curl over them. They have tremendous thrust from their high end.”
Ilion lived to be 31. Paxson buried him on his farm.
Paxson has been outriding at timber races and steeplechases since 1989. Today, at 75, he rides out 100 days a year, weather
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