'We fell in love.' After 40 years, they're still attending the Kentucky Three-Day Event

There are two great times to be in the Bluegrass State, according to Lexingtonian Pat Hume: One is Kentucky Derby Day, the first Saturday in May. And the other is a week before, when the Kentucky Three-Day Event comes to the Kentucky Horse Park.

To give you some sense of which she holds in higher regard, she's been to the Derby twice. And the Kentucky Three-Day Event?

"Been to all of them."

She's tried to figure out what draws her back over the last 40 years.

"I think it’s because you have to sit there and admire … it’s thrilling to see the trust and the confidence that the rider and the horse have in each other. It’s an inspiration," Hume said.

There was a lot to be inspired by on Saturday, as three-time champion Michael Jung of Germany, riding Fischerrocana, retook the lead in his quest for a fourth Kentucky championship. Jung was slightly over the time on cross-country, adding 0.4 penalty points to his score.

But American rider Marilyn Little, who had taken the lead after dressage, picked up a full 8 penalty points on RF Scandalous, dropping them back to sixth place.

The riders in between them all went around the 28 jumps cleanly inside the time, setting up a tightly packed bunch for Sunday's stadium jumping, the final phase of the three-day event.

Australian Christopher Burton, on Nobilis 18, is in second with 27.9 points, followed by British rider Oliver Townend in both third and fourth places. Townend is in third on Cooley Master Class with a score of 28.7 and in fourth with MHS King Joules with a score of 31.3.

Tied with Townend in fourth is Lynn Symansky on Donner, now the highest placed American pair.

One knocked down rail in Sunday's stadium jumping, which begins at 1 p.m. in the Rolex Stadium, will be enough to drop a rider out of the top five.

It's that kind of excitement that drew in the pair of unlikely fans in 1978.

Hume was not a pony-mad girl. She didn't even like riding.

"We knew nothing. Horses, yes," Hume said. "Eventing, never heard of it."

But a friend gave her tickets to the eventing world championships at the brand-new horse park and she and her daughter, Susan, then 15, went for the cross-country.

"It was in September, and boy was it hot ... We just kind of followed the crowd," Hume said.

"But we fell in love."

They came back the next year, and the next and so on. And they were back on Saturday for the 40th version of what has now become the Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event, an Olympic-caliber annual equestrian competition that draws riders from all over the world.

At 90, Hume doesn't move from jump to jump anymore but makes her camp close to the Head of the Lake water jump, where she can see all the riders.

And she has seen them all over the years. But her favorite, from the beginning, was Bruce Davidson, the American rider who won the 1974 World Eventing Championships and consequently brought the 1978 championships to Kentucky.

"We all had a crush on Bruce Davidson. And believe it or not, he’s still our number one after 40 years," Hume said. "It’s just been great fun, something my daughter and I indulge ourselves in. ... We have not regretted one minute of it. We’ve kind of grown up with it."

Hume and Susan (now Pilon) are eager to see if Jung and Fischerrocana can get that historic fourth win in a row. But they'd also love to see an American, particularly Buck Davidson, win again.

In four decades of events, Hume has met people from all over the U.S. and Canada and not a few foreigners.

One thing puzzles her: "Where are all the people from Fayette County? ... They don't know what they're missing," Hume said.

Hume said she's wondered at times why she loves the three-day event as she does. After all, it isn't as if she had nothing else going on. A mother of three, she and her late husband, Bob, loved to go to University of Kentucky football games, even going on road trips for away games. And she had a career, working for years as an obstetrics and neonatal nurse at Central Baptist.

But eventing had her hooked and everybody knew it. When she retired in 1989, her co-workers (some of whom had gone to the event with her over the years) had a surprise.

"The girls I worked with gave me a photo album of all the doctors and nurses and guess what on the back page? A picture of Bruce Davidson signing an autograph for me. I had to laugh … the girls with me had taken the picture … and I was so enthralled with him I didn't even know it."

Hume, now legally blind, said what draws her back is the sheer courage horses and riders display.

"By gum, if they’ve got the nerve to go over those giant obstacles," Hume said, "we can do the hurdles thrown in our way."

This story was originally published April 28, 2018 at 5:39 PM with the headline "'We fell in love.' After 40 years, they're still attending the Kentucky Three-Day Event."