Sonoma County pair seeks equestrian glory at World Games

It’s a sport best explained as gymnastics on horseback.

For Santa Rosa native Flo Rubinger, equestrian vaulting is a dream come true.

Rubinger and her vaulting partner Katie Keville, a New Jersey native who lives in Cotati, are in North Carolina competing today in the preliminary round of the World Equestrian Games - essentially the sport’s Olympic Games.

Rubinger and Keville are representing the United States in the pas de deux, or pairs, division. Another U.S. team is competing in the six-person, or squad, division.

Vaulting is an ancient sport, believed to be derived from bull jumping in Crete and Roman acrobatic horse competitions 2,000 years ago. But it is also relatively new as an international competitive sport.

More popular in Europe than the U.S., it was a competitive Olympic sport only once, during the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. It was a demonstration event during the 1984 and 1996 Olympics.

The first Federation Equestre Internationale World Cup took place in 2011.

“It’s so weird because it’s amazing, but nobody knows about it,” said Rubinger, preparing for today’s round at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, North Carolina.

Rubinger, 31, and Keville, 28, ran a gauntlet of international events beginning in March to qualify for the 2018 WEG with their horse, Revlon.

Though it’s an indoor competition, rain from Hurricane Florence has caused some rescheduling of other events - but vaulting should continue as planned today with Rubinger and Keville’s freestyle event.

“It is crazy that I’ve never been to the Carolinas or in a hurricane and (this one is) called Florence,” Rubinger joked.

Rubinger was introduced to the sport as a child, when her sister - both were gymnasts --invited her along to an equestrian training center in Petaluma.

“I was 5 when I started,” she said. “I just remember the horses, crawling around on them, being a monkey. It was so me.”

She wrestled in junior high and at Montgomery High School, but horses stole her competitive heart.

“The first time I got on a horse, I had a good connection and it felt right,” she said. “It is a huge bond that I never knew could be so strong. You talk to each other without words; it’s just all feelings.”

She began training horses and competed in pairs with Julie Keville, a relative of her pairs partner.

She started as a “flyer,” the team member who is something like the smallest cheerleader on the top of the pyramid who does aerial stunts and stands on the shoulder of teammates.

Today, she and Keville work as a team, competing to music in a routine similar to a freestyle ice skating sequence.

Pairs must complete seven compulsory exercises: mount, basic seat, flag, mill, scissors, stand and flank, while the horse canters in a 15-meter circle. They also choose other moves they create. Each exercise is scored on a scale from zero to 10. Horses also receive scores on the quality of their movement and behavior.

The riders, also similar to ice skating, are judged on their routine’s composition and artistic expression. Horses wear a surcingle, a padded saddle fitted with handles on each shoulder that riders grab onto or hook their feet in when standing. A lunger - theirs is Mary McCormick - leads the horse by a line and uses a whip to help guide the horse through the routine.

Since Keville and Rubinger are about the same size, they have to get creative when doing aerial moves.

“We have a double jump,” Rubinger said. “Most pairs use the handles a lot. They stand in them. We don’t like to be locked in.”

Their double jump consists of both riders standing on the horse’s rear, facing each other and holding forearms. Rubinger, on the edge of the saddle facing backward, jumps in the air and lands, and then Keville does the same, all while Revlon never breaks stride.

“It’s so much fun,” Rubinger said. “When you use the (horse’s) rhythm, you barely have to do any work; he will throw us up there.”

Both riders and their horse must be in synchrony during the routine, lest a rider fall or land awkwardly during a handstand, spring or cartwheel.

Keville married Rubinger’s best friend, Sean, so the pair are connected even more so now.

“We have really bonded in every way,” Rubinger said. “My strengths are different from her strengths. When we put it together, we accent each other.

“It’s all about unity and love for our horse ... Our priority was to be in harmony with him. He’s a very sensitive boy and he would let us know if he didn’t like something.”

She said Revlon, who has “made friends” with other horses at the event, knows when his riders have had a bad jumping day.

“He gets to know our freestyle like we do,” she said. “You can tell he likes the way we vault more than other days. He’s like, ‘What the heck, ladies?’ But when we do it right, soft and smooth, he picks himself up all fancy, like, ‘I got this.’”

Falling is all part of practicing, Rubinger said, and that happens every day.

“I fell under him in practice once. I saw a video of it, his leg was coming straight for my head. But his whole body went out of the way not to hit me. It’s love,” she said.

“There’s nothing else that makes you feel this rush, this accomplishment,” she said. “You grow as a person getting to know how to bond with a horse, bond with your teammate. You have to have an understanding and awareness that not everyone has. Everyone should get on a horse once in their lifetime.”

You can reach Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 707-521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.