Hillary Dobbs followed her father's footsteps to Harvard, but she's making a name for herself as an equestrian


By Irene Sege, Globe Staff | November 3, 2007

CAMBRIDGE - Hillary Dobbs's room at Harvard is not the room of someone who spends much time here. No posters adorn the walls, and no rug warms the floor. No knickknacks or snapshots sit atop the dresser. The bed is made with a utilitarian navy blue comforter, unaccompanied by decorative pillows or favorite stuffed animal.

If the room seems more flophouse than home away from home, then it's with good reason. The 19-year-old daughter of CNN commentator Lou Dobbs is breaking into the elite level of equestrian jumping and spends a good part of her time traveling to horse shows. Next week the college sophomore heads to Buenos Aires as part of a four-person US team for her first taste of international competition. The dried purple roses lying on her desk are a souvenir of September's Fidelity Jumper Classic in Hamilton, where she won the $10,000 Mohegan Sun Speed Stake.

"Jumping is something I can't describe. It's such a rush," Dobbs says. "To go as fast as I can to go over higher and higher jumps."

Barely a year after graduating from junior competitions, Dobbs has quickly become a presence on the show jumping circuit. Last month, she accumulated more points than her competitors at the invitation-only Washington International Horse Show and was named leading jumper rider.

"She's a star for the future," says Sally Ike, managing director for show jumping at the United States Equestrian Federation. "In the equestrian sports there's a skill level that often takes years to achieve. The fact that she's done this so quickly is remarkable."

Dobbs is tall, 5-foot-8-inches, and poised, dressed in a black Ed Hardy T-shirt and borrowed jeans, with a mane of wavy brown hair and the crimson garnet ring her mother gave her when she was accepted by Harvard. She and her twin sister, Heather, grew up around horses on their parents' 300-acre farm in New Jersey. "I have a picture of my dad holding me in a saddle a few weeks out of the hospital," Dobbs says. Her fellow riders include the daughters of rock star Bruce Springsteen, actor Tom Selleck, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"I'm proud of my dad, but it's nice to be able to compete on your own and work hard and be recognized for what you've done separately," Dobbs says. "It's nice to compete independently of everything but the horse and the jumps and the clock."

While her twin passed up Harvard to try professional riding, Dobbs combines both school and sport. In Washington she woke at 3 a.m., exercised her horses at 3:50, and returned to her hotel at 7 a.m. to work on the problem set in quantitative reasoning that she e-mailed to her professor at 10 a.m. before returning to the show.

"It's hard going back and forth. When I'm away from the horses too long I miss it," she says. "Just being in the barn makes me happy."

Though Dobbs is quick to point out that not all riders are wealthy - "One of my best friends at the barn is a two-time national champion who never rode her own horse" - the sport attracts the well-heeled.

Dobbs has five horses, including two Grand Prix jumpers, the kind of horse whose worth, Ike says, ranges from "the hundreds of thousands of dollars certainly to over a million possibly." Though Dobbs's family purchased them for significantly less - she concedes only that each cost more than $100,000 and less than $250,000 - owning them is still the purview of the rich. North Run Farm, the Vermont stable where Dobbs trains, charges $1,800 a month to board each horse. That doesn't include training or veterinary or travel fees but, says owner Missy Clark, is much less than what stables near New York charge. The purses Dobbs is winning now - more than $15,000 in Washington - help defray some expenses.

Having money, Dobbs says, "makes it possible to sustain a long riding career. I'm very fortunate."

To reach Dobbs's level requires considerably more than the means to pursue it. "The money in the sport gets a lot of the spotlight, but that fails to recognize the hard work," she says.

Last summer, Dobbs, who expects to major in government, split her time between working as an intern for her father at CNN and competing in horse shows. This coming summer she hopes to combine another internship at CNN with competing overseas.

Is she interested in a broadcast career like her father's? Maybe.

"I've grown up watching him do it. He's passionate about it. He's been able to have an impact," she says. "I really respect him and his passion. I grew up looking up to him. Him having gone to Harvard and I'm enjoying my time here immensely. These are impressive footsteps to follow and I'd like to see if it's a path I'd enjoy taking."

What about trying for the Olympics? "It's definitely something I'm considering more and more as I move up into the Grand Prix division," she says. "Right now, it's nice to compete in so many classes. It's something in the back of my mind as I get older."

Meanwhile, the walls of Dobbs's dorm room won't be bare for long. At a show last summer she won a portrait of her horse Quincy B for finishing first in an event. It should be finished soon.

Irene Sege can be reached at sege@globe.com.


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