For the first three years of his life, he was Bub the Scrub. Bred by South River Ranch, he was foaled April 8, 2003, in Ohio. Sire Covered Wagon, a son of Gone West, placed in a minor stakes but finished his career in 15 consecutive claiming starts. Dam Jasinjodie, by Repriced, lost all four starts. Bub the Scrub ran three times himself -- finishing 10th, eighth and seventh -- and earned $165.
That all changed one afternoon in July 2006 when 18-year-old Kelsey Briggs drove from Charlotte, N.C., to River Downs racetrack in Cincinnati, Ohio (now Belterra Park) to check out the gangly gelding who had caught her eye online. Briggs was looking for an off-track Thoroughbred for a client, but the dark bay with the too-big head captured her imagination on the CANTER USA website.
"I saw this big, lanky 3-year-old with a giant head," Briggs said. "The bigger horses take longer to look right so he was still a little disproportionate, but overall I liked the way he was put together. I called about him and a couple other horses, but kind of in my mind I was going to have an eye on Bub for myself when I went up there."
In the quiet of late afternoon, Briggs pulled up to the barn and immediately recognized the horse.
"He was sticking his head out and turning it sideways, which he does to this day when he wants attention," Briggs said. "He had this little scratch over his eye, and I just called him Pirate. He was never Bub the Scrub again. He was The Gentleman Pirate the minute I met him."
Rechristened and restarted as an event horse, the horse was a treasure chest of natural talent.
"Obviously we learned all this together," Briggs said. "I was a kid and he was just 3 when I got him. But it always kind of felt like on cross country there was this wisdom to him, even as a young horse. It was almost like being out there on a schoolmaster."
In 2009, they won the Ocala Three-Day Event at the preliminary level. Still utilizing the long format, the competition included the steeplechase and roads and tracks phases. The Gentleman Pirate won handily, further proving to Briggs that he could become a serious horse. She took a month off from her clients and teaching business that summer to spend a month training with Olympic champion Bruce Davidson in Unionville, Pa.
Davidson offered encouragement but also counsel. He told Briggs she could either have her students and teaching or become a serious eventing competitor -- but not both. And in his opinion, she and her horse had abundant potential.
"I didn't have owners, rich parents or big sponsors," Briggs said. "I have no education outside of the horses -- I didn't go to high school. So I have to be the local riding instructor in order to get there."
Briggs calls her methods -- and path to success -- unconventional. Raised and based in North Carolina, she leases a farm in Indian Land, S.C., on the North and South Carolina border. Her home is 15 minutes away in Waxhaw, N.C.
"It's a lovely little 20-acre place and it's the first time I've ever had an arena; it's just a dressage arena," she said. "Pirate and I got up to the three-star level just training and jumping in a field. I just think that's better, it's cross country. I spend the winters galloping the hills and foxhunting, not going down to Florida. I do it old school. I'm not changing the way I train because at the end of the day this is what I believe is right for the horses."
On Jan. 5, 2013, Briggs arrived at the barn and was met by a student informing her that "Pirate doesn't want to come in." One glance told Briggs something was desperately wrong. He couldn't move.
"He tried to walk and just staggered," she said. "It was a freak accident; a sudden traumatic event, and we don't know how. But he had broken his neck. It was all we could do to get him into the barn. We got him X-rayed and it was a very evident break with a slight displacement. It was pushing on his spinal cord but didn't sever it -- which was the hand of God right there."
"My vet, Travis Blackwelder of Statesville Equine, was nearly in tears. It was very emotional," Briggs said. "He sent the images to N.C. State, and they texted back asking if he'd been put down already. Travis said Pirate was standing in his vet clinic, and they said, 'HOW is he standing?' "
Devastated, Briggs saw her hopes disintegrating, but none of that mattered.
"He was already an upper-level horse and it was very evident he was going to make my dreams come true," she said. "But at that point I just didn't want to lose my best friend. He was the love of my life; I say that to this day. He's my soulmate."
Riding was off the table; competing again was not even a consideration. Until one day Briggs said she instinctively knew they WOULD make a comeback. Looking him in the eye, she could see he wasn't finished.
Briggs' friend, international event rider Francis Whittington, offered offer support and assistance in the recovery. With everyone else certain the horse was finished, Briggs credits Whittington with "giving me permission to believe when everyone else thought I was delusional."
The Gentleman Pirate healed completely with stall rest and eventual turnout. Briggs knew they were in the clear when she noticed -- and captured on video -- him trotting figure eights on his own in the field. On July 2, 2013, Blackwelder took X-rays which showed full recovery and no sign of displacement. He legged Briggs up on the gelding for a bareback stroll down the farm road. The following February, just over a year after the injury, they were back in action. In April 2014 they returned to The Fork, a local recognized event.
"It was the first really big event we were in, and the number of people who were out there cheering that horse on gives me chills to this day," Briggs said. "There were people holding up signs. There was a fan club that came out to greet him after cross country. I have a picture of this big group of my family and friends at the finish line. We were all crying. That was the moment I felt not only are we back, we're back better than ever."
The experience changed Briggs' perspective; the time had come to focus completely on her horse. In 2015, she relocated to the Middleburg, Va.-area for two years.
"We had been pretty proficient through the three-star level here. We were running intermediate pretty successfully. But moving up to Virginia put us in the bigger league. We ran at Bromont [Canada] which meant we had competed internationally. All those big events that I had watched from afar -- Fair Hill, Plantation Field -- suddenly I was in the thick of that."
They moved up to the advanced level and ultimately took on four-star events, Briggs' lilfelong goal. Bub the Scrub, her $600 racetrack retrain, indeed became, as Bruce Davidson predicted, a serious horse.
Briggs and The Gentleman Pirate remained familiar and popular competitors until last spring.
"I last ran him in a preliminary in May 2025," Briggs said. "We galloped through the finish line not even blowing, ears up, looking for the next one. And I just collapsed on his neck in tears because that was how I wanted it to feel."
Retired from competition, the now 23-year-old gelding has complete run of the farm. He lives outside with his friends -- Briggs' standard operating procedure -- and still gets to accompany a younger prospect in cross-country schools. Occasionally he'll get on the van and take a ride to nearby Cane Creek Park for a favorite activity -- swimming. And according to Briggs, he still feels grand.
"He's jumped around some of the biggest tracks in this country, and it was just effortless," she said. "No matter how many talented horses I might sit on, I just don't know if I will ever have that feeling again. I'm such a lucky girl to have this horse shape my career and have every dream I have ever had come true. He is the great love story of my life. I want people to always remember Pirate. I think he's so special in so many ways; I just want him to be remembered forever."
