Maryland Horse Industry Board Honors 3-Day Event Champions With Touch of Class Award

Licensed Stable Raylyn Farm in Frederick. Ray Little (Marilyn’s Father) is holding the award. Horse Demeter, Marilyn Little, MHIB Board Member Karen Fulton of Full Moon Farm, and Team Full Moon

ANNAPOLIS, MD – The Maryland Horse Industry Board (MHIB), a program within the Maryland Department of Agriculture, will present its April Touch of Class Award to two reigning 2013 champions in the U.S. Eventing Association (USEA) national rankings. Recipients are Marilyn Little and her mare Demeter from Frederick (Frederick County); and Tayler Stewart and her gelding Fugitive from Damascus (Montgomery County)

The award is being presented to Little on Sunday, April 27, at the 2014 Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event in Lexington, Kentucky by MHIB Board Member Karen Fulton. Rolex is one of the six major four-star, 3-Day events in the world. After this event, Little and Demeter are scheduled to head to Europe to prepare for the World Equestrian Games this fall in France. The Touch of Class award will be presented to Stewart at the Maryland Combined Training Association Horse Trials at Shawan Downs in Cockeysville May 3-4.

Little, 32, whose family operates Raylyn Farm, is the rider of Raylyn Farm’s 12 year-old mount Demeter, who was named USEA Horse of the Year and Mare of the Year. Little currently appears on the top 10 list of America’s leading internationally qualified riders in the 3-Day Event competition, a triathlon of equine events that includes dressage, cross country and show jumping.

Stewart and her horse Fugitive are up-and-coming 3-Day competitors. Stewart and Fugitive were the national leaders in the Training Division, one of the first steps up the ladder to eventually competing at Little’s 4-star level.

“Marilyn Little has continually shown she is one of the top riders of any equine discipline, not only in Maryland, but in the nation,” said MHIB Chairman Jim Steele. “It is also great that we have another rising star in Tayler Stewart, who is working her way up in the national ranks.”

MHIB, in its third year of Touch of Class award presentations, has honored 52 people and 27 horses, from 23 different equine disciplines and 14 counties, all of them Marylanders who have achieved national and international recognition. The award honors the Maryland-bred mare, Touch of Class, won two gold medals in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

For further information about the Touch of Class Award and MHIB, contact MHIB Executive Director Ross Peddicord at ross.peddicord@maryland.gov or 410-841-5798.

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