HOOF DREAMS (wt) is a feature documentary closely following a handful of the top female Olympic riders in the sport of Eventing-the “X Games of horseback riding,” where female riders (and female steeds) compete as complete equals against men- in the run up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Women first competed in Eventing at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. This summer in Tokyo, more than half a century later, one of our three main characters, German equestrian Julia Krajewski, scored the first Individual Gold ever won by a woman in the sport.
Although the news of the postponement of the 2020 Olympics due to COVID initially struck our riders hard, Eventers are a tough bunch, and the drama and story only got deeper and better with the new timeframe and reworking of the plan.
Several of our American riders, like Californian Tamie Smith, used the extra time created by COVID to work with U.S. Olympic coach Erik Duvander to rework their training programs and make significant improvements on both personal and professional levels.
For others, like Puerto Rican rider Lauren Billys and her horse “Purdy,” it was a costly year. Lauren was our first rider to qualify for the Olympics, having beaten all the Latin American male Eventers to earn one of two individual Olympic slots for her region with her 18-year-old partner “Purdy.” But with the Olympic postponement Lauren had to figure out how to earn the additional funding needed to keep Purdy competing at the highest level for another year and how to cope with her own mounting anxiety as her horse would be 19 when he tackled the grueling course in Tokyo heat.
Filmmaker and Eventing competitor director Jessie was embedded with these riders for over two years. HOOF DREAMS is an insider’s experience of the world of these smart, tough, funny and complicated women and their amazing horse partners as they compete, train long, dusty hours, tackle crippling self-doubt and overcome massive losses in one of the most challenging but unknown of Olympic sports.
