 Snowbound was a mediocre,
unsound racehorse, kicking around Northern California in the early
1960s who went on to make history by carrying Bill Steinkraus to
the first individual Olympic Gold Medal ever won by a U.S. rider,
capturing Mexico City's show jumping Gold in 1968. Discovered by
John (later Sir John) Galvin as a green hunter being shown by Show
Jumping Hall of Famer Barbara Worth Oakford, who had bought him off
the racetrack, Snowbound was presented as a gift to his daughter,
Olympic dressage rider Patricia, and loaned to the USET for Steinkraus
to ride.
A brown gelding just over 16 hands in height and foaled in 1958,
Snowbound was by Hail Victory out of Gay Alvena and had jumping
blood on both sides of his pedigree. He was precocious from the
start and equally at home indoors and out, though he was never
much at home in heavy footing. In 1965, he jumped double clears
to clinch the Nations' Cups of London and Dublin, won the Grand
Prix of New York, and capped the year by helping the U.S. win two
more Nations' Cups. The following year, he won the Grand Prix at
Harrisburg and the Democrat Trophy in New York, and he contributed
to another Nations' Cup victory.
This was Snowbound's pattern: try to jump double clear rounds
in Nations' Cups--over one stretch he jumped 15 Nations' Cup clear
rounds in 16 attempts--and try to win Grand Prix. Always threatened
by recurrence of the tendon trouble that had driven him from the
track, Snowbound was too valuable to the Team to risk in ordinary
classes and was shown lightly. In 1968, he jumped double clears
in all of the European Nations' Cups in which he competed. He also
won London's coveted Daily Mail Cup prior to the Olympic Games.
At the Olympics, he jumped one of only two clear rounds in the
first round of the individual competition, and though he finished
on three legs, incurred only a single fault over the huge fences
of the second round to win the Gold.
In 1970, Snowbound won four individual competitions in Europe--two
in Lucerne and two in Aachen--but ended up sidelined again for
most of 1971. The following year, his preparations to defend his
Olympic title went well, but though he scored several victories
in minor international competitions, he failed to qualify for the
second round in the individual competition at the Olympics, and
Steinkraus was obliged to ride Main Spring, a 2003 Show Jumping
Hall of Fame inductee, on the Silver Medal-winning U.S. team.
After the Munich Olympics, Snowbound was retired to the Galvins’ farm
outside Dublin. He and Steinkraus had shared a remarkable career
and had become one of the best-known horse-and-rider combinations
ever to represent the United States. Though Snowbound set no endurance
records, he combined remarkable gymnastic ability with a stubborn
determination not to hit fences. He was a truly extraordinary water
jumper and will always be remembered for his consistent brilliance
when the chips were down.
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