Peter Wylde (second from left) and Chris Kappler (left) Beezie Madden (IHSA Hall of Famer) and McLain Ward were the gold-medal-winning Team USA at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Photo by Diana DeRosa
Gladys, Va.- May 2, 2024 - The Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association (IHSA) is pleased to announce that Peter Wylde will be inducted into the IHSA Hall of Fame. The ceremony will take place during the National Championship at Tryon International Equestrian Center on Saturday, May 4. The IHSA Hall of Fame inducted its first members in 2020, and the second class will include coaches, founders, riders and horses. Watch your inbox and social media for announcements of additional honorees to follow.
Wylde began riding at 7 years old in his hometown of Medfield, Massachusetts where he ventured across the street to his neighbors farm and asked if he could ride their pony. He quickly knew he would be involved with horses as a life passion. Wylde showed successfully in the pony divisions, followed by Equitation, Hunters and eventually Junior Jumpers. Wylde worked his way up as a junior rider to win the New England Horseman’s Council’s Equitation Final in 1981 and the Rolex-Maclay National Equitation Championship at the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden in 1982. In his last junior year Wylde was Junior/Amateur Jumper champion at the prestigious International Jumping Derby in Portsmouth, RI and co-Champion at the Washington International Horse Show.
After a gap year, Wylde attended Tufts University in Medford, MA. While there, he joined the Tufts Equestrian Team, representing Tufts in Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association competitions. In 1985, Tufts was Reserve Champion at the IHSA Nationals and in 1986 Wylde won the IHSA’s highest honor, the Cacchione Cup.
The day after he graduated from Tufts, Wylde opened a training stable and began his career as a professional.
Wylde, with Marty and Anne Cacchione, won the Cacchione Cup in 1986. Photo courtesy of Peter Wylde
In 1999 Wylde was US Show Jumping Champion with Macanudo Deniro and the pair went on to represent the United States at the Pan American Games, where he won both Team and Individual Silver Medals.
In 2002, Wylde and Fein Cera represented the United States at the World Equestrian Games in Jerez, Spain, where they won the Individual Bronze Medal and Fein Cera earned the coveted “Best Horse in the Final” honor.
In 2004, the pair again earned a spot to represent the United States at the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece where they helped the United States earn Olympic Team Gold.
Wylde has ridden at five World Cup Finals, twice placing in the top 10.
His classic American style has earned him ‘Leading Rider’ titles from some of the world's finest horse shows, including the Washington International Horse Show, the CSI-W Geneva, Switzerland and the CSN Mannheim, Germany.
He has also won the coveted ‘Style of Riding Award’ at the CHIO Aachen Germany, the CSI in Vienna Austria, the American Gold Cup, the USHJA International Hunter Derby Finals, the Upperville Horse Show and three times Wylde won the Hermes Style of Riding Award at the Hampton Classic in Bridgehampton, New York.
Peter Wylde and Fein Cera. Photo by Tish Quirk
In addition to his show jumping career, Wylde has had victories as well in the hunter ring, winning classes and championships at all the major hunter shows in the U.S., both as a rider and a trainer. He has also trained students to top placings at the Equitation Finals, including Kelli Cruciotti, who won the USEF Medal Finals in Harrisburg, PA.
Wylde has also trained riders who rode at the World Championships for Show Jumping in 2006 (Luciana Diniz) and 2010 (Taizo Sugitani, who finished 10th) and the Olympic Games in 2012 (Taizo Sugitani). His student, Sheila Burke, won the CSIO Grand Prix of Dublin.
In 2020, Wylde decided to retire as a rider from the sport of show jumping and focus his attention on training others. This brought him to the U.S. Eventing Squad, where he currently trains some of the U.S.’s best eventers. In 2021, Wylde went to the Olympic Games in Tokyo as head showjumping coach for the U.S. Eventing team, where the team finished 6th, and in 2022, Wylde went to the World Championships with riders Boyd Martin and Ariel Grald, where the U.S. team won the Silver Medal.
Wylde now works with Boyd Martin (No.3 on the FEI World Ranking list), Liz Halliday (current U.S. National Champion), Ariel Grald, Jenny Brannigan and other U.S. eventers.
Since its inception in 2009, Wylde has been the lead clinician of the USHJA’s Emerging Athletes Program’s National Finals, a program he is passionate about supporting. Through this program, he met Skylar Wireman, whom he currently helps in her budding career as a professional show jumping star, placing in the top 10 at her first two World Cup qualifiers. Finally, Wylde spends as much time as he can helping Nora Pieters, a young junior rider and the granddaughter of Wylde’s trainers during his junior career, Fran and Joe Dotoli. Nora’s mom, Annie Dotoli, together with her husband Aster Pieters, run their training stable Tibri Horses, Inc., based in Chepachet, Rhode Island
Nora competes in the Equitation, Jumper and Hunter divisions, the latter of which she rides Wylde’s homebred hunter Graf, where in 2023, she won 11 championships and 38 blue ribbons.
Peter Wylde. Photo by Tish Quirk