Stable Spotlight - Redgate Farm & Leslie Burr Howard

Redgate Farm is where one of my idols, Leslie Burr, operates her business out of along with partners Timmy Kees, Chris Cawley, Molly Ashe Cawley and Gabriel Coumans. Howard began training with famed hunter/jumper legend George Morris at a young age at his farm in New Jersey. As a junior rider, and just 15 years old, she won the 1972 ASPCA Maclay Finals at Madison Square Garden. In 1983, riding her eventual Olympic mount, Albany, Howard was the American Grandprix Association Rider of the Year, and Albany was Horse of the Year, a feat he repeated in 1984. 1984 was a golden year indeed for the pair then went on to help the USET capture the team Gold medal in Los Angeles. In 1986, she won the FEI World Cup Final in Gothenburg, Sweden, on McLain and was voted the American Horse Shows Association's Equestrian of the Year. She had another great horse loaned to her in 1992, when she took over the reins of the famed Gem Twist for injured rider Greg Best. The two won Horse of the Year. In 1994, Leslie again represented the U.S. at the World Equestrian Games in The Netherlands. She rode Gem Twist and Charisma to a 1st place tie in the USET Show Jumping Championships at the Bayer/USET Festival of Champions in Gladstone, NJ.

In 1996, Leslie again represented the United States at the Olympic Games, riding Jane Clarks Extreme. The U.S. took the team Silver Medal in Atlanta. By 1997 Leslie had been honored by USET with the Whitney Stone Cup, and won the world’s richest Grand Prix event, the du Maurier Ltd. International at Spruce Meadows in Calgary riding S’Blieft. She represented the USET and won the first Samsung Nations Cup Series that year.

Her accomplishments have continued to place her high in the national standings, earning the Team Silver Medal at the Pan American Games in 1999, leading the USA East Coast FEI World Cup League in 2000, and winning the Queen Elizabeth II Cup in Calgary Since 2005, riding Youp, she has won the highest number of Grand Prix events on the Florida circuit, as well as the Chrysler Classic Derby in Canada.

Her list of highlights could go on for pages! Parallel to her love of competing is her love of teaching, Leslie’s influence can be seen in the rides of some of today’s top Show Jumpers, including Kent Farrington, Molly Ashe Cawley, Christine Trible McCrea, Judy Garofalo Torres, Nicole Shahinian Simpson, Lisa Jacquin, Marley Goodman, Mary Shirley, and Debbie Dolan.


Redgate Farm is a 67 rolling acre farm in Newtown Connecticut. Redgate consists of three 20 stall barns, two of which are operated by Burr Associates and the third operated by Astor Place Stables with trainer Robert McNeel.

Redgate Farm, designed by Bruce and Kimberly Travis, has a total of 32 grass and sand paddocks, an all weather outdoor sand ring, indoor ring, and two grass Grand Prix fields.

The fields are world class training facilities with numerous natural obstacles including progressively sized ditch and Liverpools, double Liverpools, open water, step bank and Southampton Bank, Devils Dike, and Hickstead Slide.

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