Rodney Jenkins, an equestrian who dominated shows in the 1970s and ’80s by deftly guiding horses in competition with a rare feel for their abilities and thoughts, died on Dec. 5 at his home in Maryland. He was 80.
His daughter, Blythe DeMeola, confirmed the death but did not cite a cause or say where in Maryland he died.
“Horses are creatures of habit,” Jenkins said in an archival interview that was used in an online video tribute to him after he died. “Horses are all different, like we are. You have to find the formula by being around them. Once you ride them, you feel what they want.”
The most important attribute riders can have, he added, was “to think what their horses think before he thinks it.”
In a professional career that began in the 1960s, Jenkins won more than 70 Grand Prix events, which was a record when he retired in 1989. His victories included three at the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden and five American Gold Cup titles. He rode with 10 victorious U.S. teams in the Nations Cup, an international competition. He was also a member of the National Show Hunter and Show Jumping Halls of Fame.
“What made Rodney truly exceptional was his humility and his unwavering belief in the horses he rode,” Britt McCormick, president of the United States Hunter Jumper Association, said in a statement. “He often credited his success to their brilliance, saying, ‘The horse makes the rider — I don’t care how good you are.’”
Known as the Red Rider for his wavy red hair, Jenkins excelled at the hunter and jumping rings. In the hunter rings — inspired by the sport of fox hunting — horses are judged on their style, look and manner as they move at a deliberate pace and jump over fences.
In the other rings, jumpers are scored on their ability to clear taller fences as quickly as possible without knocking down rails; if they do, faults are added to the total score.
Jenkins believed that one discipline complemented the other.
“You have to have that flow,” he told The Chronicle of the Horse, a publication about sport horse competitions, in 2011. “If you just ride jumpers, you end up taking back so much. You never go forward as much. In the hunters, everything is a forward flow.”
Nonetheless, as jumping became increasingly popular, Jenkins rose to the top of the sport, riding horses like Czar, the Natural, Number One Spy and Idle Dice, the first horse inducted into the Show Jumping Hall of Fame.
In 1971, Steve Cady of The New York Times reported that Jenkins “continued along his path of plunder” at the National Horse Show when he and his horses — Main Spring, Idle Dice and Brendan — swept first, second and third place, the third day in the competition that he had taken first in classes within the open-jumper division.
“Jenkins’s latest exploits were enthusiastically cheered by a glittering crowd of 12,500 that included large numbers of patrons decked out for the Horse Show Ball that followed,” he continued. “The formal garb extended to hunting pinks worn by gentlemen members of various hunts.”
Enis Rodney Jenkins was born on July 3, 1944, in Middleburg, Va. His father, Enis Brown Jenkins, was a huntsman for fox-hunting groups. His mother, Aileen (Payne) Jenkins, managed the home.
Rodney knew when he was as young as 10 that he wanted to show horses.
“I had a rapport with the animals,” he told The Times in 1987. “I liked their personalities, I liked the changes they go through.”
He worked with his father on fox hunts and, after graduating from high school in 1961, began to ride in shows on the East Coast. As he grew more experienced and successful, he would ride as many as 50 horses in a show.
“He’s a horseman,” Steven Levy wrote in a profile of Jenkins in The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1977. “A rider might get over a fence, but a horseman will make the horse jump, as if it’s a birthright to leap like a cheetah and land on the run. A horseman does it because the animals and he are on the same wavelength.”
In 1987, a relaxation in international eligibility rules let professionals like Jenkins compete in amateur events. As a member of the United States equestrian team at the Pan American Games in Indianapolis, he rode Czar to individual and team silver medals in jumping.
That year, he also won the American Grand Prix Association’s Rider of the Year award and was named Horseman of the Year by the American Horse Show Association.
But in 1988, he failed to qualify for the Summer Games in Seoul. He retired the next year.
“He knew it was the right time,” said Nancy Jaffer, a longtime equestrian journalist. “When I interviewed him a few years ago, he said, ‘I enjoyed showing, and when I didn’t, I quit.’”
In addition to Ms. DeMeola — his daughter from his marriage to Patricia Perry, which ended in divorce — Jenkins is survived by his wife, Unjin (Moon) Jenkins, a former equestrian from South Korea; their sons, Matthew and Ty; twin sons, Patrick and Robert, from his marriage to Ms. Perry; his brother, Larry; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. His marriage to Victoria Graves also ended in divorce.
Although he stopped showing horses, Jenkins remained connected to them by becoming a successful trainer of thoroughbreds.
In all, his horses won 941 races and had total earnings of $24.9 million. He was named Maryland Trainer of the Year in 2004.
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