Metro Atlanta has a champion horse on its hands. And his name is Bling Bling.
The 19-year old horse is being inducted into the Carolinas Show Hunter Hall of Fame on Friday and will be awarded the 2019 Elma Garcia Award, one of the top equine awards.
Bling Bling, a Holsteiner gelding, is owned by Sarah Ward-Rupp, who attended The Galloway School in Atlanta and now runs a farm in Conyers. She rode Bling Bling for several years in national competitions, where he excelled in 3-feet jumping events.
“He won everything. He was so cool,” said Ward-Rupp, whose family purchased the horse in 2005. “He was really well known around the area, really dependable.”
Ward-Rupp, who previously lived in Sandy Springs, owns several other horses, who all live with Bling Bling on her farm in Conyers. Bling Bling came out of retirement to be the ring bearer when Ward-Rupp married commercial pilot Jon Rupp in 2017. The wedding in Cumming was covered by The New York Times.
“When he saw me coming down the aisle, he whinnied,” she said.
Ward-Rupp manages Flyover Farms in Conyers, where the retired show horses live out their golden years.
“It's so important to take care of your horses in old age. It's been such a blessing for me to get to do that,” she said. She starting riding when she was 12 or 13 years old and was going to school at Galloway.
Her farm also has three pigs and four rescue dogs.
“My poor husband,” she said, “is like, ‘Can we not get another animal?’”
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